the good part of it

Ben called me last weekend while I was visiting my brother Sam in his home state of Virginia.  I realized it was September 22nd - exactly one month since Ben had asked me to be his girlfriend.  We talked that night for long time, me in Virginia and him in Pennsylvania... it was wonderful.  He dug through his old files and found a card that I had written to him six years ago when he was first diagnosed with diabetes.  He read it to me and it brought tears to my eyes.

I remember my wise uncle saying to me back then, "leave him with a blessing and you can never know what might happen in the future."  I didn't really believe him back then but here we are - six years later and that man that I admired so long ago is my boyfriend.  Today we sat together at the Sage Diner and marveled at it again - we have no clue how we got to this place except that God has been at work in some big, mysterious ways.  Tonight, all I can do is raise my hands and my heart up in the air and thank Him.

Full circle.  That's what I call it when He takes something that once was hard and brings redemption, restoration - beauty from ashes, gladness from mourning.  When I let Ben go six years ago, I really let him go.  Six years later, he came back... and now, here I am in relationship with someone who already is so special to me. What an adventure.  Today, I stared at that man across the booth from me - the one who holds my hands and comforts me so well just by the way he looks at me.  I do not understand how God works, but I am very, very grateful.  

I began this summer with visions of adventures in a new job at a new church and as a fledgling counselor.  God, in His wisdom and sovereignty, directed me to postpone that fledgling counselor bit for a few months.  And I continue to learn how to be a boss at a new job in a new church.  And now, I also find myself in an entirely new adventure - a relationship.  I didn't see it coming, but God certainly did.  And what an adventure it is.  You know, it's really true that He is the Writer of our stories.  So I buckle down, and I hold on, and I look forward with excitement to how the story will continue to be told.  When you have such a Writer, you really can never know what's next... and that's the good part of it.

same

Six years ago, we met at a party...  a spontaneous party that my sister threw at my apartment.  In the midst of all of the hub-bub and all of the friends, we somehow found each other and we sat down and we talked.  It wasn't long before we realized that we loved the same places and the same mountains and the same animals and even some of the same books!  How fun it was to find so much "same."

Six years later, you showed up so unexpectedly.  You asked me to meet you for coffee and we did.  And again, we loved the same places and the same mountains and the same animals and the same books!  We told stories and we laughed and we talked.  Again, so much "same"... so much fun.

But this time was different... because there was a different kind of "same."  Six years later, it seems that somehow, we've come to know the same God.  Our paths have been different but our journeys so much the same.  I listen to you and I think to myself, "I get it."

So I thank you, my friend, for showing up now, as you have, and for letting me experience more of this "same."  You are like a breath of fresh, clean air, a reminder to me that stories continue to be told and pages can turn suddenly... and what you find on the next page can be even better than the page before.  I think that's my favorite part.

being a baby

I've been spending time with a baby this week.  I absolutely love it...

Meet Sammy... My first and only nephew.  I love this little guy.  Sammy and my sister Shannon will fly home to Arkansas early tomorrow morning, so I got to take care of Sammy and put him to sleep tonight so that my sister could get a good night's sleep.  I loved it.

Getting this baby to sleep took hours.  I gave him his bottle, rocked him, sang to him, told him about Jesus, and he just laid there and waved his chubby little arms around - and SMILED at me.  I would put his binky in his mouth and he would smile at me... and his binky would fall out.  Round and round we went.  So many smiles... it was beautiful.  I cooed at him and told him that I loved his smile and his pretty eyes - but would he please try to close them and go to sleep?  I put him in his chair and rocked him some more... and then he SLEPT.  And he is STILL SLEEPING.  I feel like I did a wonderful thing tonight. =)

In between all of the rocking and smiling and singing, I think Sammy and Jesus and me had a moment together.  I looked at Sammy and suddenly, I saw myself through Jesus' eyes.  And I began to wonder...

Are we like babies to God?  Does He think of me as His baby?
The care that I put in to the past few hours with Sammy - does God care for me like that?  So personally, so intimately, so joyfully?
Does He delight in me that way that I delight in Sammy?  Is my smile HUGE to Him?  Would He be happy to sit with me for hours, just to be with me?  Do I really mean THAT much to Him?  Wow...
Maybe He wants to sing to me and tell me stories... messages from Him that only I can know.  How beautiful... how magnificent.

I remember my precious little nephew Sammy and I know in my soul that I must be even more precious to Him than Sammy is to me and my family.  Oh the depth of relationship that must be available to us with this God.  I have struggled to really know Him as a Father, but I so long to go deeper with Him in that relationship.

May I learn to be a child.  Maybe Sammy will continue to teach me about that...  =) May I know the depths of what it means to be a child of this God.  What a treasure that is.

gift on a doorstep

A gift arrived on my doorstep this week... an unexpected, beautiful gift.  Given my story and the places where these shoes have walked, the gift was about as close to perfect as you could get.  I could almost see the Maker of this girl and the Giver of this gift smiling from his one big ear to the other.

So I sat with this gift... all week I sat with it.  And I talked with the Giver, "is this really for me?  really?"  And the Giver just opened His big arms - "enjoy, beth."  And I have...

Sometimes, on this side of eternity, it surprises me that a heart can feel so full, after having felt so empty.  I guess that's part of our experience here - full and empty, sometimes coming almost side by side.  But lately, it's been full, a blessed full.  And I have enjoyed it.

But it's strange - along with such fullness comes a nagging sense of NOT-fullness.  A gift so perfect, but yet, a sense that it's just NOT.  Perfection that does not exist here, in this world.

And I don't like that.  I want to know fullness... complete fullness, with NO empty.  I want wholeness, completeness, fullness of joy.  I want NOW the things that were promised to me for THEN.  How I want to hold these things now... how I wish I could see His face now.

But I can't.  And here's what He's been telling me about that this week.  This ache, this groaning, is really a promise.  It's His promise to me.  The fullness is coming.  He is coming.  One day, He will scoop me up in His big arms... I imagine that we'll dance and I'll dance well... and there will be nothing - nothing - to get in the way.  No separation.  Absolute fullness.  Fullness of joy.  Wholeness of life.  Completeness of everything as it was always meant to be.  How I long for that day... I can feel my heart jump in me at the thought of it.  I know I was meant for it.

Then.  I was meant for it - THEN.  Not now.  I have not been promised fullness now.  I was promised beauty, life, good gifts, oodles of love - but I was never promised fullness, perfection.  It is just not here - not yet.

Not yet.  What a strange relief this is to me.  No need to try to force fullness now - because it is coming.  He is coming.  He is coming for me.  And in the meantime, I groan and I wait - I wait with a blessed ache that knows with full assurance WHO I am waiting for.  I don't wait for an unknown thing - no.  I wait for Someone that I do know - as through a glass darkly, I know Him.  And I wait with Hope because when He comes, I will know Him fully, as He is, even as I am fully known.  Blessed waiting, blessed God who sustains this waiting girl with His own presence and the gifts that He leaves on this doorstep along the way.  

we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved... 

~romans 8

you have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.

~ephesians 1

summer testimony

I can tell that my life is in a shift now... a painful shift but a beautiful, essential shift.  Call it shifting from duty to desire, schedule to soul, obligation to offering - I don't know what to call it!  But I look back... and oh my word, the past three years have been hard.  Working full time, school full time, ministry, counseling, friends, family - life has been good and FULL.  I'm afraid that I was in danger of losing myself - the part of me that is most precious, the connection to Jesus - in all of the busyness, pressure, and hub-bub.

So I quit my full time job and I start a part time job, and I begin to prepare myself for the next thing - my first counselor's "job" (well, it's an internship, but you know what I mean!).  In the midst of transitioning to working part time at a church and anticipating counseling, I find myself staring straight into my own heart... and maybe because life is quieter now, I can't escape my own heart.

For anyone who has spent time getting to know themselves, you know that it's good and it's bad... kind of beautiful and painful at the same time.  Except I think the bad usually comes first, then the good... the pain, then the beauty.   But anyway, here I am looking at my own heart, and I find in there a need that I can't explain in any word other than - precious.  Here's what I'm finding - it doesn't matter how much you know, how much reflecting you've done by a counselor's standards, how good your leadership skills may be, how much grace you can give in the moments when it's needed most - those things are not life in and of themselves. And even though I've grown by leaps and bounds in those areas in the past three years, as I look at my heart today, I find myself in much the same place I've always been  --  I am a child in desperate need of the love of her Father.


Maybe in my naivete or intensive counselor training, I thought "strength" would mean increasing independence.  But it hasn't... strength has meant increased dependence.  It's that beautiful, vulnerable place of knowing that the task in front of you has been crafted especially for you and walking forward with joy and anticipation... but knowing through and through, that you cannot do it on your own.  It's staring the task full in the face, falling on your knees, raising your hands up to heaven, and then walking forward.  It's knowing that if you stand, you'll be standing on Grace, but if you fall, you'll be caught by that same Grace.

So as I look in my own heart, I see even more of the need for increased relationship with my Father.  And I'm coming to understand that this is the greatest gift ever - to become aware of my own need and to be empowered to be willing to live in it... to open my hands, open my mouth and let Him fill me in whatever way He chooses.

So I learn not to be afraid of the 'bigness' of what is ahead of me... but to see it, feel it, let it impact me, and let it take me straight to Jesus and His cross.  May I become more like Him, may my life be more like His.

he makes flowers

I woke up yesterday morning and looked out the window to see my grandpop carefully attending to his rosebushes.  A long time ago, he planted a row of rosebushes that line the entire length of the back deck--roses of all different colors and sizes.  They are beautiful.  For as long as I have known him, my grandpop has loved gardening and he is one great gardener.

I watched him yesterday from the window, working so meticulously.  With a small pair of cutters, one by one, he removed dying leaves from the rosebushes and explained to me that the roses can't bloom as brightly when their leaves are dying.  So almost everyday, he goes out and cuts off the dying leaves.  And the roses are beautiful... they really are.  He takes such good care of them.

My grandpop's roses are beautiful because he cares for them so well.  They really are a testament to who he is as their gardener.

Oh my word.  Has Jesus been speaking to me!  I watched my grandpop and I could hear his voice--

I am the true vine and my Father is the Gardener.  Every branch is me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.  Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit in itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  (John 15)


I have felt this pruning lately and I have struggled to understand it.  Areas of my life that I have put my trust in and measured my security by... some of them have been disappearing.  I sometimes feel like I am standing with empty hands.  Emptiness, loss--these are difficult to understand and live with.  I feel weary and I find myself battling that dark place where I question the heart of God toward me.

But still he prunes.  And he tells me that he does it because he's a good gardener (the best) and he knows the beauty and the fruit that I was made for and he longs to see me live in it.

When I was in Maine last month, one of the greatest treasures given to me was time with my dad.  We went on several "adventures" that we came up with together, and for me, the time was precious.  One day, we drove down a pretty desolate dirt road and pulled off by a stream for my dad to do some fishing.  There was a treasure waiting for me there-- next to the stream, grew one lone pink tulip...

It was growing in the grass next to the stream all by itself and it was the only one in sight.  I have no idea how it got there (although I tried to imagine all of the ways.)  It was strikingly beautiful and starkly different than the landscape around it.  My dad still talks about how much I loved that tulip... I guess I made quite a scene over it.

I knew Jesus gave that flower to me, but at the time, I didn't understand.  Now I think I do.  Pruning hurts.  Sometimes, I'm tempted to think I might be content to just be a piece of grass and not hurt... hide and blend in with the landscape for a little while.  But Jesus, who made me, knows me so much better than I know me.  He longs that I would lift my head and see him and know him and trust his care.  So he prunes... because he alone knows the tulip that I really can be in his hands.

So I guess I don't need to question his intentions or fight his pruning.  Because if he's the gardener, then I want to be the tulip.  I praise the one who patiently prunes even while his flowers try to fight him off and I pray that I might live my life as a testament to the goodness of the gardener.

girl meets bear.

This is something that I wrote a few days ago... I'm just getting around to posting it tonight.

I finally made it to Little Squaw Mountain yesterday.  (I wrote in an earlier post that I tried to go to Little Squaw last week but ended up on Big Squaw instead!)  I love Little Squaw... it has a beautiful trail that runs along the shores of Big and Little Moose Ponds.  The view along most of the trail is pretty magnificent.

I love the outdoors... I've actually spent the past 24 hours praying that I might someday have a chance to do the whole Appalachian Trail. =)  But yesterday, I could not help but notice that I was the only one on Little Squaw mountain... no other cars were at the trail head, no other human beings on the trail.  And I also ran into something that I found alarming-- I looked at the trail and was quite sure I saw the prints of a bear right near the prints of my own shoes.  Later, I found scat that looked like it also belonged to a bear.  I guess it's possible that the print and the scat were old and that the bear was far away from me... but I did not know for sure!  My imagination ran wild, and I was afraid. I prayed and I prayed and I recited Psalm 46 (in my head, not out loud-- so as to not startle the bear that might be lingering!!) and I pulled my determined self together and forged my way to the top.  And I made it.  And I made it the whole way down... no bears.

But my dad had told me that bears don't like water... so guess what?  I made sure that I knew where every pond and lake and stream was on that mountain.  I also periodically checked my proximity to all of those bodies of water... trying to determine how easy or difficult it might be for me to run and jump into that water if I needed to escape a bear!

I am a girl who loves nature and loves beauty and loves Jesus, but on that day, I found myself anxiously scanning the trees for bears and mentally logging the presence of all bodies of water on that mountain.  While my wilderness self forged ahead and kept telling me that I have never heard of a hiker being attacked by bears in these parts, my other self felt petrified and very aware that I was a girl alone on that mountain who had no idea where the bear might be.  I felt shaken, even after I was safely down the mountain.

So tonight, I listened as the Phillies beat the Cardinals in 10 innings (yippee!), and then I turned off the radio and I paused and I asked Jesus some questions that have been lingering in my heart since yesterday... Jesus, what do You think of bears?  Really.  And what do You think of this girl who is afraid of bears?

I think His answer is one that I already know... yet one that I can never get enough of.  I have heard Him speaking to me these words several times over the past few days.  I hope He will tell me until the day I die.  "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."  O Jesus, I come.  And I find that there is no exception clause for girls who are afraid of bears. He does not ask me to conquer the fear... He asks me to hold on to Him, to follow where He leads.  I often don't know where He's leading me, but I know for sure that I would rather face the bears with Him than without Him.

So I continue to learn to trust Him.  Shoot, what a crazy road this is!  What a good road it is.  I get to climb mountains of many shapes and sizes and I get to face my bears with a very good Guide who holds me tight and leads me one step at a time.  I continue to learn to hold on to His hand and follow His leading.

when I made it to the top of Little Squaw

(if you look really closely, you can see Kineo in the distance)

the shore of Little Moose Pond, where the trail led me (and where I was ready to jump in the water if the bear came!)