I've Moved!

I've exported my blog to a more finder-friendly location: sarahyepishin.blogspot.com. Scribbling Oranges has treated me well, but it was time for a new face and a refocus. I'll still carry over the idea of "The Orange" as a symbol of the enjoyment of life and appreciation of the present moment, but it will only show up in the undertones of my posts (I hope) instead of as an overt symbol.

Make sure you find me and follow me over here, because I'll no longer be updating the page you're reading now. If I've been following you, I will now be following you as the new-and-improved Sarah. (Heh heh.) Sergei and I will also continue to update our ministry blog.

Eyelashes and Dandelions

Today I brushed an eyelash off my cheek and it clung to my finger. I looked at the black curl, small and frail, and thought: What is my wish?

I've always used eyelashes for wishes, of course -- who doesn't? I've wished for a scope of things, from an A on a paper to requited love. I've also used dandelions, and though I have plenty of experience with both wishing objects, I haven’t discovered yet which is most effective. Sorry.

What captured me tonight, though, as I lightly contemplated what to wish for and my mind wandered over all the things I desire most -- contentment, unending joy, a human measure of self-confidence -- was that I have almost trusted eyelashes and dandelions more than I have trusted prayer. I don't mean that I believe the eyelash on my finger or the feathery parachutes of dandelions have some magical power to make my wishes come true. What I mean is that I am more likely to make wishes than to pray, because I’m not worried about inanimate objects letting me down. In his book, A Praying Life, Paul E. Miller talks about the widespread but hushed-up Christian doubt about prayer. He mentions the "quiet cynicism or spiritual weariness that develops in us when heartfelt prayer goes unanswered."

I have become quietly cynical.

I don't have as much reason as some, either. I have a loving, unbroken, and healthy family, I graduated from college without financial debt, I am now married to the man that for four years I had hoped to marry. All of those have been prayers, answered in the affirmative. But I have felt let down by so many other prayers – prayers offered so many times by so many groups of faithful Christians for the healing of Will Pufall, who contracted walking pneumonia and then suddenly died in a hospital bed while somewhere else in a quiet room whispered petitions were rising to the ceiling. Prayers offered so many times for the salvation of my friend who couldn’t break drug addiction and alcoholism, passed down through his family. When God doesn’t answer heartfelt prayers for good things, or when He says no, I’m left asking Him, “Don’t you cherish us at all?” And then a long time of silence passes between Him and me.

The other day I was out with a group from my church doing some community service and handing out water bottles to people who stopped by. About two hours into the event, an older man with iron gray hair mostly covered by a black cowboy hat stepped out of his car. I handed him two water bottles, one for him and one for his wife who was sitting in the passenger seat. He said thanks without looking at me, and went silently about his business. I decided to strike up a conversation since we were still standing next to each other.

            “Are you from Loveland?” I asked.

            The man shook his head, the brim of his hat casting a shadow over part of his deeply creased face. “No, I’m from a town over, but I was in Loveland getting some tests for my cancer.”

            I felt my stomach drop. Within a matter of seconds, this conversation had become much more serious than I was ready for. “I’m so sorry,” I said. My mind raced for words. “Are they certain you have cancer?”

            The man nodded. He still didn’t make eye contact with me. “Had cancer a few years ago. They just found some more.”

            I took a deep breath. “That’s hard. I can’t imagine. Are they starting treatment soon?”

            “I go back for surgery Friday afternoon.”

            It was a default answer; it came up as quick as the weather: “Do you mind if I pray for you that day?”

            The lined face turned to me, and a pair of black eyes relaxed as they met mine. The man smiled so gently, his hard exterior vanishing away. As he spoke, his eyes became wet. “Not at all. Please do.” He paused, but he didn’t break eye contact. Then, “I’ve got a lot of other people praying for me, too.”

            I smiled. I didn’t think much of it. We Christians do that all the time – pray for healing, pray in groups for healing, ask for prayer for healing, and talk about praying for healing. I felt kind of good about myself, having stepped out on a limb and asked if I could pray for this stranger. But then—

            “It really works,” he said, hushed and reverent. He looked more earnest at that moment, on those three words, than any man I’ve seen. His words flattened me. Here was a man whose cancer had healed and returned. And here was also a man who believed that prayer actually worked. I mean, to him, prayer for healing wasn’t just a tradition. It was effective. And if cancer returned, God could still heal. And if cancer returned and God didn’t heal, prayer still worked – God was still faithful. I could see in this man’s faith that he knew, if healing didn’t come, that to live is Christ and to die is gain.

            The man thanked me. But by that time, I felt as small as a person can get.  After he drove away, I couldn’t think about anything else. That man’s faith confounded me. It revived me. That man knew, he knew, that God cherishes Him.

“The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:5-7)

God never overlooks our prayers. He is near. He is near. If an answer does not seem apparent, the truth is He is answering needs we did not know to ask for. Needs contrary to what we did ask for. “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever.” (Phil. 4:19-20) Because of that, though death may fall and suffering continue, peace transcending understanding can still be mine. With thanksgiving. Prayer is saying in the face of unspeakable circumstances, “Nevertheless.”

To our God – yes, to our Father be glory for ever and ever.

I Have Never Loved Someone - by My Brightest Diamond

Thoughts from the Drawing Board

I am sitting in my friend's art studio. Her sketches and paint brushes are scattered on the drawing table on which I've set up my computer to--to write something. In my inability to be productive right now (not because I haven't tried, but because I've been productive for the past three hours and now the sun is starting to put on its evening clouds outside and the shadows are long and the air is breathing out spring perfume and work is no longer a possibility), I decided it would be better to still write something than nothing.

Hello, blog.

Drawings of faces and architecture on tracing paper are hung against the window in here so that the blue sky comes through them. I would like to have the blue sky come up through my face. I wonder what that would feel like--I imagine it would feel similar to taking a long drink of very cold water. The wall behind me is roughly painted purple with hints of orange pressing through it, like the high part of the sky at sunset. (This whole room right now is the sky to me.)

My friend is very good at drawing architecture. Every sketch in here looks like something I would like to have on my wall.

If I were a painter, I would go bankrupt buying paints and canvases and filling rooms with them.

Is all of this God?

Today I wrote three pages of my story. I was happy with them, and I was also happy to hear my professor say, "Well done" (good and faithful servant). But nothing has made me so happy as my cousin telling me that her experience reading the pages I showed her was the same as her experience reading our favorite book, The History of Love. I hope to write small tremors of that book every time I sit down to write; sometimes, I hope, I succeed for a moment--for a sentence or two.

If I were a painter like I am a writer, I would have only one painting and I would put it in the closet where no one could see it. I would also have lots of unfinished paintings cluttering my studio, and when I went there to work on them, I would get one stroke done in an hour.

If I had an orchard, I'd work till I'm sore.

Sometimes God seems more present in the small fleck of sunlight shook from the leaf of that tree I keep looking up at through this third-story window. But the sun is moving down quickly, and the light has already shifted away from the tree. So where is God then?

Can I look to the purple fingers of the clouds and find God there? The darkness will hide them.

I'm learning to find God in the place it seems He would be least likely to dwell--a place more cluttered than this artist's studio and not half as lovely; a place that is not kept very clean and is full of mistakes. I know He's there, more than He is in the pieces of sunlight and the wisps of cloud, more even than He is in the cathedral in my friend's drawing pinned to the wall. I'm working on having the faith to see that He inhabits this dirty room.

Yep: me.

December 22, 2010

Sergei asked me to marry him today.

Who can explain the warmth-soaked minutes, hours, before the event, of just being in his company and conversation? All that led up to it is what I said yes for. The sense of belonging, of knowing who I am, who we are, together, the glowing friendship of two people so interconnected that every word is understood before spoken. The ecstasy of looking into those eyes and seeing that they want me as much as I want them. Hardly noticing the shining white ring for those wanting, accepting eyes. The pure sanctuary of knowing that this one that I now belong to as I accept this ring loves me secondmost, loves Another greater than I, the altogether lovelier and majestic Other—the warm, lit sanctuary of knowing I am second.

I grasped him when he said, “Belong to me, only,” grasped him like one falling because she believed it, believed she belonged and could fall and be caught, “Belong to me, only, forever,” I grasped and fell because he wanted me, imperfect as I am, only me, falling into imperfect him, two imperfections falling onto a great Perfection together, to receive beauty for ashes, to be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified (Isaiah 61). Who can bear so much beauty? What one human merely being can contain it?

I now fold myself to his side, I am bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh becoming, and in this decrease from my own self into his, I feel that the limitless expanse of the sky could not contain what I am becoming.

This, I suppose, is the mystery of the sacred marriage. In this betrothal of myself to him, I know only the foretaste of this mystery, and yet I could fly.

I thank you, Lord, for most this amazing day.

Calling on the Muse...

...or the Holy Spirit, perhaps? A funny and thought-provoking talk:

Turkey and Cousins

There is nothing more important in this world than family. I'm so glad for mine.

"...breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land."

Sometimes I feel like I'm searching for God in a sandstorm, and even though I've never been in a sandstorm I can imagine what it would be like to be lost in one. Blind, stinging, dry, directionless. Just lots of yellow stuff swirling around.

For the first time in a long time, immeasurably long (immeasurable because I can never keep track of time), right now I breathe. I have only half a paper to write, and then it will officially be fall break for me. This half of paper represents all that I throw my hatred and exhaustion and uncertainty into. It represents all the scratching and professor-pleasing that I do to get A's that I don't need. It represents all the resume-building that I used to think was so important. It is a paper for my Honors class, and it is one of the most pretentious-sounding things I've ever written. (I love being able to use words like "thing" and "stuff." It's so liberating.)

Check this sentence out:

Here, my integration of perceptions failed to integrate in another's mind. Or perhaps the ideas presenting themselves to me seem incompatible, and my mind is unable to perform the integrations between them, in which case I fail to conclude at all.

Who would actually want to read something that dry and boring? Nobody. Especially not people who just need a break. (Like me.) Unfortunately, someone's gotta finish this paper. And that someone is me.

--------------------------------------------

I am now on top of Lookout Mountain, looking over the city of Chattanooga. It is dusk, following a red sunset. The moon is a steady sliver hung midway in the sky. I am sitting in Hannah's bedroom five floors up with the windows flung open and no screens barricading me from the mountain air. Sufjan Stevens is singing "Heirloom" to me. I have been reading A Severe Mercy for the past hour and now I am sitting, taking in what is happening to me in these days of rest and peace.

And what can I say now of life and God? Only that he is enough. I read one of the most well-known passages in all the Bible two days ago -- Philippians 4:4-7 -- and for the first time it shocked my heart like a bell struck. I felt so thankful for fear and distress and a certain feeling of being lost, because suddenly the speakings of my Lord became alive in that context.

It's funny how lostness works that way, and distress, and fear. I guess the sandstorm is the place to find God after all. He's like an oasis that fills the entire desert once you find it. I started looking because I couldn't handle the thirst or the dryness anymore. How quickly he found me then! It's not that my confusion is gone, but that while I wait for it to "shake out," as Hannah would say, I'm finding all kinds of joy and goodies in God's presence -- or, to be more poetical, "peace that passes all understanding."

Sometimes I'd like to find a house in a field in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere, with a garden erupting with lilacs and roses and winecups, with a bench in the middle of the garden where I can sit and spend out the rest of my days contemplating Christ. It would be lonely and pretty against how God set things up to be -- in community and everything -- but I think I would be at peace. But then, that shows how afraid of people I am. And of pain.

I guess on that note, because I'm rambling, I'll close with this quote from A Severe Mercy, which I picked up today. In spite of the fear, and because of the beauty, and because I hope that out of all this contemplation and all this distress and all this joy will flow one thing -- a great Love -- here are these words:

“He had been wont to despise emotions: girls were emotional, girls were weak, emotions—tears—were weakness. But this morning he was thinking that being a great brain in a tower, nothing but a brain, wouldn’t be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky—no feelings at all. But feelings—feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then—this was awful!—maybe the girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! … What is beauty but something that is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least partly, is emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love—a great love—though maybe for the saints there was joy in the love of God. … But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain—if, indeed, they went together. If there were a choice—and he suspected there was—a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.”

"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond"

Today I went to Dearman's Diner and had a fantastic cheeseburger, all dressed, and an even more fantastic chocolate milkshake. I ate mounds of sweet potato fries. I sat at a table with ten middle school girls who have all become so much to me throughout these long summer days. We were there to say goodbye to one another, they to me and I to them. We sat in red vinyl chairs, sipped our milkshakes, and shared our memories. A piece of me, maybe the piece sipping on chocolate milkshake but I think something deeper down, shriveled up and died.

I saw a cicada shell clinging to a tree the other day, brown and crisp with a great crack down the center. A friend wrote to me in a letter about when we are lifted from our earthly bodies and carried to the paradise of God -- like a cicada separated from its lifeless shell and lifted away on new alive wings.

Sometimes I say that I like change. And I do. But I've realized the kind of change I have spent my entire life hating is the separating kind. Goodbyes are my greatest untalent. (Sergei can testify.) When I say goodbye to Baton Rouge -- to Sarah Beth, and Sophie, Christina and Christine, Elise (who I watched discover Christ), Madison, Carolyn, and Anna Catherine (with her perpetual shy smile) -- when I say goodbye, something in me closes off again. The fearful part, the part afraid of hurting or dying again. The part that dreads separation.

Have I left pieces of my shell on trees in cities all over the country?

I can't help but think, when at last I am lifted from my earthly body in that final separation, will I be sad to let the earth go? Do I hold on too tightly?

And yet. On that day, when my shell is left clinging to the old world and my soul soars to the new, won't all of the separations that gave my soul small deaths in the old world become the uniting that resurrects my soul in the new? Face-to-face with all the lives that have brushed mine, that I've been so blessed as to brush up against, with friends who fell asleep long ago, with family I never knew, with those whose written words charged and changed me, with old loved ones, in short, with that great cloud of witnesses; face-to-face -- at last, at long long last -- with the Great Lover who Saved me, will I not believe with the faith of all things that all separation is resurrected into union?

Those days (if they can be called "days" when no time can determine their beginning or end) will make today seem like a brief farewell before the long and joyful embrace.

Postscript: Come to think of it, now that I'm all packed with my bags and suitcases piled around me: in less than a week, I'll be reunited at college with some of my best friends in the world. And with my love. :) I'll turn from sadness and look forward to those long, joyful embraces.

Opening Pandora's Box

Hope. It hit me unexpectedly the other day.

You have to be a pretty good liar to not believe in hope. I guess that makes me a good liar.

Here's why I say that:

Hopelessness happens when you are so able to convince others that you are fine, that you create an absolutely solitary environment for your despair. Hopelessness happens when your sin so overwhelms you, yet you hide it so well, that the only part of yourself that you feel is really yourself -- the self so deep that no one but you knows it -- is your overwhelming sin. Most people cry in private. People cut themselves in private. People commit suicide quite privately. Hopelessness is when you meet your darkest side, and you are too afraid to make it public. Hopelessness is you and your dark side, alone, in private, commiserating with one another.

That's why I believe that my friend who cuts herself has hope. Her secret was discovered. The symptom (her cutting) of deeper issues came to light. It's as though the opening to those deeper issues has been discovered, and now a Pandora's box of darkness, hurt, and pain has been opened, and with it -- hope.

Sometimes I wish there had never been a need for hope. If Eve had never bitten into the beautiful fruit, if first sin had never taken place, if the world had remained young and perfect forever, no one would know what hope even was. After all, what would we hope for?

Other times, I scream with gladness for hope's existence. It's like someone said somewhere: How would we know light, unless it had first broken through the darkness? I have a little black box in my soul -- my own Pandora's box of sin and shame that I keep hidden from everyone I know. I can't seem to let go of it because I'm so busy keeping it covered. I think hope exists inside of those boxes. Hope is released only by opening Pandora's box. Hope happens when my despair encounters the Gospel.

Hope is not victory. Hope is faith in victory. Sergei told me, "Life is a wrestling match. Sometimes we win small victories, sometimes we fail. What counts is not winning every round, but continuing the fight. You might fall a million times, or more. What God asks is not that you never fall, but that you never stop fighting. We know already that the ultimate victory is ours."

That's hope: falling, having to tap out, going to the corner to catch your breath and get a drink of water, and returning to the fight. Hope is confident of victory, without yet seeing it. We know that our Coach is not merely watching from the corner, but is giving us the strength to continue the fight, to love the fight, and ultimately, to see the victory He won and continues to win through us.

Similar to faith, a small mustard seed of hope is all it takes to create light from darkness, beauty from despair. That's what I experienced the other day. In the face of all my repetitive sins and old fears and continuing sense of shame, seeds of hope grew into great spreading trees of faith in Jesus Christ who loves me and gave Himself for me.

I hope that next time, I won't go back to the old sin. I hope that I will be the winner of the next round, in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord. "I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams." I hope.

Guiding Principles, or, The Great Commandment Again

Hannah and I were talking in the little Starbucks at Barnes and Noble today: we've both been having some life crises lately. You know, the usual Senioritis scares of Who-Am-I-Really-And-What-The-Hell-Am-I-Going-To-Do-With-My-Life. Maybe it was because of the stimulating Barnes and Noble atmosphere, or maybe it was because I was coming off a caramel frappuccino, or maybe it was because when Hannah opens up like she did I always get inspired. But I came up with a couple diagrams (scrawled on ripped-out pages from a little pocket notebook), the first a simple principle that I hope comes to define my life and the second a principle that will define every person's life as long as she doesn't give up. (Giving up is the worst.)

Guiding Principle No. 1:

LOVE YOURSELF.

Guiding Principle No. 2:

(It got a mention on Hannah's blog! Wow!: http://londonfoggyblog.blogspot.com/)

Try --> FAIL

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etc.

Try --> die.

= SUCCESS...

...is NOT being perfect.

...is being a glorious imperfection in the Kingdom of God.

Really, I just stole those principles from Jesus' two Great Commandments (Matt. 22:37-40). The first "Guiding Principle" is only a summary of the two commandments, and the second sums up our lives lived in light of them. I'm not trying to be cynical.-- I mean, life is scary...and awesome! By the grace of God (as opposed to my effort at perfection) I get up again every time I fail.

My difficulty is with Guiding Principle No. 3:

Grace

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v

>-|-O [sideways stick-person me] <------Grace

^

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Grace

(This diagram means rest in grace.)

Pockets Turned Out

What if we hid nothing from each other?

I've been writing letters back and forth with a beautiful young Christ-follower that I haven't known very well before, and she has been so transparent with me. It's allowed me to do the same. There is in the space of such a small time a connection between us that I rarely feel: an encouragement and a hope built. A trust. One I never expected to feel with her. A trust that I will struggle to keep, because we are sisters in Him who makes trust, and hope, possible.

Suddenly, without even realizing it, worship happens.

What if we all did what they used to do before the first person ate the first bite of sin? What if we exposed ourselves for the (im)perfections that we are? That we all are.

What if Adam and Eve hadn't hid themselves?

As Kathleen Kelly says in You've Got Mail: "I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void."

Composed of Eros and of dust...

Once, I looked out of the back window of a minivan and believed that I could clamber out onto the clouds in the sky above, and that when I got there they would be great soft mountains and I could explore the hundreds of shining caves. I thought if I looked long enough, I would find God there.

Once, my sister and I picked dozens of red berries that stained our fingers, and used them to decorate a scrawny, four-foot pine tree in our neighbor's back woods. The pine tree had only two branches, each on opposite sides like arms reaching slightly forward. We hung berries on each of his green needle fingers. It was Christmas time. I imagine snow everywhere, but I'm not sure if that is only my imagination enhancing the memory. I know that we named the tree "Little Pine." (We were very creative children.) We used to visit him often, he seemed so lonely standing in the middle of the path, a small citizen in a tall world. That winter became fiercely cold, and Michigan suffered from several ice storms that shattered many pipes and caused a great number of power-outages. The spring that followed, Hannah and I wandered back through those woods to visit Little Pine and noticed that his fingers weren't green anymore and the sap had run dry beneath his skin. Winter had robbed him early of life. We both cried a little then.

Once, the song Pavane, by Gabriel Faure, changed me forever.

(Listen to it laid out on your living room floor with your eyes closed. If you are unable to lie down, or if your living room floor is a primary walkway in your house, then feel free to ignore this stipulation. However, eyes closed is imperative.)

Once, I sat in a hammock next to the person I love and pretended to be in the Amazon rainforest. For all the birds and all the green leaves swirling overhead and the warm smell of rain, it may as well have been. I felt delight when he said it might as well have been, too.

Once, I read these words for the first time: "Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me." For the first time, I thought: Yes.

(I spent the rest of that reading -- The History of Love -- thinking Yes, again and again.)

Once, my great-grandfather died. At his funeral, I couldn't get the smell of Tootsie Rolls from my senses.

One night, I looked out from the window of a loft where I was preparing to sleep. I stared out over the fields and fences and thought a soft white fog had lowered over everything on the earth. But the trees had dark islands beneath them where the fog left an untouched circle. I understood: the soft white fog became moonlight. I leaned my face against the cool glass and watched the full moon drench the world, looked down and watched the shadows spread. I laid my head on the pillow and slept.

I find all of these things to be beautiful. Like the deep blues and glowing yellows of van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night, the memories of these flicker inside my heart in varying colors of pain and joy. Hannah and I drove to Houston from Baton Rouge today -- five hours -- and we talked about this ... "aesthetic sense," for lack of a better term: this sense that fills all of us at certain moments. Moments we can't predict or pattern, but that rumble inside of our souls when they come and leave us in hushed and reverent wonder. They serve to "keep us out of the set ways of life," as Hannah read to me from A Severe Mercy. They remind us of the terrible beauty of being alive.

These are some of mine.

Breaking into Eden

I have a Saviorless Complex.

No, not a Savior Complex. I never really was able to think of myself as anybody's savior. But I sure as hell have wanted to be my own. No--I've wanted to not need saving.

Every now and then I meet a girl who seems to have it all. You know, the kind who is good at cooking, interior designing, and babysitting, but also knows how to fix a car, has been skydiving, traveled on three or more continents to help construct houses for the poor and destitute, and has been in one serious relationship which she is now out of but learned a great deal from. Maybe she has a small nose piercing. The independent type who has 1000+ Facebook friends who all wish her happy birthday on her wall or via text message. She plays guitar. She has Isaiah 43 memorized and tattooed on her arm, and she knows all the moves to "Single Ladies" which she performs at slumber parties with her best girl friends. And did I mention she is 5'6" and weighs 115 pounds? Yeah. You know you've met her. (And if you're a girl, you can NOT tell me you didn't want to hate her. You did.)

Every now and then I meet more or less that kind of girl, and I want to be her. Why? Because she seems important. More than that, she doesn't seem to need anything. It seems that she has never left Eden.

She deserves to be the bride of Christ.

Somehow, after all I was taught growing up, all I saw in my parents, and all that God has ever told me, I nevertheless tell myself that I would be more secure in God's love if I could be perfect than if I just submit to never being perfect in this life and accept Christ's atonement for my imperfection. I would rather God look at me and say, "Sarah! Wonderfully done! You are deeply deserving of this reward," than, "Sarah! My Son has covered up all of your wrongs and given you His own record of right living, so here is your reward." This conviction of mine is grounded in a mix of pride and a history of listening to the lie that I'm better off finding my own perfection -- I'm better off if I can "be like God" (Satan, Gen. 3:5).

Maybe Eve thought her relationship with God would be better--maybe He would love her even more--if she could just become a little better, in her case by "gaining wisdom" (Eve, Gen. 3:6) by eating the fruit. As soon as she made her own effort to improve what God had already done in her and what their relationship already was, she realized she was naked--felt even more convinced that something was lacking--and "hid from the Lord" (Gen. 3:8). For the first time, she was separated from Him.

The more I try to do this on my own--try to put on this front of perfection--the more I internally feel the trenches widening, feel myself distant from God's love.

When I try to win God's love, I am essentially rejecting the free love. It suddenly occurs to me: I am so much more certain of the truth of a person's love if they offer it of their own accord than if I have to be a good cook, or dress well, or have good boobs, or like the Twilight series for them to be sold out with love for me.

God's like, "Hey, I'm sold out with love for you." Period. Did you hear that beautiful piece of punctuation? Period.

In Isaiah 43 (yes, the chapter that Miss Don't-You-Wish-You-Were-Her had tattooed on her arm), it says this: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name; you are Mine." And again, "I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from Me there is no savior."

Can I rephrase? "Don't be afraid, because I have redeemed you. Sarah, you are Mine." My favorite definition of "Redeem" from dictionary.com: "to obtain the release or restoration of, as from captivity, by paying a ransom."

Perfectionism is captivity. Redemption...freedom...love happens when I stop saving myself. The ransom was paid. "Sarah, you are Mine."

This is me, saying I will try to stop trying to clamber over the walls of Eden. Instead, I'll take the invitation to come in the front door. I'll take the invitation, with my wedding dress on and my Groom's face lighting up just inside the garden.

(I might need the Groom to come pull me down off the wall first and then drag me in through the front gate. I'm pretty hard-headed when it comes to learning this whole Grace thing. Thank God Jesus isn't looking for a bride that deserves Him, only one that loves Him.)

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Our Father, Who Art in Heaven...

I got a letter in the mail today, written on tissue paper, from a friend I hardly know. She talked about lightning and about uncertainty and about paintings and about separation. In short, she is one cool cat. But it got me thinking.

"If His ways are higher," she wrote, "and His thoughts -- who can know them? then it makes sense -- the feeling of being lost occasionally -- 'Relax,' Kateri says, 'You're not hearing His will? He just hasn't told you yet. Wait on Him to the point of feeling uneasy, past that point until we feel our need on Him and trust Him alone.' What does He delight in? A heart that sees Him."

She's going to be my roommate next year. (I'm so lucky.)

If I could be one of the elements, I would be water. I'm not, of course; I'm earth like everybody else: "From dust to dust." But since I was a little girl, I have loved the rush of storms. In the water-soaked air I would turn and turn until the whole world seemed to be a rushing, swirling fountain. The world is, after all, puddle-wonderful (e. e. cummings). I have always felt that rain is God's way of touching me, and the raindrops are His fingers.

For Thine is the Power...

A week or so ago, my cousins and I ran out onto the beach in Pensacola to watch as a lightning storm broke between the clouds over the water. For the first couple days of our vacation there, at about four o'clock each afternoon, the sky would become black and ominous away behind the city. Over the ocean it would still be a pristine blue, and so we never knew that a storm was coming until fat raindrops began to hit our faces. We would quickly lower our beach umbrellas, gather up our coolers and towels, and rush back to the safety of our condos. But this evening we girls couldn't resist the deep utterings and bright glances of lightning. The sky looked like Zeus's battleground. The clouds were hazy purple, and from one to the next would shower bright bolts of lightning, hotter than the sun. Sometimes we could only see the clouds light up, like a lampshade behind which the bulb has briefly been snapped on, then out. Once, a thick crooked beam dove into the ocean about a mile off the beach where we stood watching. We all ducked instinctively behind the railing of the pier and stared at each other with wide, excited eyes.

That night, God felt dangerous.

Thy Will Be Done on Earth...

It's a lot easier to think about sacrificing my life to death than to think about sacrificing all of the things that make me alive. Family, sweet iced tea, and affectionate kisses, for instance. Human sympathy and Frank Sinatra. My hands are full of things like this. A bundle of things that make life worth living. Sometimes I wish Jesus hadn't said, "Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." I have a feeling He wasn't talking about dying, but was talking about making your hands -- my hands -- empty.

God is not safe. He asks me to lose my life for His sake. God is dangerous.

Sometimes I believe that God is asking me to give and give and give, and I'd rather just keep the things that make me comfortable, that make life easy, that keep me safe.

What I forget to remember is that in order to receive anything, my hands have to be empty. I also forget that God is not anything. He is a pearl of greatest price. Am I too afraid to sell everything I have just to buy the field where the best and most beautiful Thing on earth is hidden? Am I too afraid to brave the lightning for the sweet touch of rain?

I happen to believe that many of the things in my life are God-given. Some are temporary, some are permanent. Trying to figure out which is which is much more complicated. My friend said, "There are things that are a blessing for a time and then He takes them back. Sometimes He requires us to let go of something before we can see what He would have us grab onto. If our hands are full, how do we receive?" So, if you're out there and you're wise, I have a question: How do you know what is grabbed and what is received? I mean, how do you know what God is calling you to?

"Is there a steady growing excitement?" she wrote, leading me to clues. "A regret if you don't do it? A peace? Do you like the consequences of the action? If it's a new thing that has come along, are you willing to sacrifice the original for this? Will it interfere with priorities?"

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

It is comforting to remember that Jesus didn't just say, "Whoever empties His hands," but also said, "Do not worry about tomorrow..." and John says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us...."

Lightning terrifies me, but God's embrace is in the rain. And lightning is extraordinarily beautiful. If I turn out my pockets, I think God will take some things away. But He will also put some things back, and replace the old with the new. In following His will to the point of feeling uneasy, past that to the point of being able to trust only in Him, there comes an all-surpassing peace.

Hallowed Be Thy Name.

Disconnected, at last

(The Prelude: "Blogging is Not for Sissies") I have made journals into the dumping grounds of the emotional scurf that I want to rub off before writing anything truly good and worthwhile. Essentially, they are my emotional land fill. So beginning a blog that is non-land-fill-y is kind of difficult for me. A blog is like a journal -- something I expect no one will read and something into which I pour my rather useless, meandering thoughts. Besides, having now a head cold, my thoughts are perhaps even more useless and meandering than ever. But here goes.

(The Fugue: "Don't Worry This Is Not a Treatise on Postmodernism") Into the vapor of my currently infected mind entered the idea of Past. I heard my Lit professor's voice in my head: "Postmodernists believe that this age in which we live marks a complete separation from history and the past." We are not only out of touch with the past as it really was, Postmodernists say, but also the past has very little to do with us anymore: so many events that we will never even know about have shaped us, and so much has changed within the past century that these changes make the past essentially useless.

I've always hated the idea of separation from history. I was the nerd who remembered such random details about historic events that I could rattle off facts like: "The Indians taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn by planting fish in the field with the corn." (Now there's an important item to remember if you're ever on Jeopardy.) Somehow history seems too important to let go of. Too important to cast off like the husks of the corn that the Pilgrims grew. History, whether we understand the full picture or not, has shaped who we are and why we are who we are, not only as nations, but as individuals.

On the other hand, personal history is something I've always wished I could be more Postmodern about. Not just my own history -- which I kind of enjoyed, expect for the long shorts with high socks I used to wear all the time, the memory of which I wouldn't be sad to part with -- but the history of those I interact with on a daily basis. What I mean is, sometimes people change. Sometimes they change quickly, within the course of a couple years. Sometimes hope enters the vacant room of a person's heart and throws out all of the crap that the person was previously using to fill his or her heart up. So why is it sometimes so hard to let go of the crap? Not to keep bringing up garbage analogies, but isn't holding on to someone's past wrongs kind of like going out to their dumpster, grabbing the hairball that they pulled out of their shower drain, and saying: "Ha! I knew your shower drain used to be clogged! I knew it all along!"

How much of a right do I have to tell my friend that their past wrongs are still scarring me? Do I have any right at all? I mean, maybe I do. Maybe the fact that once upon a time -- perhaps even before they knew me -- they said they hated brunettes gives me a right to be a little bit pissed that they were/are the brunette-hating type. Maybe I have a right to suddenly be a little bit suspicious that they will one day become the brunette-hating type again.

Or, on the other hand, maybe I should revoke my right to even say, "I forgive you for once hating brunettes." Maybe I should simply say, "I'm glad you are who you are now. How fantastic."

Maybe I should let the hairball lie. What do you think?

If you're out there, and you're reading this, and you don't have a clue what I'm talking about: Congratulations. You must be forgiving enough or Postmodern enough to simply let other people's baggage roll right off your back (if you even let it roll onto your back in the first place).

If you're out there, and you're reading this, and you get what I'm talking about, then I have one of two responses for you:

1) Thank you for giving me hope that I am not the only one who holds onto grudges that I have no right to hold onto. Thank you for thus encouraging me to let go of my bitterness over the baggage of other people's pasts.

Or

2) I'm sorry that I ever judged you or withheld the forgiveness that I never even had a right to give or withhold. Your past is your own, and it is also your past. And as someone who sucks at being Postmodern, I nonetheless would like to say that your past mistakes are as separate from me as I believe you are separate from them. They may as well never have existed. Your drain isn't clogged anymore. And you are fantastic.

Orange Peels

They say it's good to slow down, take time to "eat the orange," as it were--enjoy the present, little moments of life without worrying about the past or the future. Good advice. The only problem is that this semester I've learned that eating the orange can sometimes be confused with eating the orange peel. I'll stop being abstract: many times I managed to think so much of my own present moment that I paid little attention to future ramifications or even to the people around me that might be affected, forgotten, or hurt by my own indulgence.

I don't have with me a ready solution, nor even an apology. I am only here because it is midnight and I find myself unable to sleep. Heaven knows I should be tired after a semester of late-or-all-nighters, relational battles, intense academics, and spiritual darkness. Somehow, though, all of these leave me in a state of mild insomnia. I figured getting something out, jotting a word down and engaging in the all-too-American process of self-analysis, might help me to sleep easier in the end. But none of this seems very important now that I sit down to "pencil" it out.

The only things that seem important now are these:

-The soft snores of a 3-month old child in my parents' bedroom.

-A slender bouquet of purple mums from dad to mom on her twenty-second Mothers Day.

-The shucking sound of pages turned as my sister reads to fall asleep. (The promise made by that shuck shuck shuck that family is near.)

-Family.

-Five Frescas chilling in the fridge, waiting for tomorrow.

-The vibration of an incoming text message spelling out the words: "I love you."

-Unshaved legs. (There's significance in that, women: unashamed to be the way God made you.)

-An empty box of Kleenex.

-And thus, catharsis.

-Bavarian sugar cookies.

-"A smoldering wick He will not snuff out."

Anyway, they say that most of the nutrients in an orange reside in the peel. I look back on this semester with relief that it is over and that I can close that chapter of my book and never open it again; yet I also look back with relief as I understand how God can use even my sin and selfishness to purge me of the same, to teach me His grace, and to give me a glimpse of Jesus who wore that sin written on his skin and that grace written on His heart.

Like I said, not offering solutions. Only: maybe now I'll sleep.

Happy New Year!

Can I just say, wow for the fireworks tonight ... color and light bursting into the darkness, onto the scene of a new year, a new start, a new chance to make promises ... and break the ones about diet and exercise. In fact, even though I just bought myself a new swimsuit, I don't think I can pass up the Chicken Divan that even now waits for me in Grandma's kitchen. Da' gurl that stuff was so good last night ... and there's Bluebell ice cream in the freezer. Diet, shmiet.

A glass of sparkling grape juice hailed in my new year, toasted with my family. (I tried champagne twice -- two different New Years -- and both times I nearly sprayed the toast over everybody, which doesn't exactly make anyone happy.) This small change makes a person thankful, it really does. Looking around and seeing the faces of people that you love being lit by reds and greens and blues as you all toast to life, to another year survived together (which can sometimes be considered a small miracle), to another year with each other to look forward to. Funny thing, I always seem to look back when the new year comes around and find myself thankful for past things, old friends, good memories. Heck, New Year almost makes a person more grateful than Thanksgiving. Maybe it's just cuz we stay up later. The whole world seems to become a philosopher past midnight. Or maybe it's just all the kissing couples.

'He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"' (Rev. 21:5)

Thinking about that promise, I make a resolution humbly, knowing I can't even resist a bowl of ice cream for one day, yet confidently, knowing that I have One who is able to make me new -- to bring my promises to reality.

I resolve: to LOVE.

And love and love and love. Without selfishness, selfish motive, or the interference of selfish desires. To love as "He first loved us." To love in the reality of the Cross, in the awareness of the Cross, in the light of the Cross and Him who died on it and rose from the dead to make me able to love in that way.

This isn't a new resolution. I've made it the past three years. And I've failed many many many times. Probably more than I've succeeded. But I still see it as a success not a failure. Every failing of mine becomes a beautiful mark of the chisel as Jesus shapes me into His likeness. It's a resolution of growth. As I grow, may my ability to love also grow. Like a flower stretching out of the ground, may I, every year, bloom.

So goodnight, 2009, and welcome to the world. May we make the most of you.

I thought I'd start this blog out with a mantra:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

I want this to become the theme of my life, the motto I live by, the song I dance to. He loved me. He loved me. And gave himself for me. You know that song, "I'VE GOT THE POWAH!!" Yeah. That. I've got it. Christ lives in me. It is because of that power, that promise, that I can start really living.

Ready or not, here I come.