Camp - How I love thee

It's hard to believe it's that time of year again. Time to load up my car with things I mostly don't need and head to camp. This time not to New York but to a camp called Mt. Hermon, near Santa Cruz, California. Instead of a counselor or program director, I'm going to be a camp nurse. Which seems fitting since my nursing degree cost close to $100,000, not to mention blood, sweat, and sleepless nights.

Camp has always had a special place in my heart. I can't think of anything I love doing more. I am so blessed to remember how much of my life had been spent at camp and so impacted. Winter camp in junior high, where I dedicated my life to the Lord. Living at the Christian Renewal Center where my parents fell in love over chocolate chip cookies and hand-written letters. Wildhorse Canyon - first as a camper, later as a leader. The summer I spent washing dishes at Breakaway in Gearheart, Oregon and learning stupid, but awesome, skits like, "People with shirts on their heads!" And of course, my beloved Good Tidings in the Catskills of New York. Where I truly fell in love with truth, with the Gospel.

My first year as a counselor at Good Tidings, I was seventeen, awkard, and shy. I overcompensated my shyness by being obnoxiously loud and sarcastic (yeah, unfortunately, I still tend to do that). I was the only girl on staff who had never been to Good Tidings before. It seemed that everyone else knew their way around, knew the rules, knew what their place was in this world. I didn't. That summer, Carolyne Hall, took me under her wing. She encouraged me, laughed with me, talked to me as an equal. She listened to me, prayed for me, prayed with me. She was a Spanish teacher from just outside of New York City and dedicated her summer to working at camp. At the time, I couldn't understand why a woman with a successful career would decide to spend her summer doing what she did. But it impacted my life more than I realized at the time.

I have so many hopes and prayers for the summer. My nurse heart hopes that I will remember what I need to know in emergency situations. That I will make medically sound decisions and not let my pride keep me from asking for help. And that the staff and campers will just stay healthy and injury free :).

But a huge part of my heart is for the staff, as they pour their lives out as ministers to the hundreds of campers that will come through this summer. I hope that I will be able to speak truth and life into their lives, encourage them, listen to them, pray with them. Just as Carolyne did for me once.

I pray that our purpose for being there will not get lost in the hustle and bustle that comes with a busy camp schedule. That we will remember our first love - Jesus Christ. That we will keep our eyes steadfast on Him and run this race set out before us with endurance.

Falling in love again

It’s amazing how alive I feel after pulling my head out of the toilet of despair and self-destructive thoughts. I don’t know why I let myself go to that place, like Anne of Green Gables, “the depths of despair.” But as wise Marilla Cuthbert would say, “to despair is to turn your back on God,” and I don’t want to return to a life of a back turned to God.

Would that I could count all the blessings in my life, past and present. But I could no sooner number the stars in the heavens.

I’ve lived alone for less than a year of my life. Other than that time, I’ve had amazing, God-loving roommates. Steph Rea in nursing school, who ended up introducing me to one of my best-friends, Kyla. Leah and Bryana – oh how I will always cherish our late night excursions to Lithia Park and the like. Michelle Boudreau in Benin, West Africa – crying to her about being lonely, making pudding for lunch, waking up to chase the African sunrise. Amy and Brook for one more week. Playing our guitars, making meals together, looking up words like “incubus” in the dictionary, and of course Maxi Christmas Slippers.

I am surrounded by true believers, people who love the Lord and love others. Who don’t just give lip service but live out their faith in the day to day. I am humbled that I should have the honor to have these people in my life. Family and friends and pastors who admonish my in the Lord, remind me to keep my eyes on the Lord, reach out a hand when I stumble.

Words can’t express how thankful I am for my family. For having so many beautiful nieces and nephews, to hold and cherish, rock and sing to, run and dance with. The best-friends I’ve found in my two amazing, older sisters – the listening ears they give me, the wisdom they share. My mom still tucking me in when I go home to visit and picking me a bouquet of flowers from her garden to place next to my bed. Dave changing my oil, filling my tank, or buying me apple cider donuts just because he knows I love them. My older brother, Daniel, giving me bear hugs and telling me I’m beautiful and that one day the man the Lord has for me will see that, too.

Having a job that I love. The privilege to be a part of the once-in-a-lifetime event of welcoming a new baby into the world. Holding the tiny babies in the NICU. Praying for and praying with patients who come in, hurting and scared. The honor of being the nurse to care for a mother who has just lost her baby, crying tears for the life that the Lord knit together, and trusting that He has a plan even though we are not skilled to understand.

What a mighty God we serve. Jehovah Jirah, my Provider, who provides above and beyond all that I could ask or imagine. The King of kings and the Creator who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. In Him we live and move and have our being. Let this be a challenge for you to examine your life and your heart and thank the Lord for all that He has freely given you.

Brown Boxes

Brown boxes. Packing tape. Empty, white walls. This is what my life is. A little over six months and it’s time to move on again. As I place my favorite books and photographs in boxes, I can’t help but feel it’s more than just objects I’m packing away. Recently certain dreams of my heart seem dead. But maybe they are just dormant for now. Maybe I’ll just put them in a box, tape it shut, and shove it in a storage unit. To be opened at a later date, unbeknownst to me. I’ll forget about the things in the boxes. I’ll forget what it was to live each day with them and feel that I couldn’t live without them. The dreams will fade away into the distant past of the way my life once was.

And then one day I will have a place to call home again. I will unpack the boxes. I will smell each book and cry or laugh as I remember the first time I read it. By the fireplace in my childhood home, with my legs tucked under me, listening to the rain on the windows. I will unpack the dreams and rejoice at the new ones that have replaced them. Or cry at how my heart still longs for that dream to be fulfilled. I don’t know what the new dreams will be, but I know that His mercies are new every morning. I know that there is the promise of a new dream in my heart. I know that a day will come when I will no longer have to pack these things away but I will be Home. But until that day comes...

"As murky and unclear as the mud puddles outside my door..."

The waves lap on shore
The mantra of the ocean
Speaking to my soul.

The sunlight dances
Asleep, her face is peaceful
The smell of roses.

To see you clearly
Is my heart's desire and wish
My bright eyes on you.

Home, an illusion
Perhaps, it's otherworldly
Where the heart abides.

Running and running
Chasing a fading dream world
The glass is shattered.

Lives under the bridge
Whisky, garbage, and bruises
Yet their voices smile.

Dust to dust. Our lives.
Sunrise to sunset we live -
A pond of vapors.

bella Donna

Each spring I go down to Mexico as a leader with my high school youth group. We work at a little orphanage in the hills of San Antonio, Baja California. One of the neatest aspects of the trip is that we get to build relationships with the orphanage kids who are there year after year. Last year a little two year old girl chose me to hold her each day. This year she did the same thing. I don’t know that she remembered me, but I remembered her. This year she was able to tell me her name. Donna. As I held her in my arms she would gaze up at my face, her hand on my cheek and say, “Te amo,” which is “I love you.”

It warmed my heart to hold that little girl in my arms. Yet I recognized that she has some definite attachment issues. I think of my own nieces and nephews at that age and how long it would take them to let a stranger hold them, while she had no hesitation in lifting her chubby arms to me. What truly broke my heart happened one day in the dining area of the orphanage. Donna had tripped and was crying. But she wasn’t crying for anyone. She wasn’t calling for her mama. She wasn’t calling for anyone. She was just crying. I picked her up and thought how if my niece, Bella, was hurt she would cry for her mom. But Donna doesn’t have a mom to cry for.

What does that do to a little girl or a little boy? I think of my own mom and how much she has shaped the woman I am today. What would my life look like if she hadn’t been there for me when I was three? Or if she left when I was fifteen? It completely breaks my already broken heart.

You are my first memory
You taught me to walk, to ride a bike
Each night you tucked me in tight
Rubbed my back and sang me to sleep
You laugh with me, hold me, and weep when I weep
You held my hand the first day of school (and the second and third)
And have always encouraged me ‘til my fears were assured
Thank you for reading “Tilly’s House” again and again
For teaching me to find joy even in the mundane
For making me brush my teeth
And trying to make me comb my hair
You raised us six to love and to share
You’ve always encouraged my dreams
And put up with all my wanderlust schemes
You showed me that individuality is something to be celebrated
And that each of us has a purpose for being created
Your life and love has pointed me to the Creator
I can think of no other task that could be greater
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known
Wherever you are is where I call home
Thanks for always listening
Even at one in the morning when I was wired ‘cause I slept in ‘til noon
You are my ideal
And I hope to one day be
The kind of Godly woman and mother that you’ve been to me

Perspective

I just deleted my facebook account. I've simply deactivated it before, but always have returned to it. This time I deleted everything on it, so even if I reactivate it there will be nothing there. I'm glad I did it. Today in an interview, I was asked to give an example of a time I took a stand. As trivial as this seems (and ironic as I'm writing this on a blog), this feels like taking a stand. Facebook has become an excuse for me to not truly invest in the lives of others. I know how you're doing because I read your status and looked at pictures you took on a trip last weekend. But not because I asked or because you told me. Not because I took the time to call you or write you or visit with you. Not because I put you before myself, encouraged you, wept with you, laughed with you.

I have wasted so many hours (which turn into days and weeks and months) on facebook. Ha. That's not the kind of woman I want to be. I want to be about the business of my King. I want to be a lover of people. How can I merely listen to the Word and not do what it says?

Living a Fulfilled Life with Unfulfilled Desires

Is it possible?

It’s my lot in life. The thorn in my side. My Achilles heel. My Delilah. My stumbling block that that I pray will lead to my strength (when His power is made perfect in my weakness). Would that I could escape this. Give this burden to someone else to carry. Choose a different path for my life. It’s too much for me to carry. I’m sinking under the weight of it. A good friend wrote me an e-mail a couple of months ago that describes exactly how my heart feels:

"I don't quite know how I got here and I don't quite know how to get out. I feel like a drowning person in the middle of the ocean. I will keep fighting to my dying breath but that doesn't mean I will succeed. In fact I am afraid that I am losing ground and will soon drown altogether. I need the Lord to bring a change. For I know some of the good things I could do to help myself but I have lost the strength to do them. I feel as though I have let you down. Like I am a great disappointment to you, my family, and others. I fear that somehow that spark of something great I always thought I had inside has faded out altogether. I wonder how my story will end."

I also wonder, how will my story end? I don’t know how I got here and I don’t quite know how to get out. It’s like I’m trapped and will not be set free until I see my Savior face to face.

For years I’ve cried out to the Lord regarding this “thorn.” I haven’t understood why He would bother to create me with this desire, if it was never to be fulfilled. I’ve asked Him why. I’ve blamed Him and been angry at Him. It’s always seemed to me that I would be much more effective in my walk and steadfast in my devotion to Him if I wasn’t distracted by this. So far, He still hasn’t explained to me why. And neither has He taken the desire away. I read something by Elisabeth Elliot one morning that gave me some insight I’ve never seen before.

“Ordinary fare will not fill the emptiness in our hearts. Bread will not suffice. We need extraordinary fare. We need manna. How else will we learn to eat, if we are never hungry? How will we educate our tastes for heavenly things if we are surfeited with earthy? Sex simply will not suffice anymore than bread will. My heart was saying, ‘Lord, take away this longing, or give me that for which I long.’ The Lord was answering, ‘I must teach you to long for something better.’”

Lord, teach me to long for something better.