39

From last month:

Thirty-nine.
That's what I am today.
And since this is the last time I will be able to turn something that has a 3 at the beginning of it, I feel it's important enough to document the moment.

As I reflect over this last year, I am grateful.  It's been a beautiful year....with many happy moments.  I contrast it to a couple years ago when I was turning 37, my friend Sandra asked me at my birthday dinner what I was looking forward to in the coming year.  I looked at her with a blank stare.  I could think of nothing...
And so dear Sandra with her kind heart tried to help me think of something that might be good about the coming year...  Gosh I love her.

BUT this year, turning 39, I am not at all in that place....and I am grateful.  When I look at the coming year, I can think of several things I'm excited for.  I can think of paths that I'd like to take. Journeys I'd like to pursue.  Dreams I'd like to chase.  Places I'd like to see.  And I am hopeful.  Hopeful for what may be.

And honestly - with the passing of time I now tell myself that I'm either getting closer to seeing some dreams come true in this life or I'm getting closer to going home to be with Jesus....both are big huge wins.  I guess I'm just happy I'm moving forward in life and not going backward.  This is a good thing.

I was talking to my sister yesterday and reminiscing about something we did awhile back.  She realized it had been 10 years since the event and it seemed like so long ago to her...and not quite so long ago to me...
I looked at her life ...she's had 4 babies in those 10 years...and I basically said, "Well maybe it's because nothing has happened in my life in those 10 years."
And we laughed because the contrast in her life and mine these past 10 years couldn't be more diverse.  She's had these beautiful 4 babies come into our lives and change our family in such beautiful ways....
....and I'm still here.  Living in the same place and practically wearing the same clothes for pete's sake...And it seems like nothing has happened.

But I stop.
Because that is not actually true.
There are some AMAZING things that have happened these last 10 years of my life.

In the last 10 years...

I've traveled to Africa and seen the Rift Valley and been woken up by a donkey and met Beatrice and spoke to people in a church and a school and watched giraffes look both ways before crossing the highway
... and I've lived with a warthog for a couple of days on the Masa Mara Reserve.

I've had people with AIDS sing to welcome me and adorn me with a handmade necklace.  I watched a little boy orphaned because of his parents' death from the disease and I've been humbled and realized I am not as lost as I feel.

I've hiked in the rainforest of Tanzania and the desert and the moorland with 19 porters and guides.  I've gone 8 days without a shower and been surprised at how bad life smells when that happens.  I've sat on a chair in the nighttime of Africa on a mountain above the clouds and watched the sun set with my dear friend Stacy and a guy named Ed from Canada.
I've stood in the middle of the night under that same African sky and been taken aback by the beauty of the stars above me while everyone else was asleep.  I've been nauseous at 19,341 feet and I've summited Kilimanjaro.

I've rode in a rickshaw with Pastor Shinde and my friend Cindy to a slum in Mumbai and went to a school in another slum where I ate a vegetarian McDonalds "burger" with peas in the patty.  I stood before young girls who filed into a room - girls who've been rescued from brothels in India where they were raped night after night - and struggled to not break down and weep before them because of the horrors they have known...

I traveled to Equador and met Melanie - a girl I sponsored through Compassion International - humbled at how they saw me as family...and amazed by such beautiful work being done by this organization.
And coming home due to exhaustion and flight circumstances I had a near mental breakdown in the Miami airport and am pretty sure my name is on a wanted list there - I will pay extra money and take longer trips to avoid that airport the rest of my life...

I've seen the coast of Italy with the painted buildings of the picturesque town called Vernazza, and saw the Eiffel tower and rode on a train with my mom, and almost missed a train with my mom, and ate crepes in Paris and saw the Louvre and rode on a boat through this romantic city.

I body boarded on Napili Bay for hours with Lauren on Maui and drank Mai Tai's at the Luau on the beach and drove the road to Hana and saw these beautiful pools on the way there that are truly one of the most breathtaking sights I've even seen in my life.

Riding bikes in Nova Scotia on Prince Edward Island made me feel like Anne of Green Gables.  I nearly drove into a barn scaring my mom to high heavens and I "clinked" some of the best mussels (on the planet apparently) with my friend Kristie before swallowing them down whole.  I saw the most beautiful field of yellow flowers and watched a gal do an Irish Jig while I watched her wishing I could do the same.

And while I'm at it...I did take Irish Dance lessons for a bit in these last 10 years.

I visited the Monahans in Sicily with Mom, Sandra, and Matt and ate gelato and saw cathedrals, and realized I absolutely love gnocchi and pistachio.  I drank wine and ate sun-dried tomatoes while looking over a vineyard.  After missing our flight in Rome, mom and I did a whirlwind tour of that amazing city and walked it til our legs nearly fell off.

I've mixed concrete for Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans by hand in wheelbarrows in the July heat....and wondered why we didn't just pay a concrete mixer truck to come do it?

I've prayed with and tutored gals living in India over the internet who've been rescued from sex-trafficking - seeing their smiling faces and marveling at their excitement to spend time with me and thankful they are in a safe house.

I've been humbled, amazed and blown away by the stories of men and women who are recovering from addiction here in Cincinnati through City Gospel Mission.  I have been honored to be accepted and counted as friends by these brave souls who've given up nearly everything for the desire to be healed.

I hiked the Inca Trail with my friend Lindsey and ate meals in the mountains with my British teammates and marveled at how they held their silverware...and how it really made a lot of sense to do it that way.

I've laughed so hard with girlfriends under the twinkle lights in my backyard, I could scarcely bear it.

I've been a first hand witness to a miracle of God - seeing a sweet niece who wasn't expected to live, do just that.  She is beautiful beyond words.

SO...it might not be babies...but I cannot say...absolutely cannot say...
that nothing has happened in my life in the last 10 years.

I guess what I'm saying is this...

There's more than one way for life to be beautiful....for me...AND for you.  What unexpected beauty have you known?  Acknowledge it.  Cherish it.  Live it.

Blessed.

Thankful.

Abundant.

Dead Woman's Pass - Inca Trail: Peru, South America

Look at Me

I was standing in church the other day ready to sing.  As I was looking up to the stage,  all of the sudden I was overcome by seeing someone up there who wrecked me.  I don't even know her personally.  But I do know a bit of her story...and from what I know she is someone who has been through some tragedy and pain...and who God has redeemed and blessed and brought into a new and beautiful place.

I looked at her and almost instantly I felt emotion rising up in me.
Jealousy
Jealous of God's redemption in her life.

How ugly it feels to even type that.

The tears started coming.
I struggled to sing.
I stood there wrestling.  Wondering.  Longing.
Perhaps even a bit angry.

I felt "held out" on.
Left out.
Self-pity.
Empty and void of blessing

...nowhere near truth.

But regardless, I was wrought.

And that's when I heard it.  In that wrestling match in my mind, I heard it.  The Lord broke through and it was so very clear and unmistakable.  I could not deny it.

"Look at me."

So Gently, So lovingly I heard Him say, "Look at me."
In my soul I felt...
"You are looking around - trying to make sense of your life from gazing at others.
This has never worked.  Your life only makes sense when you look at me."

I stood in that thought for a moment.  I shifted my eyes, my mind, and my heart.  The shifting brought me back to peace and to the lover of my soul who knows all things and who works all things for good.  And who IS love.

I am just like Peter on that boat in the sea of Galilee.  My gaze so easily moves to my surroundings.  It wonders to the wind and the waves...to the impossible prayers....to the bleak...to the void.  And in the middle of that disastrous mess the Lord says, "Fix your eyes on me."

I think of C.S. Lewis' book "The Horse and His Boy" where Aslan the Lion meets Shasta to tell him how he is at work in Shasta's life story...
Shasta, however,  shifts the conversation and asks about the life of his friend Aravis...and why Aslan had done something different in her life.  Aslan simply says, "I am telling you your story.....not hers."

God is telling us our story - as we walk - he is guiding, leading, directing, and our job is to abide. Focus our eyes.
Look at Jesus.
And feel all else slip into the distance.

Words and Blessings

There are some words that you never forget.  They are spoken once and they go somewhere deep deep inside where they become a part of the story of your life in an irreversible way.

I remember some such words from this story of my life, and this morning I was reminded of them.  I was reading Job while on my porch swing...and at the end, it speaks of God's ultimate blessing over his life - that after the sorrow and grief had overtaken him and he had walked a road of severe disastrous pain...that the Lord blessed him more in the later part of his life than in the former part - the part he had lost so tragically.

This passage always takes me back to sitting in the front row of Lifespring Christian Church during Jason's memorial service.  I was 27 - widowed, confused, overwhelmed, sad, exhausted, lost.  In the last few days I had been driven around by family and had made decisions that made no sense to me.  I had walked through coffins and was told to pick out one for my husband.  I had been taken to various grave plots and had to decide which one to bury him in.  I had looked through his clothing and had chosen out something for him to wear in the coffin....I had sat in a funeral home and had to ask everyone to leave so I could have one moment with my face in his shirt, breathing him in and crying my eyes out before I had to hand it over...

...choosing a coffin instead of a couch or a crib, picking a grave plot instead of a vacation destination.  It all made no sense to me.

Maybe this feels like to much to read.

But it is the real deal.  It is part of the story of who I am.

As I sat in the front row of that beautiful service to honor Jason's life... I will never ever forget the moment my dad spoke..and what he said to me.

He bravely got up in front of the crowd.

He told the story of Job in the Bible.

And when he got to the part where God blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first, he looked right at me.  I vividly remember his eyes being red with tears as he basically said, "I believe that is what God will do for you."

I have never, ever forgotten those words.  Those words spoken with such love from my dad who loved me and hurt so much for me.

Those words spoken in Job about a heavenly father who holds a love for his creation that has a depth that no human can understand.

I think of those words dad spoke...and I choose to believe them.  Because I do know the love of my heavenly Father...I have experienced it time and time again.

Words and blessings.  They matter.

Tension

I'm realizing that so much of life consists of learning to live in the place of tension.  I'm not talking about tension among people and relationships, but rather the tension between the reality we are now living and the future that is coming.  It's the space between the "today" and the "tomorrow."  The "now" and the "not yet".

And we all have this pull in some form or another.  It's a rare moment in life when we don't feel it.  Our present realities are not what we hope for - we long for something better, different.  There are jobs we long to have, degrees we work to earn, healing that we pray will come, redemption for which we wait, freedom from our bondage.  And the space in-between...the space between the promise and the fulfillment of it can be a desert wasteland where we wrestle with ourselves, struggle to believe, doubt God's goodness, and surrender...again, and again, and again.

I have an old dog named Tucker...a sweet chocolate lab that is 15 years old.  We still go on walks most every day, but they are at a snail's pace.  I might stand while he sniffs the same tree for 5 minutes...and I stand.  And I wait.  And I stand some more.
I am used to this pace now.  I have a neighbor who works at my school.  She laughed about how polar opposite this "dog walking version" of me is compared to what she sees at work.  I am a runner, sprinter, multi-tasker to the extreme at work...I whisk to and fro in order to get my work done at insane speeds....
AND then she sees me walking my dog.  Barely moving.  The paradox of it throws her off...
Tucker is not the young dog he once was....and yet he is still here with me.  I am in the space between.  And I actually have come to enjoy this pace with my sweet buddy as it's become a time where I think and pray and observe and slow down and meander. I'm learning to relish this space and live this space and see it as MY LIFE.

This is the challenge isn't it?  In all of our "in between" moments.  Our moments between the job we don't want and the job we do want....our moments between the longing for a child and the child's arrival...our moments between the diagnosis and the healthy again...and for the love this whole season of singleness that myself and so many girlfriends are in...

Between the "now" and the "not yet"

I'm learning that the space between is where a serious battle is fought.  If we let God work, the space of waiting is where much growth happens, and it is definitely where life happens.  I sometimes have to fight to believe that this IS my life...and that this IS a valuable piece of my story.  What feels like a middle space and time of waiting is critical in ways we may never understand.  But it is critical just the same.
I look at those in the Bible who stood in this place.  Abraham was promised a child and 25 years later...he was STILL WAITING.  Was the promise bad?  What his desire for a lineage wrong.  NO.  It was, in fact, God given. Hannah went to the temple every day to pray about her longing for a child.  She wept.  And she wept often.

It seems that we can go to two extremes in this place.  We can kill our desires out of a sheer need for emotional survival.  In doing this "killing" we deny our hearts and perhaps the very God-given desire that's been placed in us.  I wonder if Abraham went to this place...I wonder if he had moments where he said, "I don't really want a child.  My life is so much easier without a son."
In some ways this path can feel easier.
The other extreme is that we can settle for a pseudo fulfillment that is less than abundant.  We sell out to things that we know are not God's plan, but the sell out can seem better than nothing.
Neither of these extremes is living with an honest heart of trust and faith.

It takes much courage to stay in the tension....to live this moment we are in fully - holding the longing and the barrenness of it side by side with the trust and belief in God's goodness and abundance.  It is faith stretching.

May we be among those who live wherever we are well.  May we live this moment...this EXACT moment with joy and faith and beauty and trust.  I want to pull every shard of growth and rejoicing out of this place - believing what God says in Romans that "every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good."

Where is your tension?  For what are you waiting?  What can you do to see this very moment as your life - as a space to be lived fully?

He Accomodates

I was watching the A.D. Bible series on tv, and this evening,

I think of the resurrection of Jesus.  When he revealed himself to the apostles and they were in the room hiding from the Romans, Thomas was the one who said he would not believe - unless his put his hand in the nail holes in Jesus' hand.  He needed to touch him.  He needed proof.  The events were too incredulous and in his human frailty and weakness, he wanted the hard facts in order to believe the truth.

What would we think Jesus would do to that request?  We would think he would expect that Thomas would buck up.  We might think he would insist Thomas believe without evidence...that he consider the past - all that Jesus had done...and would just believe...
but What absolutely amazes me is that in that place of doubt, Jesus meets him right there...in his weakness.  He sees Thomas's desire, his lack of faith and belief, and he acts by showing him the nail scars in his hands.  He gives Thomas the proof that helps his mind conceive truth.

The kindness in this act overwhelms me.  That the Lord of the Universe sees my frailty, sees my struggles, sees the many places where I am not where I should be...and he accommodate me.  He accommodates my needs...even when they are ridiculous.   He reveals himself to me even when he has done it over and over again...because he loves me that much.  He loves me enough to see my human, sinful condition and to meet me right there.  To meet me where I am in order to move me to another place.

Such beautiful love.

Such graciousness.

And what an example for me to follow.  In my God appointed life's mission to love others with the love of Christ, am I meeting people right where they are - in their brokenness, and frailty? Am I this accommodating and accepting?  Or am I judgmental?  May I be as gracious with others, as God is to me.  May I continually realize and recognize that such grace is offered me by my Savior and my brothers and sisters...and give that grace freely to everyone around me.  May I be one who offers love.  Deep love.  Love that expects nothing back.  Love like Jesus.

Inadequate

I woke up this morning to dog poop all over my bedroom carpet.  Awesome.

I hardly even flinch at this as have an old dog, and so I clean up dog poop on a mostly daily basis.
And I will continue to clean it up because I am so thankful to still have my sweet buddy around.  But make no mistake, it is a lot of work.  I sometimes think God must be preparing me for a house full of toddlers b/c I am a poop maestro at this point.   Which is not really something I ever dreamed of being.

This morning my desire for a quiet moment of reading and prayer trumped the desire to steam clean my carpet at 6 a.m., so I got out of the room and drank my coffee while sitting on the couch asking God to meet me...because I need him.  I need him.

And it's not just the poop.  It seems I am often in a place where my needs and my sufficiencies do not line up.  At all.  I need far more than I have.  I am inadequate.  This lack can be in a sorts of categories - emotions,  wisdom,  patience, steadfastness,  trust, faith - I do not have what it takes... and I am regularly faced with this reality.

On these mornings, I sometimes feel like I need to fast, and when I think of what I would pray for during my fast, the prayer that often comes to me is "God HELP ME - God help me because I am desperate for you."  Really?  Is that a specific enough fast?!  And so I head out the door for the day willing to endure some hunger for that prayer.

Does anyone else feel this need?  This lack of resources?  This poverty?  This is, in fact, the definition of poverty - not having enough - and so when I am in poverty of faith or poverty of wisdom or poverty of patience or love or kindness I need to be on my knees before the Father asking him to meet me in my poor state.  I ask him to provide what I am lacking.

It does not feel good.  I like to feel adequate and competent and on top of everything.  But I am actually believing that perhaps these moments, days, and weeks of feeling needy is really when I am more in touch with reality than when I feel sufficient.  I am likely the most delusional when I do have brief moments where I feel like I've got it all together.

Paul speaks of this in II Corinthians:
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

This verse invites us to transform the our idea of weakness to see it as the avenue for strength.  Weakness as the path to strength...what a beautiful reality.

Weakness is the very place where I am primed and ready to see God's power break through in my life.  I cannot see him without recognizing my need for him, so it would stand to reason that the more I recognize my need, the more I am going to see him.  Because He is faithful.

Where are you in your weakness?  Are you delighting in it?  Fighting it?  Shaming yourself for your inadequacy?  Today let's boast in our weakness, not because we love failure, but because we serve a God who makes up for every bit of incompetence that we have AND even turns it into good!

This thing of walking with Jesus is really such a sweet deal.

Beautiful

I cannot escape the desire to be beautiful.  It is there.  Strong.  It revisits - it always comes back around.  This longing for beauty is deep - deep in the heart of me,
and my guess is it is not just me.

We, as women, long to be beautiful.

The marketing world knows this.  They might know our desires better than we do, I suppose.  The quest for beauty...more beauty...unending beauty that might bring us what we want - at least that's what the world would think.

I do feel this desire for exterior beauty, and I choose to embrace it...but not as the purpose of life, or with the belief that it will make me happy.  I don't seek it with unfair expectations for what this form of beauty will do for me.

Instead... I ENJOY it.  I enjoy making the outside beautiful because God is the creator of beauty.  I relish in clothing that reflects this.  I adore great lipstick that brings out my eyes.  I delight in a fantastic haircut.
I hold it loosely, and I ENJOY that God made us beautiful.

However....my desire to be beautiful does not end there.  It doesn't end with clothing and fun hair and great shoes and color and design.  My desire to be beautiful reaches even to a deeper place of my heart and my soul and to what I would offer the world.  I long to be graceful.  I long to be merciful, kind, forgiving, loving.  I want a pure heart - a heart that delights in the truth - a heart that sees the good and brings out the good and GIVES more of God's kingdom to those around me.  I desire to have a nurturing heart that sees others and cares about their needs.  I long to be light in the darkness, hope in despair, a breath of fresh air on a battlefield where people are weary and scared.  I long to hold fear in my hand and choose trust.  And Joy.  And Hope.  THIS is the beauty that I desire too...THIS is the beauty that my heart aches for.

I remember feeling this desire intensely shortly after being widowed.  I had experienced the freedom of being Beauty standing beside a man offering Strength.  Beauty and strength - what an amazing design and what fruitful results can come when these two things are in harmony together.  I felt the absence of beauty in myself through sorrow and aloneness and in being an individual instead of a team.  One day during this time my mother-in-law gave me a bracelet that had a little prayer box attached to it....and the simple prayer that I wrote and placed in that box was, "God, please make me beautiful."  And today, even though I am not in that particular broken place any longer, I still find myself saying that same exact prayer.  "Please, God, make me beautiful."

Because the reality is that I am human.  Fallen.  Sinful.  I sometimes don't give grace, but instead heap up judgment.  I am NOT always kind, and have plenty of moments of mean.  I sometimes struggle to forgive.  And I seek my own good.  I probably feel this longing for beauty of heart and soul MOST when I'm overwhelmed by my sin...or my sorrow...or my fear.   I see who I am apart from the Grace of God and I want HIS redemption.  I want beauty for ashes.  I want the oil of gladness for a spirit of despair.  I want to be a "tree planted by streams of water" giving life, life, and more life.  Isn't that what we as women uniquely were made for...to give life, to birth life, to bring forth life?  We are by design "Life Givers."

The beauty bestowed upon a woman's heart by the Lord
...has great power that He uses to change the world around her.
God - give me more and more and more of this thing called beauty.  For YOU are a God of beauty and I long to reflect you in my womanhood...bringing LIFE to those around me.

Do you see the beauty that God has placed in you?  Are you comfortable with your beauty?  How can you let God use you even more to offer HIS beauty to the world through you?

The Rose Bowl and New Years in Pasedena

I am 38......
And last year I started getting emails from singleseniorsmeet.com.

Really. I'm not kidding.

And it's all because I spent New Years of 2013 in Los Angeles, California riding around on a tour bus with older folks...and it honestly was pretty awesome.

My grandma Beryl has always had a dream to go to the Rose Bowl New Years Parade in Pasadena, California.  So this past year my mother decided she was going to take her... And I ended up on the trip too.

Here's some pictures of my mom, Grandma Beryl, Mom, and me.

At the Airport

We were organized into tour busses to see various attractions for a couple days before the actual parade.  On the very first day we were supposed to be on the bus at 8:15 a.m.  While my mom and grandma went on to board the bus, I ran back to the hotel room to grab a couple things.  I made it back out to the bus at 8:13.  Which for those of you who know me, is pretty stinkin awesome...2 whole minutes early!?
Once I arrived at the bus, however, I realized that I was the very LAST one to get on, and they had been wondering where I was?!

At this point I made a little "Note to self":  When the old folk say 8:15, what they're really saying is 8:00 Sharp.  Who knew?

For those of you who don't know about the Rose Bowl, what makes it so amazing is that the floats are made ENTIRELY of organic material - top to bottom - every inch.  AND not only that, but the colors are all the natural organic colors from the substance.  There is no dying of any materials.  So if you want a yellow eye on a frog, you might use the spice Tumeric.  Even the signs that look like they are printed material are actually substances such as rice, onion seed, and winterberries.  And they're not thrown on by a machine or in mass quantities - they are placed on by hand.  The process is amazing and the results are stunning.   After going "backstage" to see a window into the making of these floats...I will never watch The Rose Bowl Parade the same again.  It was incredible.  Here are some of the pictures from the preview we got in a warehouse where floats were being made.

While on the tour, we also went to Lawry's steak house.  Fantastic Food.  Historic Restaurant.  Loved it.

In addition to that was the Ronald Reagan Museum.  We waited to get off the bus for what seemed like forever.  Two crabby old ladies were behind me.  At one point one of the ladies was checking her voicemail on speakerphone.  I wanted to jab my eye out with a stick.  But eventually we got off and started through the museum.  We got to walk through Air Force 1, which was pretty cool.  However the rest of the museum was so crowded, I opted to not even go through the whole thing.  But if you're in the area, it might be worth a trip.

Outside of the Ronald Reagan Museum

We also went to Warner Brothers and got to sit on the retired "Friends" T.V. show couch!

New Years Eve was spent with the Seniors in a banquet hall.  Dinner and Dancing.  Although it was certain I would not be meeting any handsome, single men at the event due to the fact that I was one of the few people there under 55...I'm quite certain I will never experience a New Years quite like it again :)

And the next day was The Rose Bowl Parade.

All in all, this trip was a one of a kind.  I treasure the time that I got to spend with my grandma and my mom. So despite the fact that I'm now getting marketing from singleseniors.com now...it was a beautiful experience to get to be a part of one of grandma's dreams coming true.

(And let's be honest...there may come a day when I actually open those marketing emails instead of deleting them.  I wonder how young they accept gals on that dating site?)