Adventures

Re-discovered this draft of a post that I wrote in January and figured that I better share it even if it ain't perfect:

"I can't believe you're eating inside, guys!" I exclaimed. "It's glorious out there!" Plate in hand, I marched out the front door into the sunshine, hoping wistfully that others would follow, but feeling too independent and excited about the weather to really care.

To my delight, just about everyone trailed out after me.

"We don't want you to feel lonely," a sweetheart, who we'll call Rose, assured me.

The January sun shone with steroid vigor, thawing the frigid Northeast to a toasty sixty degrees. We munched on carrot sticks and soup, letting laughter and wit fly back and forth until the air was thick with it. Sitting on the front porch wasn't enough for me. I had to move. Setting down my plate, I went down the porch from the others and leaped off the side, sprinting down the broad carpet lawn, long denim skirt whipping around my ankles. The grass was still green and young after lying under the smoldering snow, and it blinked awake from its frosty dreams with sleepy surprise. I ran. I danced. I embraced the sun.

I don't always realize how much light affects me until I suddenly have it or realize that I don't. I now remembered that we had experienced far too many cloudy days before this one.

And then I saw it. A dandelion--in January--beaming in the warmth. I picked it.

Reese was struggling. Again. I could feel it, just as sure as I felt the sun through the stone step I sat on. I asked her if she was okay, and she said yes, but like any good friend I wouldn't believe her. But it was okay.

I have said before that I'm pretty sure I'm where I'm supposed to be. Well, looking back, I'm absolutely convinced of it. It's funny how sometimes God doesn't always give us what we think we want. He gives us what we need.

One summer, I weeded flower beds in buggy New England for hours on end partly so my friend could stay inside hour after hour doing secretary work. I hate weeding in buggy New England. My friend hates secretarying. I like being inside. She likes being outside. And yet God put us where we were needed. By the end of the summer, I actually enjoyed weeding. As the bugs swarmed about me, I could feel my character bulbing through my skin faster than my bug bites.

Recently, I talked to a couple of other friends with whom I went to Bible school. These dear hearts always had time for people when we were together (maybe even too much time?), while I struggled to put aside my precious projects (that I barely remember now) and focus on cultivating friendships. Where are these friends now? In college, battling through classrooms and work, so busy that they have to turn down coffee outings and struggle with loneliness (poor dears!). Where am I? At home taking on-line classes, with my primary occupation and priority being people, people, people.

I think God has a sense of humor.

He also knows exactly what we need.

So here I am, studying, studying, studying, and visiting, visiting, visiting. And I love it.

Though there is a price.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable," C.S. Lewis so wisely said. And here I am, learning to love people in ways I haven't before now. My heart reaches out and intertwines with theirs. Reaches. Grows. Nestles. And bleeds.

Everyone who really loves knows what I'm talking about. Those with the spiritual gift of Mercy know it even more. When you see someone's pain, it instantly becomes your own. That's really why I can barely stand the sight of blood. I don't tremble or nearly faint because it's messy. Life is messy. I tremble because I see that blood as their very life leaking out, and I immediately picture myself bleeding for them so that I can take their pain away. So I look away, tremble, or faint.

The same thing happens when I see them hurting on the inside.

I kid thee not.

However, the wonderful news is that Jesus has already bled for these people! I don't have to bleed for them. And so, after requesting prayer from a small company of believers in the Catskills of New York, I've experienced an overall peace. Yes, it's true that I did have a hard time last weekend. My friend felt like she was in pieces. I felt like I was in pieces.

Scenes of You keep rushing through, You are breaking me down,
So break me into pieces that will grow in the ground. (JJ Heller)

As my dad wisely reminded us in church last Sunday, "The first hundred years are the hardest."

The rest is only glorious.

Someone I hadn't talked to in a long time asked me today what is new. Thoughts flitted here and there as I evaluated what he would term as "new." Does he mean something big like going to college? Or something small like enjoying the weather? And yet, in my mind, both events were new and exciting, so I replied . . .

"All of my life is an adventure, actually."

The more I think of it, the more I realize that it's true. I really am a healed adventurer! Lately, Reese has felt weighed down over the hardness of the Christian life. She's right--life is hard! And yet, so are adventures. Just ask Bilbo Baggins, who had to do without his pocket handkerchief. He also miserably asked himself again and again, "Oh why did I leave my dear little hobbit hole?"

But now and then, he thought that maybe it was worth it. And by the end, he knew it was.

Yes, I have had days lately that seemed to go terribly wrong. Days where I was convinced that the Enemy was trying to get at me. Days where I just curled up and cried because I didn't think I could do what I had to do.

Nevertheless.

I have come to be thankful for tears because I know now that not everyone is even capable of shedding them. I am not distressed by the Enemy because I have discovered that I have a daddy who will pray for me when I ask him to. And when I think I can't go on, my mom hugs me and prays her heart out, and somehow life looks brighter afterward.

So yes, my life is an adventure. Perhaps others may not see it that way, but I do. This week alone, I have felt the thrill of running five miles in springy weather next to my friend Jess, who set a relentless pace. I might have had to plow through a cramp I failed to mention to her, but as I staggered into the kitchen, barely able to move my red fingers, I felt alive.

On another day, I snapped pictures of a gorgeous Chinese dinner. I fried donuts with Reese. I played ultimate frisbee, basketball, and volleyball. I may not have played very well, but I had boundless energy and felt like I could play for hours.

The next day, as I snuggled into my sage green papasan chair before sunrise to read my Bible, I felt a little needy and more distant from God than I liked. I read about how God showed steadfast love to Joseph while he was in prison. I asked God to show me that steadfast love and to help me close the gap between us. Rising from my chair after the sun had risen, I glanced out the window and gasped. An unexpected flurry had arrived overnight, already blanketing that young green grass in about four inches of white splendor.

It was time for my walk.

I stepped out into the ethereal land, agape in wonder. Here was the magical whiteness, so clean, pure, unexpected, deep, and covering everything.

Just like the love of God.

God had already started answering my prayer.

I strode off down the driveway, my tracks the first to mar the perfect landscape. As I prayed, now and then I stopped to breathe in the beauty or stick out my tongue to catch a snowflake. Then I saw it. A small spider, the color of a green whisper, sluggishly crawling over the snow. I was fascinated, and I laughed.

"You're funny," I told God, for reasons I don't care to explain.

I started tromping up the hill. "GOOD MORNING, KAYLA!!!!!" Startled, I looked up to see Reese burst from behind a snowy bush and come tumbling down the hill.

It was probably the best "good morning" I have ever had.

As Reese described it later, when she heard me talking, she was almost sure that I must have known she was there. Yet she was determined to play her prank (I have scared her twenty times more than she's scared me) and figured that she would either break her leg or scare me.

"Maybe you could have broken your leg and scared her," Rose suggested. "Breaking your leg would have scared her." She had a point.

As Reese bounded down the bank, I gave no reaction whatsoever, but she had truly surprised me, so I admitted to her that she had "scared me a little." Reese did a little victory dance and promptly fell down in the slippery driveway. I pretended she had gotten down to make a snow angel, however, so I joined her, even though her shorts and t-shirt garb obviously showed that snow angels were far from her mind.

So that greeting made my morning, if not my week (remember my post about how I like greetings?). However, my day had only just begun. After sensing some real help from God when I needed it (this may have also been the day I recalled to be thankful for tears), I decided to go sledding for the first time this season on my lunch break. So I donned my snow pants and boots, and immediately I was a kid again. Romping, sliding, wiping out, spinning, snow licking, face planting, and snow throwing, I had the time of my life! A song from my childhood suddenly pushed itself through the membrane of forgetfulness, boisterously crying, "Boomboom ain't it great to be crazy? Boomboom ain't it great to be crazy?"

Ayup.

But the day wasn't over. That evening, I started leading heart group with the Bible school girls! It's the perfect excuse to have them all over to my house and all to myself. I fed them tapioca, tea, and scones (made by my mom), and I shared some things that God has put on my heart, particularly about being a warrior and learning our identity as women in Christ. Then we dove into reading John and Stasi Eldridge's book Captivating and discussed the importance of not just trying harder as women, but learning who Christ has already made us. All the while, they made posters for themselves and then wrote encouraging adjectives on them for each other. This was to encourage unity and help us to realize good things about ourselves so that we can actually live them. Not in a prideful sort of way, but in a "reflected glory" sort of way. We prayed, we laughed, we wrote words, and Reese read Harry Potter to us.

As they filed out the door shortly before their curfew, I darted out the door barefoot and did what I'd been thinking of doing all evening: somersaults in the snow! I'm pretty sure I did about six all together. It was exhilarating.

I crawled into bed that night, convinced of the love of God. And convinced (at the risk of sounding repetitive) that my life really is an adventure.