sometimes, I throw things.

I have a thing for BBC.
You know, the one that airs all of those Dickens-esque miniseries' that manage to make tragedy and romance seem equally wonderful.
Shows like "Downton Abbey" and the miniseries "Pride and Prejudice" are filled to the brim with effortless elegance and plenty of good grammar. I admit, a few favorite friends and I have sat down to watch more than one episode of more than one series with more than one kind of carb. If we're honest, we mostly adore what we've seen.

The men in these types of things are always gentleman (at least in the public eye), and the women?
Well, they seem to float through life with straight backs, flawless skin, great hats, and of course, those accents. Sure, there's a fair amount of drama, but nothing that can't be tamed with a word uttered at a whisper.  It's all very romantic.
But, as giddy as I am to have BBC in the USA, it can be a little bit unnerving. And make me feel quite less than a lady.

Because sometimes,
I throw things.

When I'm mad, you won't find me whispering politely about it over a cup of tea. Something's probably soaring through the air.
And I don't cover my split ends with a great hat, or have any trace of a British accent, and the closest I get to a dinner party is cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries with the two little gentleman I nanny.

So, how do we measure a "lady" these days?
Because as much as I admire the seeming flawlessness of the early 20th-century version, I've met some lovely ladies who do not fit that description.  Not even close.

Thinking about this has stemmed from my own insecurities, really.  There are days when I don't like what I see and so I start wondering what everyone else is seeing.  I'm under no illusions that a person can't look straight through a smile and a coat of mascara.  I've done the seeing-through before and there's no doubt that there have been plenty who've seen through me.  So, since we're rarely fooling anybody, and never fooling God, what's to be done about it?

I met a lady once some time ago in Guatemala City, Guatemala.  A friend and I stayed in her home during a missions trip for only a little over a week,  but I remember noticing how rarely she spoke about herself.  She mentioned that she was a widow, her 34 year old husband having passed 6 months before from a heart attack.  So, one morning she woke up and found herself with a young son and an elderly mother-in- law to care for.  And then decided she'd take in two naive stranger-girls from America and treat them like family.  While we were there, it was home.
Is there a word for that?
Hospitable, selfless, kind maybe. But those kinds of things tend to not fit very neatly inside of our vocabulary.  Because God, he uses people to define what can't be found in Webster's book of words.

You won't find this woman next to the definition of "lady" in any dictionary, maybe not even in a telephone book.  But she's more a lady to me than one with a straight back and high collar.  Shoulders hunched from mourning can be the strongest there are.  And I could go on and on about this.

Is that it really?  Is the measure of a lady the amount of people at her dining room table rather than the length of it? Or the space between the doors opened to a couple of well-meaning girls from a world of wealth?

I think it's okay that we come unglued sometimes.  Because at the end of the day, if we throw a hairdryer across the room, does it take away from the Grace that's already measured our worth and counted the cost and enables us to do the above? No, thankfully it doesn't.
That goes for those of us who can sip our tea and whisper our madness too.

outdoor days.

Outdoor days can be the best kind of days, even if they begin at the crack of dawn.  Camp Harvest has taught me this over the years...and oh is there plenty more where that came from.  You don't leave a place like that with empty hands.  never.

And this year, I had the opportunity to go to camp as a "leader"...sometimes, that's just a fancy word for kids  playing dress up with name tags.  The day before we left I found myself with my head spinning from all the things I'd left until the last minute.  And there was me, having had no cup of coffee that morning, and my stuff scattered all over the floor that night instead of in my bag where it should have been the day before and really just not knowing what happened to that skinny, bruise-kneed 12 year old girl.  Who sent her into the world of grown-ups?  because they were clearly mistaken.

Yes, that's typically how it begins.  And usually if you meet me on a day like that you had better run.  But the next morning I somehow managed to get on a bus full of the best people you'll find.  And that has a way of setting things right.

So this week, at least for more than a few days, I got to live at Camp Harvest again.  It's always an adventure, never really changes, and God...well He works there too.  That makes for some glorious days filled with dirt, Styrofoam cups of good coffee, new and always familiar faces, the infinitely gross, people's quirks and ticks, and their stories.  That one, it's my favorite.  

I heard a lot of them this time around.  It's a hard thing, you know, putting words to the seasons of a short life.  But these girls, my girls, the ones in Cabin C...they did.  And I was rendered speechless more than once, able to do nothing but sit with them as their hearts beat wide open for me to see.  Me, with my messiness and one gosh-awful tendency of sticking her foot in her mouth. 

I've been thankful for grace before.  But how much of it I experienced in the hours spent with ladies brought to that decade old camp by the One who wrote them into being, just as He brought this girl a million and a half hours ago.

I've found that kids, including "leaders" like us, come to camp for various reasons.  But God has His reasons too, and He's not forgetful or apathetic or willing to overlook what we try pass by with eyes averted and heads down.  And let's be honest shall we? Love like His, the perfect kind...it's a scary thing.  It's relentless and requires surrender.  

So we squirm and try to laugh our way through weeks like this one, knowing it's all in vain, because when do we ever get away with just some clothes full of lake water and a couple of bible verses to bury in our pockets?

Conviction, Truth, His Words..they stick to you like a good friend.  Closer than a brother is what I've heard.

And no one can win what's already been won.

This is all really good news.  It's the reason why girls like me have lofty aspirations of being a part of weeks like this until I have wrinkles and a couple of cats.  Even then...

I'll be waiting for next year.

for when there's a lot of commotion.

this year's pace is rattling me.
Yes, it's August tomorrow.  Which means that tradition we like to call Camp Harvest begins bright and early.  I'll be called "leader" this week which is a funny thing because some days I still think I'm a girl-student with braces and bruised knee-caps.  And honestly, I'm feeling a lot of "less than".

"less than" comes easy when you've been a kid longer than you've been an adult, let me tell you.  Call it feeling less than ready, maybe less than equipped, and it'll always leave you racking your brain wondering where the time's gone.

Today, this last day of July with it's whirlwind of activity, had me caught in the "less than" state of mind.  And for all of my trying, I have barely stumbled through it.  It's been a picture of me in my thin skin and it is not pretty.  When my ugly shows up, it's difficult to tuck it back in.

But He who put me in this skin, not to wear it thin, but for wearing His glory...He met me in all the day's commotion.  And He reminded me that the world isn't meant for wearing or carrying.  He already took care of that.  But it is for treading through on a path only He's laid and to spread the word about what He's done, because stepping lightly through a place like this world won't get you very far and even taking the proverbial "high road" can be really risky business.  Not all roads lead Home.

I'm learning how to give myself and this spinning world with all our "less than" back to the Maker, who is and will always be "more than".  It's not an easy task. I'm incredibly earth-bound, tending to take in too much of the air here, polluted with the temporary, and often forgetting to breathe out the Eternal for those who haven't heard.  But He's set some plans in motion to one day clear the air and restore all of the mess to Himself...my mess too.  I'm grateful for that.

Father God,  set the pace for camp and the coming weeks.  Wrap the days full of You and may we feel the weight of this fullness rather than the weight of the world.

boxed dinners and fancy mugs.

I moved into my first big-girl apartment last week.  I'm living with some sweet friends of mine, both old and new.
It feels good.  It feels grown-up. and a little strange. and a little lonely.
A couple of nights ago I sat at the kitchen table indian-style thinking about how the mac and cheese on the stove must be my 300th box and how I'll quite possibly use the well worn phrase "poor college student" as an excuse to have another tomorrow.  I have a theory that mac and cheese from a box makes growing up a little easier to do.  So does drinking coffee from fancy mugs.

Lately here in this 3rd floor apartment (did I mention it has a built-in? I enjoy those), It's felt a bit like a monastic experience. The girls and I all have different schedules and so I find myself alone a little more often than I'm comfortable with. This is good too. Why you ask? uhm, I don't know...yet.  But I know that in my recent & sometimes broody loner-ness I'm learning how to sit with God.  No words or requests or asking Him why He won't come to my senses.  Just sitting. Sometimes Indian-style.
And more often than not I could do without the quiet, and so I reach for Pandora or Pinterest or both to silence the silence and think "maybe I'll do that tomorrow..."
He's patient with me.

So, I'm here, leading these "grown-up" days in a tiny apartment and I don't know if I'm all that graceful or good at it.  But I'm happy to have time to grow and to have nail polish as my solitary luxury and I'm more than willing to bet that I'll always have a little growing up to do...kids these days.

7:22pm

"In confidence of Thy goodness and great mercy, O Lord, I draw near unto Thee, as a sick person to the Healer, as one hungry and thirsty to the Fountain of Life, a creature to the Creator, a desolate soul to my own tender Comforter. Behold, in Thee is all whatsoever I can or ought to desire. Rejoice therefore this day the soul of Thy servant; for unto Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul. Amen."

 :Thomas à Kempis:

Lament.

artwork by: joseph henry sharp

I don't know when I lost it.
The knowing that You are on my side.  When the thanksgiving ceased and I began to count the fears and skipped heartbeats and worst-case scenarios.  When dread smoked out joy.  When the art and dancing became childish.
And so I sit here this morning with dark circles under my eyes because the last five nights have been the almost-sleepless kind.
And I still don't know when I lost it.

"Grace upon grace..." is what the pastor said.  I wonder if that grace can reach me.  I always thought that it was circumstances that made us wearied and bruised.  But I've come to realize that we can eat ourselves up from the inside out. Like the plague.

Does grace reach that far?  To those of us indoctrinated who deteriorate from the inside?  I don't pretend that I don't choose this.  I allow myself to be suffocated by fear and wait for the bad news to come again.
It will, because Your words say it will.

It has.  I don't understand why You have allowed the trouble I've seen.  It seems passive.

And these days the dread can be so strong that I wonder if this is all there is for me here in this dust for a body.  I want to surrender, to the good and the bad, because it's all the same for Kingdom people.  It's all Yours.

I have to believe, I'm trying to believe, that there is good to come and that the bad news won't seem so bad after I've walked ahead, after a few tomorrows, when I'm a bit closer to Home.

But God, I'm tired.

And I don't remember seasons of rest and I don't know if I can know a Sabbath rest, and maybe it's really just, well, for the ones who do.
So on a sunny April morning, I sit here pondering bad news.
with You.

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."
                                                                                      -Psalm 42:5

on Love & lasting things.

Valentine's Day was a couple of days ago. A day to remember the martyrs of the faith and celebrate a thing called love. The epitome of "bittersweet" I'd say.

And didn't You say that there was no greater love than this? That one would lay down his life for his friends? So You laid down Your life to give us one that lasts.

And sometimes I wonder how often You thought about it...when You walked the dirt roads, and slept in a boat on the sea, or on one or all of those 40 days, and if the thought of a people rescued and the love of a Father is what sustained you.
Because that kind of love? It's the only thing that sustains.
I'm still learning about it. You're opening my eyes to the ways You express it.
And why is it that you choose to express Your love to us here while we're yet foreigners and going Home can be an afterthought?

I've read Genesis and of the Fall, and even in the aftermath, when perfection turned to groaning and paradise to ruins, covered were the ones who took that bite. Garments made for them from the skin of creatures called good; the blood of the innocent shed to make a covering for the guilty.
You knew,even then, didn't You?
That the innocent blood would cover my shame.
And there's no greater love than this.

Why does it become all too & familiar, God? Keep reminding me.
Because to know more of this Love is to know more of You.