Life Today

I've decided I'm a horrible blogger when it comes to writing about my life. I just don't find it all that interesting. But, I also recognize that part of the reason I started this thing was so I could keep people (somewhat) updated on my life. So, here's a little snapshot of my life today.

I'm sitting on my couch in my PJ's right now, having just finished drinking English Breakfast tea with honey and reading my Bible. I'm almost done with Galatians, which has coincided perfectly with our church Bible studies on grace. We've been talking about the way we live under both God's law and the laws we make for ourselves (or think society makes for us) and are constantly condemned. Last time we talked about the glory of justification and how it really does free us each day from our bondage and fear and guilt.

Sadly, Adrian won't be able to go to Bible study tonight because he is in crazy paper writing mode. He already wrote the majority of one paper this semester, and is halfway done with the second one right now, but he has to finish them both up by Friday. So, I am doing my own thing this week. Last night I got a free movie from redbox and cuddled up in bed eating popcorn. Not exactly the most supportive or productive I could have been, but I quite enjoyed it. Plus, it kept me out of the way and Adrian got through 3 pages. (Side note: I watched Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and I liked it. But then again, I love Steve Carell. I watch things just because he's in them. Anyways, I thought this had kind of a Dan in Real Life feel, though a bit darker, since, obviously, the world is about to be blown into oblivion.)

I finished my book yesterday morning, which is also partly what led me to my popcorn eating, bed cuddling, movie night. I feel a little crazy when I don't have a book with a strange bookmark in the middle of it because I've been reading it in strange places and at strange times, dying to know where it's going. My latest venture was A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, and it was so lovely I immediately reserved the sequel at my library. Hopefully I'll make it there today. If you want to read about France, lovely and strange French food, and all sorts of  strange and wonderful French people, I completely recommend the book. It was interesting, charming, and often hilarious. It reminded me of a book I read a while ago by Jack Smith....I think it was called God and Mr. Gomez, unless he wrote other books about the same process of building a house in Mexico. That was hilarious also.

Well, I have to start work here in a few minutes. I'm working on the Christmas newsletter this week, so I'm quite busy, but I'm enjoying it more than usual :) Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go.

Leaves of Glory

I can smell the damp musty decay of the leaves that reminds me of my childhood. It is the smell of ground seeping through sheets of colored glory, moving them towards disintegration. It is the smell of raking with my hands, patting and forming my perfect bed of leaves. It is the smell of lying face upturned, of autumn sky and sadness and dreams, and a cold wetness staining the back of my clothes.

 As I stand, surrounded by heights of orange, red, yellow—leaves slow-dancing in the breeze, gracefully poised in stillness on the ends of thin limbs—I am amazed that there can be so much beauty in the midst of decay. That it is the very process of decay that gives simple leaves wild color strokes. How is it that the decay of leaves is so glorious—so memorable that I can smell its mustiness and be transported back to my time as a girl rolling, leaves clinging to my hair and clothes, in a leaf-bed—while the decay of our own bodies is a slow, sad song? It is pain and suffering and grief. It is watching the person you love turn into someone you don’t recognize anymore. It is standing there wanting them back, yet wishing them forward. It is not knowing what to say and crying when you’re done not saying it. It doesn’t feel like there’s glory in our death.

At least, that’s what my grief told me. I feel like I have never really known grief until this year, and now I have known it twice. Death knocked at my door and grief opened, unknowingly, but quick and fast. Death is recognized in the same instant that grief overtakes. They share the same moment, becoming intertwined and inseparable as they meet at that open door. It is the moment when you too feel as though you are dying.

In spite of this, in a strange and incomprehensible way, there was one death—perhaps one of the most horrific deaths of all time—that was simultaneously glorious.

“So Jesus said to them, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM…” (Jn. 8:28)

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (Jn. 12:32)

Christ was “lifted up” in a double sense: lifted up on the cross and at the same time lifted up in exaltation. For Christ, his death was his exaltation. It was in moment of his death that God himself was revealed—the one who is called “I AM” and who draws his redeemed to himself.

And this happened so that even though there doesn’t seem to be any glory in our death, there can be. It is a glory that we don’t see, and to be honest, that we don’t really understand. It is not colorful and musty; it is disheartening and painful. It is despair written on the brokenness of our bodies, sin carved in our decay. When we are close to Death, we see the Fall manifested and Glory feels far and unknowable. And that’s because the glory we ache for is not visible to us. It is, as yet, unseen, by those who remain here.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

These verses feel perhaps hopeful when we read them before we do laundry or pack our husband’s lunch. They feel weak when faced with the reality of the cold, stiffness of death. Eternal, unseen glory? Yet my grandma lies scattered, and I’ll never hear her voice on the phone again singing me Happy Birthday. She won’t make us pancakes and gracefully accept our gift-offerings of blooming weeds, displaying them in a vase for all to admire. She won’t send us a Valentine’s Day card signed with her shaky handwriting or make us all line up before we leave for a picture taken with her disposable camera. She won’t shuffle down the hallway, looking in drawers for that thing she meant to give me, but can’t remember now. Eternal glory seems weak because it is not what I know and what I know is now gone.

Thankfully, that does not make it any less true. The only thing I have learned this last year as grief has made its home in the corner of my house is this: We really need a Savior. We need to be saved from this decay of the body that is not glorious. We need to be saved from the wrenching apart of body and soul that was not intended. We need to be saved from the inescapable grief that comes when we have to live without the one we’ve always known, or the one we didn’t know we could love so deeply. Redeemer, we need you.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’

And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ (Rev. 21:3-5).

Poor Souls

My pantry is small; cans of tomato sauce stack on one another, somewhat precariously, waiting to tumble off the hidden corner shelf. My budget is tight; I touch the softness of sweaters and look and the brightness of colors and wish them for my own, but in the end I turn away wistfully. My house is simple; books double-line bookshelves and plaster cracks and moths wriggle through holes in window screens, and I want to fix everything, but I just live here.

This is my life--simple and sweet in many ways, but in the end, poor. It's different than what I've always know. What I've known and breathed was frugality--poorness by choice. Knowing you have money away in the bank, but choosing not to spend it, it's a different thing. Knowing your husband isn't working full-time anymore, but going to school, scouring textbooks, and your paychecks are small and the money in the bank is all there is, it's a scary thing.

I think many of us are under a false impression that once we graduate from college, we'll be set. We'll get a job with our degree and settle in and make money and pay off our car and go to restaurants and plays and support our church and save for rainy days. Then we get an entry level job, or get married and go back to school, or face mounds of debt and we find ourselves discouraged. Maybe it's not that we think money is all there is, just that we thought there would be a bit more of it. I find myself remembering high school days when my after-school job paid for movie tickets; today we buy a Groupon deal and save it for six months, waiting for a movie really worth going to see. I remember buying make-up and jewelry just for fun; now I look at the two pair of earrings I wear on a regular basis and kind of wish I had remembered to ask for some for my birthday. I don't feel like I need a lot of stuff, I just hate feeling restricted. And when I ache under those ties, I find myself feeling discontent, slowly allowing myself to be taken into a bondage of covetousness and idolatry.

Right now, I don't know how I'm going to get through the next four years of seminary living, and the years of kids and ministry after that. But this is what I do know:

I am united to Christ. I am quite literally, one with him. And if that is true, what I do have to worry about? Hudson Taylor wrote to his sister, "Oh, my dear Sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ!  Think what it involves.  Can Christ be rich and I poor?  Can your right hand be rich and your left poor, or your head be well fed while your body starves?" 

I will not be left alone. I will not go without. I will be cared for. As long as I am one with Christ, I have nothing to fear, no anxiety that is really legitimate. I am the body of Christ and my Savior will care for me in whatever way he sees fit. He was himself abandoned so I do not ever have to be. 

I have endless things to be thankful for. The more time I focus on what I can't have (which these days, seems to be quite a lot), the more I miss the small gifts of grace given to me each day. If only in the hum of my washing machine, the musty autumn breeze on my neck, the mud in my hands and under my fingernails, God is gifting me with more than I deserve. He sings his love song to me and twines my life with grace-gifts that I only need to receive. He says to me, "See, see, you are the one my soul loves. I am here. I am with you. I am caring for you. I am loving you." 

It is a sweet thing to thank him. It is bitter to begrudge him what I do not have.

Poverty is part of my identity. I found myself thinking the other night in the car as I drove a long drive home about Psalm 40, which ends: "As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me." I was surprised to remember that my condition is not "poor for a time" but "poor for all time." I am poor and needy. I have nothing to bring before my Savior. I have nothing to offer. I deserve nothing. I need everything. I am dependent on my Lord for salvation and life. Each day I breathe because breath is given to me. Each day I am saved because Jesus has claimed me. I cannot hope to ever be anything but humble, yet the Lord takes thought for me. How can I truly think I want for anything, when the riches of Christ have been given to me? And how can I think I deserve to live better, when my very soul is poor? I can only pray that God will give me humility to see myself for what I am and live in thankfulness that in spite of this, he has named me and made me his own. 

Apple Picking!

On Saturday, we decided to spend our afternoon apple-picking. It was first time experience :)

Lovely apples

Our tiny bag for filling with as many apples as possible :)

Stunning Temecula sunset. Sat in our car on our street just to look at it.

Life of Pi

This, friends, is a book recommendation. If you haven't read Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, you should. I read it for the first time this summer and, after plodding through the first couple of chapters, was completely captivated.

Some straight information (in case you're on of those people who just wants to know the basic plot): This is a story about a boy growing up in India, whose father runs a zoo. This is a story about a boy who grows up to be a man who loves religion (he practices three!). This is a story about a boy who is shipwrecked and winds up on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutang, a zebra, and a tiger. This is a story about survival. This is a wild adventure.

(Ok, that was more or less facts right?)

A bit of persuasion (in case you want to know what I thought about the book): The story starts, "This book was born as I was hungry." (It's in the author's note...read that first, even if you're the sort of person who skips over things that say "Author's Note.") I think this book is about hunger. It spends a lot of time dealing with physical hunger, since this boy is stranded on a lifeboat for over seven months, and is in general trying to avoid being eaten by the tiger on board with him. Martel makes you think about what it must be like to be so hungry you would eat anything. Anything. The madness of survival in the midst of starvation. Pi is driven to animalistic measures as his stomach yearns for life. But this book is about a lot more than physical hunger. This is a story about hungering for something more. Religious hunger, you might say, although I'm not sure that quite captures it.

The key phrase of the book is: "I have a story that will make you believe in God." What kind of hope would you have for a story to convince you there is a God? I think we often think stories make us wish there was a God; they don't make us believe there is a God. But, we underestimate the power of story.

I think what Martel has to say could be taken a couple of different ways. It could either be that it doesn't matter if what we believe is "true", so long as it serves a greater purpose, OR that we are made for something more--joy maybe? I think perhaps Martel means the first thing, but persuaded me of the second. In the story, Pi adopts three different religions: Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Each one moves him in a different way. Each one draws from a different part of his soul. Religion is not necessarily about which one is "true," but about the aspects of truth they all have. Perhaps, they all lead to the same thing. Perhaps, they are all different ways of looking at the same story. Pi is against "dry yeastless factuality" and for "the better story." "What moves you?," you can almost imagine him asking you. "You must believe something. Will you settle for the dry and lifeless?"

Martel writes: "Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things...An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose."

At least atheism, according to Pi, believes in something--requiring a leap of faith--while agnosticism, which chooses to doubt everything, winds up with nothing. "[T]he agnostic," Pi says, "if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might...to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."

Reading this book made me wonder, Is that all there is? A better story? Lots of good stories? Stories you choose to believe because the alternative is too much to handle? Stories that move you and reveal parts of the truth, but perhaps all ultimately made of the same cloth? Lewis and Tolkien did not think so. While Martel creates a dichotomy between "feelings of elevation, elation, joy" and "an intellectual understanding of things," the Christian story unites them. Feeling and fact are harmonious in the Gospel. C.S. Lewis writes, "The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens—at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical circumstances.” The Gospel is a holistic story, requiring both an imaginative and a reasonable response. Lewis says, “For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.”God calls us to receive the Gospel both as myth (and thus with joy) and as history (thus as truth). 

The reason I loved Life of Pi is because it reminded me that I love a story that is somewhat wild with imagination. I love the hero who lives in spite of impossible circumstances. I love to feel my soul jostle within me as I long for worlds unknown to me. We all do. It's why we choose the "better story." But we don't choose it because it doesn't matter and the other option is too boring. We choose it because we were made for it. We were made for something more. We were made for wildness and beauty and joy. And we were made to find this in something mind-blowingly true.

If this book is to make you believe in God, it is simply because it will convince you that you want something more because you were made for something more. And, unlike Pi, I don't think it will really satisfy us unless it is true.

Seminary Wife Reporting for Duty

Adrian has officially started seminary. And since it's seminary, it took about 3 seconds to have massive amounts of homework and reading assigned. Somehow, that little fact didn't quiiite compute in my mind last week, so when Adrian came home from his first day of classes, I was excited to celebrate, talk about them, hang out, and he was freaked out and ready to study all night. Needless to say, that night didn't go so well.

But now, Adrian is at his fourth day of classes, and I've got a couple things I've realized I need to figure out for the these next couple of years. 1) How to entertain myself, and 2) How to get Adrian to remember his lunch.

Starting with number 2 first: I opened the fridge this morning and for the third time, found Adrian lunch sitting in the fridge exactly where I put it after packing it the night before. I find this somewhat hilarious, since Adrian has been packing and taking his lunch for months to work, but somehow the switch to a school has made him like food is unnecessary. This is a very interesting situation, folks, and I'm quite confuzzled by it.

Back to number 1: I work from home, so my days have already been spent almost entirely by myself. I wake up, I walk, I read, I work, I take care of the house, run errands, make dinner, wait for my husband to come home. But now, while we get some time together when he comes home, he then needs to study for a while and I don't have much interest in spending more time alone. So... I'm trying to figure that situation out. So far, someone has kindly suggested I use that time in the evenings to talk to people on the phone and catch up on correspondence, which I somehow had not thought of and was a welcome idea. Any more? I feel like I'm going to have a lot of time to myself these days... of course, you're always welcome to keep me company :)

Balloon above our driveway yesterday morning.

Sneak-a-Peak!

Our new home is almost tamed into submission (except for the chaotic laundry room). Took a few (horrible) pictures that I thought I would share...these are some parts of our house that make me happiful :)

Built in shelves...tea...birthday tea cup.

A new plethora of mason jars to organize my pantry in a small kitchen and keep the many ants out.

A lovely new piano and my newly found (in one of many boxes) piano books!

Teal room...jewelry (hidden for the summer), an organized dresser.

My new desk and little work area -- I'm sitting here now, posting this :)