A Prayer

My love,

You know.

You see the hopeless thoughts

of the heart—the thoughts

gathered out of an entire

being of longing—

the imagination can almost see

Your nose and eyes

and taste the ribs, so savory,

on Your table

and feel the tangible warmth

of Your love,

filling all that ache and emptiness.

You see my heart giving up.

I think to myself—

It wouldn't be a bad thing

to die.

It would be the best thing—

to finally be full.

You know.

Your rain clouds and lightning

roar above me—

and, a whisper,

“I made this good.”

You reminded me—

“I left that glory

for you.”

And you know about the dream

I had last night—first a dream where

I didn't have my passport

and I don't know if I could board the plane to Korea.

But then—another dream, with a tank

stationed

to kill and destroy,

the little girl I covered with my arms

as we hid behind a pillar

and explosion fire fumed and ate around us.

I had the rocket launcher with a bomb

that could destroy the tank.

The weak spot of the tank—its neck on top,

like a flipped turtle—I just needed

to crouch behind the door close to it.

But I was afraid of the tall men standing guard,

giants,

and I waited—seemingly too long.

A plane with a bomb rose and hovered over us—

another whisper, “Greater love has no one

than this,

that he lay down his life

for his friends.”

And I felt released from my fear—

I drew close and launched the bomb,

the tank began to break apart—

I woke up.

You know the morning tainted,

because all my heart wants to do is, unedited,

connect with Yours.

Words out in the air sound flat or formal.

It is easier to express these things to You

on the inside,

where they live,

or writing them down, where they can still

physically hold a depth.

I wake up late and still walk to the campo

across the road in the other neighborhood

to run,

with the sun already hot

at 6:30 in the morning,

the sun laying like bright glass on palm trees and tin roofs.

Men passing look as always,

and I am learning over to talk to You and ignore the glances.

I pass a young man, twice,

on his way to and from the mercadito—

tall in a blue shirt, beautiful face,

and openly hungry eyes at me.

And I say to You—

He is beautiful. But I want You—

how could a man ever be what I want

more than You?

—Thank You for

that thought.

I think to myself—

Young man, I pray

that your eyes are drawn to the beauty

of Yahweh.

I know that your eyes have been taught

to drink up

the sexually crazed music videos

and bodies of women

like a thirsty bottle of popping Coca Cola—

you'll never be slated.

Meet him, Jesus.

I walk home and stretch on the porch

and You remind me—

“I did not take

the easy way.

In the hunger of the desert,

a devil came to me—

in the aching of My heart for all

to be set right,

he showed me a way

to speed it up—to sit

on the throne

of Justice

that I already

have and set

to right

every wrong

under the sun.

But,

I trusted My Abba—and I was obedient

until the death—because God alone has My heart's worship

and He is wise and He is good.”

And You laid down Your life even while You lived it

—all the way to the death.

And I know that Paul

too had the aching:

“To live is Christ, but to die is gain.”

He knew it was better for

all those God called him to minister

to if he stayed—

Don't you want to be a part

of this adventure of rescue?

You asked me.

Yesterday, I said no—

even admitting my selfishness in it.

I'd rather peace out, I said.

I'm telling You again,

there are dead things in my heart.

There is something in me

that has laid on its grave,

head down, eyes closed,

that I thought still needed to be alive—

You know if it should or not.

I beg You to bring back the life in me—

I will see Your goodness again

in the land of the living.

Be strong, take heart,

and wait for the Lord.

Slowly Healing

I just realized last week that my blog is supposed to help me to stay in touch with all of the people that I want to write to and don't have the time, not supposed to be one more thing to do. It should be simplifying my life, not making it more complicated! So I want to try to use this more like a blog and better keep updated the important ones in my life. At the same time, I hate feeling like I'm writing a public journal entry that just talks about the chronological events of my life, so I'm going to try and stay away from that. 

As most of you know, I am in my last summer as a college student and about to begin my senior year at Covenant! It is so amazing to me all that God has done in my heart the last three years. Really, I am so excited about whatever He has for me after I graduate. I am not nervous or afraid, but very expectant.

This summer has surprised me in a lot of ways... I didn't know what it would be about or what I would learn or what I would do for a lot of it. I had so many ideas and plans for it, and mostly all of them fell through. So my only plans that I made were: 1) Go to Ohio and work for my dad for the first bit. 2) Go to Florida to visit a dear friend I hadn't seen in years. 3) Go to Honduras for five weeks to be with my sister Sharon, my brother-in-law Marvin, and my six-month-old chubby and happy niece Michayla. Other than some weddings, those are the only plans I made. Now that I look at it, maybe it is a lot of plans! I have some other ones for the rest of the summer still pending... We will see what happens. 

At this point, I am in stage 3 of summer, in my third week of being in Honduras. What has surprised me most  is the theme of this summer, which I didn't anticipate, and the theme has been: healing. Really, there are many themes. There has also been serving, trust, evangelism... But healing has run through all of these and my heart is filled with hope for the freedom that Jesus is allowing me to walk in through healing my heart. When I talk about healing, I don't just mean healing from specific physical or emotional wounds. I do mean that too, but I also mean healing from my fallen way of being. 

We rarely understand how far we've fallen from what we were made to be... Part of the way that Jesus' pierces our hearts when we read about His life is by the stark contrast between our way of being and His. Since Adam and Eve, He was the most human person who ever walked this earth. I don't like the phrase, "I'm only human!" in the way that most people mean it, because they want to say, "I'm not perfect and I make mistakes," but that isn't what being human was supposed to be. Jesus reminds us of who we were truly made to be: living completely free from worry because we are trusting and depending on our God, loving extravagantly and patiently, bold and so humble, and only ever about God's glory and never about our own reputation or success...

It is so piercing... I can't be that way when my heart is twisted like this. That is where the healing comes in: softening my heart where it is hard, enlarging it where it is small, stoking the fire where it is cold, bringing it to life where it is dead. I am finding it very painful in the best kind of way. I've done a lot of crying this summer, and I am so grateful for that. Even that is a testimony of healing, because I haven't had many tears in my  life over the years since learning too early in life how to say a tearless goodbye. This really is the first year that I've been able to cry about things in life regularly again. (I don't know how you reading this feel about tears, but I think they are wonderful! You can't truly rejoice until you've truly mourned.)  

I'm running out of time to write this particular blog post. I'd love to hear thoughts about anything I've written or tell more about specific ways God is healing me. I want to share a quote that has stuck on my mind from a book that I finished yesterday, Tortured for Christ, by Richard Wurmbrand:

"We should never stop at having won a soul for Christ. By this, we have done only half the work. Every soul won for Christ must be made to be a Soul-Winner." 

What if every Christian was a Soul-Winner? (Or in other words, a Fisher of Men?)  

Dreaming

Last night I had a dream.

I was sitting in the back of a pick-up truck and a few people were with me—I think they were family members. A man on a motorcycle drove up next to the pick-up, a lasso in his hand. He began to wave it over his head and tried to use it to catch us and pull us out of the truck. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t afraid. I had a knife in my hand, which I opened as I crawled towards the edge of the truck. I thought that if the rope lassoed anything, I might use the knife to cut it.

I looked at the man and he looked at my knife. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a desire to tell this man a story—the story of his life.

I asked him, “Don’t you have days where you wake up just knowing that something is wrong with the world? Don’t you feel that something is so terribly wrong with the world, but you can’t even put your finger on it?”

He agreed immediately and I pressed further, “And don’t you ever think to yourself that the problem isn’t just out in the world, but also inside of you—an evil that you can’t fix?”

He nodded his head and I told him a story. I told him a story about God, who had created him and knew him and cared so much about the thing gone wrong that He’d sent His own Son out of Love. I told the story of Good News, eloquently and passionately, overcome by my desire for this man to know who he truly was and what had been done for him—for him to live as a son of the King.

This is the second dream that I’ve ever had where I shared God’s story with a non-believer. The first dream I had about a year ago—I witnessed to a group of Asian girls who were trapped in the sex trade. One by one, they left the room as I shared the God’s story until only one of them was left. But I myself was so caught up in the incredible beauty of the story that I didn’t mind. I woke up in awe, grateful for that gift.

Dreams…they seem to be a theme recently. Sometimes I wake up knowing that something is terribly wrong with the world. But some days I wake up in awe. What are the dreams that our Creator has planted in your heart?

I have struggled recently with deep disappointment—feeling like the dreams and desires that I have in my heart aren’t being satisfied. When will my desires finally match His?

            

    Soft whispers…

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart…”

                “…He satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.”

                             

                                “…no good thing does He withhold from those who love Him…”

And I’m reminded that my heart is in the midst of construction—but the One who made it also knows what He put in it. Some of these dreams that I have, I don’t understand. I don’t feel equipped to live them out—I’ve only ever shared the Gospel one time in the waking world, and I blundered my way through it timidly. In the waking world, I am terrified of sharing my faith with others.

     There are stories that shape the way we think about things. There is a story that shapes me—a story of God, more human than I’ve ever been, taking a blind man by the hand (who didn’t ask for help by the way, it was his friends) and leading him out of the village. God held his hand, flesh on flesh, the skin of their palms united as the One gently and patiently brought the other. Jesus didn’t bring a fancy, white handkerchief out of his pocket (as I’ve seen an evangelist do, flourishing it through the air like a torch before he pushed people onto their backs)—he used the spit of his mouth onto the man’s eyes, and then put his hands on him—the same ones that led the man out of the village.

     Then he asked the man a simple question, inviting the man into conversation, “Do you see anything?”

     “I see people,” the man replied, “They look like trees walking around!” I don’t know how he felt—confused or disappointed? To be healed, but only half-healed—to finally have a taste of vision, the glory of light out of darkness. What do we say to God when we know he is in control of our healing, but also know that something in our vision is desperately off? It is a small miracle—to be able to see at all. Shouldn’t we be satisfied with the fact that we are seeing people, even if we are seeing them as trees and not as they truly are? God, heal our sight.

     Jesus simply touched the man’s eyes again, and his vision was completely restored. And the question I always ask in my own life is—why can’t You just heal me right now? Right away? And then, this story whispers into my heart that the God I love is a God of process—and I notice how he invites me to know him and be in a relationship with him at every step.

Every step of dreaming…  

May Term in New York City

Glittery Changes

I am writing a reflection on one of my poems for poetry class, and thought to myself, “Oh, this could be a blog post!” So here it is! ;) It is written in blank verse (which means there is no rhyme scheme, just iambic pentameter).

Drinking Iced Tea

Some honey-sun contained in mason jars

Keeps bright the golden lively dance of sun

and sings so sweet the clink of crystal ice

On glass- the hopefulness of summer days.

The cloudy shade of separation between

Close friends is in this peaceful moment far

away. Delicious sun means all the more:

We savor every sip and soak up light.

Our knees are toasting, golden hills that rise

and sit between long roads of salmon flesh

- our winter legs. Just like diadromous

road signs, they signal changes, pink to gold.

They signal changes, brave and red as fish

who struggle, die, to jump up waterfalls,

from salt to fresh, without knees, joints, or legs.

Yet here we seem from bloody journeys far,

Though we confess our hearts do bitterly 

Feel changes. Even as a melty butter-sun

Drips glitter from our knees to thighs to calves

A sizzling, roasting pain of fire takes place

Perhaps one day our hearts will glitter too.

Poetry is an exploration. A lot of times when I start to write, I have no clue where I’m going. I may have a vague idea, one phrase, or just a form that I want to use, but that’s it.

     That’s how it was when I started writing “Drinking Iced Tea.” I sat outside of Carter at a table near the pool with one of my best friends Mary Grace. The late afternoon sun simmered on our skin. I lifted up my jar of iced green tea and caught the sunlight in it. This was recapturing a memory for us—last semester, we’d visited her home in Birmingham, AL and drank iced tea in mason jars while watching her little sister’s soccer game. We’d caught the sun in the jars by holding them up to the sky. I said to her: “It’s sun-honey!”

     The idea of sun-honey stayed with me ever since that moment, growing in my imagination as I started to draw pictures of it and write a short, rhymed story about a woman who traveled to and explored the hidden valleys and mysteries of the sun, then gathered and sold sun-honey from her journeys. The story itself never went anywhere. But that particular word-pair still holds a lot of weight to me.

      The “lively dance of sun” brings instantly to my mind the writhing, flickering and temporary nature of the sun light when I hold up the jar to catch it. In my rough draft of this poem, I didn’t write lines 5 to 8 until the end, but then moved them. The word “cloudy” speaks of a separation between us and the sun, and more specifically between me and Mary Grace. She is on the nursing track at Covenant and is transferring to a different school next semester. There is a cloud—but it is “far / away.” I used enjambment here to show the distance between the cloud and “this peaceful moment.” As we savor our time and tea together, we “soak up light” with our skin, which foreshadows the next thought of the poem.

  

   The next lines, 9 to 15, surprised me. I started to write about knees as hills, and suddenly the image of “roads of salmon” came to mind. I also remembered in the same instant that salmon migrate upstream and jump up waterfalls!

   

  “Mary Grace, do you know what season salmon migrate upstream?”

     In a moment I was on her laptop, looking at pictures of salmon and finding out all kinds of fascinating things! I found the word “diadromous” which describes the physical change that occurs as a salmon travels from salt water to fresh and vice versa. I felt so struck by the change that is so deep it affects every part of a fish, even throughout its physical body. It didn’t take long to also find that there is no season of migration—salmon are migrating at every time of year, making long voyages upstream and even jumping up waterfalls in order to go to their homes and make new life through their eggs. Many salmon die on this journey.

    I am not very sentimental about animal life and fish (maybe I should care more!), so the death of fish doesn’t particularly move me. But the idea of salmon, their journeys throughout the entire year, and their physical changes all in the face of death in order to make new life resonated deeply with me. The Lord has been teaching me about what it means to be a new creation, and how death of our old selves happens before new life can come. So spiritually, I love the thought of going from “salt to fresh”, from water that cleans and heals wounds to water that refreshes and fills your thirst. Salmon jump “without knees, joints, or legs”—a feat that seems impossible, yet it happens. I see it as a work of the Holy Spirit that gives us the boost that we need to jump up waterfalls.

     At the same time, I see these journeys as relating to general kinds of change in life, including what can feel like the loss of a friendship. The legs of salmon flesh “signal changes, pink to gold”, paralleling the change that happens in our skin as we tan in the sun. This thought connects me down through the end of the poem. Though “we seem from bloody journeys [of salmon] far” as we sit in the sun and drink iced tea and enjoy the pleasure of a friend’s companionship, “our hearts do bitterly feel changes”. But these changes are part of our journey, and are as beautiful as “glitter” dripping from the sun to our legs. Before our legs can be glittery, “A sizzling, roasting pain of fire takes place”—the transition between pink and gold: the redness of a sunburn. However, once the burn has faded, a glittery golden encapsulates our skin. This glitter symbolizes the new, vibrant life after the burn, after the painful journey, after the “bitterly [felt] changes.” Our hearts make journeys similar to the one made by our skin in the sunlight, or to salmon trudging bravely upriver. “Perhaps one day our hearts will glitter too.” This ending line expresses the hope I have in the midst of stormy and painful changes that God is using these changes to bring new life into my light and transform my heart into glittering gold, touched by the sun.

     Like I said before, this poem surprised me more than once as it took shape. I didn’t expect to think about salmon, and I didn’t expect to think about the sun changing my skin or about my heart glittering. The word “glitter” also holds weight for me—another precious friend of mine, Emily, has told me that God teaches her through glitter. He teaches her to be fierce, unafraid, and unashamed the way that glitter is. It is amazing how one poem can have so much depth and layers of meaning.

     I read a book last year called “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art” by Madeleine L’Engle that has affected me deeply. I remember in one chapter, her talking about what it means to serve a work. At first, I didn’t really understand what she meant—and I have to say that I still don’t completely understand. But she talked about how the Lord lays different works or ideas on our hearts, and in that laying He calls us to be faithful to give life to the work. I had never connected the idea of faithfulness with the idea of creation, but it is part of cultivating: not just in the cultural mandate sense, but also in the parable of the talents sense. God gives us gifts, and we aren’t supposed to bury them, but instead use them. It is hard to understand and analyze what kind of effect poetry has on the world around us or why it’s important to write it. But I would say that when God lays poems on our hearts, it is a responsibility we have to Him to explore them and bring them to life. 

Details

I was reflecting today on my past year in my journal. I wrote down each month and a little summary  beside of what has happened. I was
                                    blown away.
Almost every month, something challenging happened. Almost every month, something very rich happened. For example... in March, I went to Spain on a vision trip over Spring break. We spent time visiting with the missionaries and learning about Spain. I barely slept while I was on that trip, and I remember feeling very weighted by the hopelessness I felt in the place... Less than 1/2 a percent of Spain professes Christianity. I also remember being very aware of my own sinfulness. I came back from the trip and got sick and depressed for the next two weeks, and I really missed being in Spain. I am so grateful that God allowed me to go on that trip, and become even more aware of the way that He is at work around the world. I think that trip is still being processed and I don't know how God will use it in my life. 

Lunch at Chery Flores and Alba Miller's flat (a couple of the missionaries)

The view from their window

     Another obvious example of richness/hardness--> my trip to Hong Kong this summer to teach English. Most of life's richness can be found in the details, and the details are much more obvious when you travel to a new country. (I LOVE TO TRAVEL!) You can't help but notice the difference from the details you are used to... making not only new details but also familiar ones so...delightful! I miss all of the details from there! Eating sushi and dim sum with chopsticks, Chinese and UVA-protected umbrellas, the way that Dannie's (one of my students) little grinchy laugh sounded whenever she was happy (so precious!). 

     I wasn't really expecting hardness, even though I suppose I always should by now! I asked for growth, and growth happens after a seed has split apart and died. Going to Hong Kong was a slap in the face for me, because God reminded me that my going to Hong Kong was not about going on an adventure in my story... I have always been far too interested in my own story. It's not about my story, but about His! I need to trust Him, and simply be honored and astounded that He even let's me be a part of His. Teaching was such a hard thing for me! I am not naturally good at teaching! I was as happy or happier than the kids when class time was over! And they had just received summer freedom only to have their parents send them to English camp from 9:00 AM-4:00 PM every day for 3 weeks. I would wake up in dread. I remember praying in the bathroom, telling God that He had to give me joy, patience, love that I didn't have, because I felt completely empty. And He really would...as soon as I was in the classroom and began to teach, I almost enjoyed myself (almost). Does it really matter that I hated to teach? I know that teaching isn't my gifting and that I won't pursue it as a life-long career. But how else would I have had the chance to get to know those kids? More than anything, I loved those precious little faces and the friendships that came from all the hours we had in class. Every day, I couldn't wait for lunch, because each day different groups of students wanted to go out to lunch with us, their teachers. 

Little Details again-- SOY MILK IN HK!!! They have a different one for every moment... ;)

My Team, who I spent 5 weeks with :D This is a familiar setting as we had many team meetings and planned lessons at Pacific Coffee

Details again- Japanese beef curry. 

This was one of my favorite days...

Teary goodbyes...

Their faces are beautiful, I love them!

I love the details. 

Right now, I am watching my three-year-old niece dance in her fancy little dress. She has been so excited to go to Rachel Rhodes' wedding because my brother-in-law told her he would dance with her there tonight. She can't wait to dance with her daddy...

     "I'm ready to dance!" She announced when she entered the room and began to leap and twirl about the room. 

     Death and Joy... That's what I asked God to teach me about this next year. I'm a little nervous, but excited at the same time. Deaths of seeds allow for Growth! Happy New Year to all of you, and pray that it would be a growth-filled, joyous year for you as well.

Richness

I am actually excited about blogging! Communication has definitely been a struggle this past semester. I have the feeling that blogging is going to a be a little addicting... :)

Here I am, back at Covenant after an incredible fall break that included staying at Natalie and Josh's house 2 nights as well as going to GUATEMALA for 5 days!!! I can't express the incredible richness and sweetness of that time-- It was so good and necessary for my soul. Just to soak in my family, see new beautiful sights like Antigua and the Presidential Palace, have cozy conversations in Kara's homey apartment... I loved it.

It was hard to drive back to school and have an overwhelming load of homework dumped on my head as well as class to go that same day. I told Mom on the phone that I was tired of it already and she told me to pray for a miracle. I feel a miracle in my heart as God once again gives me strength and motivation that I don't have. I am so grateful for this Sunday afternoon in front of me to rest and reflect... I am about to go for a hike with Mary Grace in the brilliant sunshine and sit and read and write for a while.

Let me explain the title of this blog! I feel like "Life in Process" is appropriate  because I am always processing something huge in my head and heart as well as externally (aren't we all?), and now I can let you all be a part of it :).

Right now I am processing what it means

to REST in God

to find LIFE in Him

to walk INTIMATELY with Him

I'm also processing what it means to come back to this country again. I find myself thinking negatively about the States -- still -- after it seems like I should have already adjusted back and consider this my country now. I feel life in learning and discovering new things, and I have so much of the world that I want to have the chance to explore! Natalie reminded me the other night that we can never know when one season of life will be over, so all the more reason to dig in and enjoy every stage. Life is too rich!

Kara and her cooking is so delightfully inspiring...

Packing into the car for our trip to Antigua!

I love my Daddy <3

Con los cuñados ;)

One of my favorites... I like to think that the windows of my soul are also stained glass.