wild.

I got in trouble this week... with my professor, of all things! Technically, we are allowed to miss two classes, but we are not really supposed to miss any. Well, I had a couple of days off last week, so I made the decision to miss a class in order to visit my sister in Arkansas. It wasn't an easy decision to make... I KNOW how important class is... but I decided that my sister is more important.

Of all things... this weeek's class focused on our mid-semester evaluations. When my turn came to be evaluated, I went into the room anxious to hear my professor's feedback about how I'm doing with my counseling skills. The feedback I received had more to do with my missing class than anything else. My professor was very kind to me and it really shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but I guess it was to me... because I found myself sitting in his office with tears rolling down my cheeks.

I've always been the "good girl..." the student with perfect attendance. If there's been a way in life to avoid getting into trouble and to ensure getting people's approval, I've usually taken it. This has left me with more of a restricted, rigid lifestyle than I would like to admit. I've been realizing something that's pretty profound too--this lifestyle robs personality. Every time I insist on squeezing into the straight jacket of having to be "good," I squish and squash the crazy life of Jesus that lives in me... because HE doesn't fit easily into any straight jackets! I'm finding that the closer that I get to Him, the more I come to hate the restriction that comes with having to be "good." He makes me want to be crazy, goofy, wild... "let go, girl," I often hear Him say.

But this is all new to me. The straight jacket is KNOWN. Wildness is not. In a strange way, the straight jacket feels safe. Wildness does not. Yet... these days, I'm finding myself being pulled from restriction and into wildness. So... I make the decision to miss class in order to visit my dear sister. I knew there might be consequences, but I hoped there wouldn't be.

So... I sat in my professor's office and cried... because as much as I may want to be a wild girl, I still find a lot of safety in being the good girl. And I didn't feel like the good girl on Monday night. But why was I good? Because I WANTED to be good, or because I NEEDED to be good? Shoot, if the goodness has more to do with wanting people's approval than anything else, the funny thing is that it's really NOT that good.

So... I drove home from class and found myself crying again... this time, great big sobs. I realized again that my eyes are being opened anew... and I am dying. The good girl and the people-pleaser is dying. It's a slow and painful death. I cry because it hurts to die... and I cry because I grieve the years that I traded in wildness for "goodness."

But the sobs were healing sobs too. Because in the middle of it all, there's the VOICE, the VOICE that just tells me that it's OK. It's OK... because He loves me... and NOTHING can change that--no amount of goodness or badness. He tells me that it's OK that I'm wild because He's wild. And I think I'm in for quite a ride because wildness cannot be tamed. I can no longer live a "tame" life. He tells me to embrace the wildness and to enjoy a great ride ahead. I hope I have the courage...

And all of this came out of getting in trouble with my professor for missing one class! I love how God takes small things and uses them to show us HUGE things. He's very faithful that way.

the next thing in love

"I've decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn't only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but I would devote not more more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth. No, not one.

"'The entire process (of self-development) can be very exciting and entertaining. But the problem is there's no end to it. The fantasy is that if one heads in the right direction and just works hard enough to learn new things and grows enough and gets actualized, one will be there. None of us is quite certain exactly where there is, but it obviously has something to do with resting.' (Gerald May)

"In retrospect, my ponderous ponderings on the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of my spiritual life, my assiduous search for shortcuts to holiness, my preoccupation with my spiritual pulse and my fasts, mortifications, and penances have wrought pseudobliss and the egregious delusion that I was securely esconced in the seventh mansion of spiritual perfection.

"What would I actually do if I had it to do all over again? Heeding the apostle John's counsel, I would simply do the next thing in love."

~Brennan Manning

left behind luggage...

I faced a small catastrophe today. After a wonderful visit with my sister in Arkansas, we arrived at her small town airport very early this morning. My flight was set to depart at 6:20am... we arrived at 5:55am... with the assurance that this was a very small airport-- meaning that I could easily get my boarding pass, check my luggage, get through security, reach my gate-- all with no problem.

Well... not quite. We arrived to find the ticket counter dark and empty. Something didn't seem right. Finally, a woman emerged from the back and told me that we were too late to check my baggage. I learned that I had two options-- either pay $150 for a new, later flight that may or may not have a seat for me... or get on my original 6:2o flight suitcase-less. And... I had to make the choice fast because the gate for the flight was closing in 4 mins! Alarmed, I quickly made the decision to bolt to my flight and leave my suitcase with my sister in Arkansas. I grabbed a pair of jeans and a skirt out of my suitcase and I ran to security. I don't even remember if I said good-bye to my sister.

I knew I was in trouble when I tried to clear security with my backpack still on my back. The lady looked at me and politely said, "I'm sorry, miss, but your backpack must go through the scanner OFF your back." Oh my word... I apologized and gave her an embarrassed smile. Then, to add to my embarrassment, I heard my name being shouted across the airport intercom-- "Paging Bethany Reamer, paging Bethany Reamer. Your gate is about to close." I rushed to the gate to find a mildly irritated woman waiting to take my boarding pass. Again, I mumbled an apology, tried to smile, and rushed on to the plane.

Once I got on the plane (I was last, by the way!) and found my seat, I tried to catch my breath and settle my thoughts. But I couldn't. I kept remembering shirts and shoes and necklaces and earrings in that suitcase that I needed. And I remembered my kind sister left standing there with my suitcase. Did I even hug her good-bye and tell her that I love her? I couldn't remember! I hated that thought most of all.

In the midst of all of my crazy thoughts, I felt a small cry coming up from my heart--"Jesus, I need You! Be near, O God." And then comes the faint whispers of that unexplainable peace.... He was there, right with me. I could finally begin to settle down.

And then I began to see the irony of the whole thing. For most of my life, I've veered pretty close to perfectionism... tending at times to be performance driven, calculated, and liking to be right. Well, I had to smile. Because... perfectionists generally aren't late for their flights. Perfectionists certainly don't try to walk through security with their backpack still on their back. Perfectionists don't run through airports while their name is blaring across the intercom. And perfectionists don't forget to say good-bye to their sister. But I did all of those things...

Ha... so much for perfectionism! Sitting in that airplane early this morning, I breathed a big sigh of relief when I remembered Jesus and His grace. With grace, there's room to make mistakes. With grace, I can smile and humbly thank the airline employee who still let me on the flight when she didn't have to. I can laugh at myself as I sheepishly remove the backpack from my back in the security line. I can call my sister from the next airport and tell her how much I love her. With grace, I can rest easy. I do not understand it, but I am loved. Sometimes, I wonder if it's in my most knuckle-headed moments that I can most clearly see the smile of God. I think so.

I continue to learn (the hard way, sometimes!) that the pressure's off. I continue to be blindsided at times by the beauty of God's grace, and I continue to be baffled by the fact that it's now mine, even though I so do not deserve it.

Jesus, please continue to blindside your people with Your grace... even if it comes in the form of almost-missed flights, left behind luggage, and other small catastrophes. Continue to teach us how to laugh at our own goofiness and to see Your smile through it all.

i love my sis.

I went to Arkansas this week to visit my dear sister Shannon...

It was GREAT.

a hike in the Ozarks... we think?? (we weren't exactly sure we found the Ozarks) ;)

queens for the day... in the queen chair that we found in the woods

YAY for the Japanese steak house!

MANY Phillies games.

MANY trips to Starbucks =)

a LONG drive and a fun trip to Oklahoma City

we love Toby Keith... but not his food!

the silence of God

These words have been running through my head all day. They speak when I can't...

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith

It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane

When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod

And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God.

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart

When he has to remember what broke him apart

This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not

When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob

Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got

When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross

Then what about the times when even followers get lost?

'Cause we all get lost sometimes...

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll

In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold

And He's kneeling in the garden as silent as a Stone

All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the Man of all Sorrows, he never forgot

What sorrow is carried by the hearts that He bought

So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God,

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.

~Andrew Peterson

I don't understand sudden deaths... unanswered prayers... bleeding hearts. Where is the 'sense' in it? Sometimes there just seems to be silence. But the Man of all Sorrows, He does not forget... He knows.

And one day soon... we'll have the eyes to see and the ears to hear just a little clearer... until we're face to face.

the color gray

I'm learning a lot about colors these days... mostly, gray. I sort of feel like a kid in elementary school... when the teacher holds up a colored piece of paper and says, "Class, what color is this?" Strange... I must have been absent on the day we learned about gray.

See... I guess I've wanted to live most of the time as if life were black and white. You know... this or that, one or the other. It's not so strange, really. I like to organize and categorize things and try to make sense of them. It's usually been to my benefit in life. BUT... some of life cannot be categorized and organized. Not everything is black and white.

So... lately, I've been hearing Jesus say, "Bethany, let me teach you about gray." I think He's teaching me how to live in a world that can't always be systematized or categorized or organized. What do you do when you set up great expectations that sometimes LIFE doesn't follow? What do you do with people who you want to stick in the "black" or "white" category, but you find that people, of all things, don't stay in categories well? What do you do when you find that your little, well-constructed system really doesn't work?

Oh my word... you let go. You just let go. You open your hands... because you realize that your hands really aren't as big or as powerful as you thought they were. You open your hands and you grab the hands of Jesus... you hold on for dear life. You learn to FOLLOW. You learn to TRUST. You learn to live in the gray... because you realize that your categories really aren't as great as you thought they were anyway.

By the way, when I say "you," I mean "I". =)

I think this will be a life-long lesson for me. There will always be a part of my flesh that wants everything to fit neatly into a little system. Oh... but how thankful I am that Jesus lives in me, and if I listen, I will continue to hear Him say, "Let go, Beth. I am your system. I can take care of all of the things that are SO beyond you." So... I'm learning to listen... and as I do, I wonder if I might actually start to like the color gray...