It was very good

GOD IS SO FAITHFUL!!!

If you like, you can fore go reading the rest of this post now that you've gotten the summary. It may be that you will tire of reading about God, my life, and my gratefulness. But if you want to risk it, I invite you to read further...

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The step creaked in protest beneath my tired tread. Winding up the wood stairs to the third floor bedroom, I set the rinsed out trash can by the desk and collapsed on the bed where my sister sat working. I had taught my first lesson that day. I had only started learning how to teach yesterday and already I'd been tossed into the deep end of the swimming pool. Trying to swim had thrown me into a whirl pool of headache, sobs, and vomit. Just that afternoon I had been washing my hands in a restroom in Faneuil Hall, looking at my tear stained face and sighing, "I feel so weak."

Then in it flashed.

I say flashed. When God whispers to my heart it is more like a loving impression, too random and perfect to be any thought of my own.

"My power is made perfect in weakness."

Now I lay on my bed. It was about 8:30 p.m. and all I wanted to do was sleep off my headache and exhaustion. I didn't feel capable of doing anything at all, and yet I knew I had a mountain to swallow before 9:00 a.m. the next morning: my first forty-minute lesson to plan. I knew there was no way I could accomplish such a feat with a passing grade in the condition I was in.

"My power is made PERFECT in weakness."

I had God's power and there was nothing I could do to make it any more or less perfect. Now was the time to "ride out" with God and see Him work. Now was the time to see the rubber hit the road. I knew I couldn't do it as I was. The Holy Spirit would have to take over and plan the lesson through me.

So I sat up and set to work, tapping into that perfect power. I finished four hours later.

The next day I taught my first forty-minute lesson. That is, I asked the Holy Spirit to teach through me, and He ended up getting the best grade that I would receive for the entire course. That week I read about how "nevertheless, David took the stronghold." A note I made in my margin during Bible class blessed me: "The Davidic spirit is one that overcomes the impossible. This comes from faith in God's ability."

God had taken one more tiny stronghold through me.

I've neglected to recount God's goodness to me over the summer so far. I wish to do so now. After all, my purpose here is not just to sing of my woes or selfish concerns, but to sing of the faithfulness of the One who has loosed my tongue. The Bible reference in my blog heading includes the following words: "Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you."5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert."

My summer was kicked off in early May with my Bible school graduation. Three years of intense feeding on God's Word--over. I didn't have much time to mope about it though, because I spent the next week packing, cleaning out, throwing stuff away, signing yearbooks, and completing pre-course homework for the following week.

And then It began.

To put it in an egg shell, for some strange reason, my dad and I felt that God wanted me to take a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages course with my sister. So, knowing that spending a couple thousand isn't really the most logical thing to do when you're saving for college, we took the plunge of faith and signed me up for the CELTA course (Certified English Language Teaching to Adults). What is the CELTA? Only the Cadillac of TESOL courses, certified by Cambridge across the Pond. Known for its communicative approach and hands on practice built into the course, the four-week version of the CELTA course places an emphasis on the word "intense."

It wasn't long before I learned that they weren't joking. Not. One. Bit.

Honestly, going into the course in the middle of Boston, I was terrified and I was at peace. I was terrified because I knew it would probably be the most challenging task I'd ever undertaken and I had no idea what it would look like. I was at peace because I knew that since God had called me to take it, He would back me up and see me through it.

And so, as I read on the first morning before taking my first bus and train ride into the city, I put my devotions from that morning into practice. "But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God." (1 Samuel 30:6)

I had a lot of "impossibles" to face.

Over the next four weeks, I got to know and like my twelve classmates, who soon became eleven. Half of them were recent college graduates, with majors including Russian, Chinese, English, and Spanish. Another was a Muslim girl from the Midwest who has her degree in nursing ("This course is harder than nursing school," she confided in me. I wasn't sure I believed her, but it did help justify some of the stress I was feeling). My sister and I had opportunities to show her love. Once, after our class had been plotting on going bar hopping, I conspiratorially told her that I didn't want to go.

 "I don't want to go bar hopping either," she said. "I don't drink."

"Neither do I."

In her ecstasy, she high fived me, and I was delighted to share such a bonding moment with her. I've heard that some Muslims tend to think of Christians as hypocrites who dress like Hollywood, eat pork, and drink alcohol, and I felt like I was able to show her that we're not all that way. As followers of Christ, we do have convictions about certain things; Muslims aren't the only ones who know how to make a stand in personal areas. I'm not saying you can't be a perfectly good Christian and drink alcohol. What I am saying is that if I didn't have that one small conviction in my life then I would never have been able to share such a bonding moment with my Muslim friend. By the end of the course, she told us that she used to think she would never like Christians if she ever met one, but getting to know us had changed her mind. We are not so very different. Different, yes, but not so very.
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 Besides my Muslim classmate, we also had a chic lady who informed us that she "works for the government." My sister had fun speculating that this meant the F.B.I or something, but I wouldn't make any claims here. Another was a tall, balding 40ish guy who kept calling his new German wife his "girlfriend." People got after him for it but he persisted. He often said some awkward things, but we loved him anyway (or some of us did).

"Hey, nice kids' pants," he smiled at the government lady.

"They're capris, Jim," our put-together ex-Catholic classmate told him, "they're quite stylish."

"It's okay if she wants to wear a ten-year-old's pants," Jim chuckled. "It doesn't bother me."

Yes, our class was very interesting. Whether bound for China, Sweden, Georgia, Spain, Brazil, South Korea, or the Middle East, we somehow made it to one place, sweat blood and tears side by side, and got along splendidly.

Except when swearing at each other in Arabic.

Which brings me to my group. In order to practice teaching, we taught live international students. They were divided into three levels on the intermediate scale, and our teacher class of twelve were divided into three groups so we could take turns teaching each level. We watched each other teach every day, took notes, gave feedback, and received feedback. Basically we were brothers and sisters for four weeks. My group began with five, but after the first week our lawyer lady dropped out. She was extremely distraught on her last day, and I had a chance to offer to pray for her and build her up before she dropped off the face of the earth and we heard no more of her. Another member of our group included a beautiful, stylish lass with a brilliant white smile, an ebullient personality, and an independent spirit. I felt a little bit like I was hanging out with my cousin Cara. Secondly, I got to know a guy who just graduated from college, can wiggle his scalp, knows all there is to know about linguistics and Russian, and flirts with the girls at the desk. He seemed smart and kind enough toward me, but he took a mischievous delight in tormenting the other ladies in our small group. Which brings me to the last character of our foursome, debatably my favorite.

I'll call her Marie.

When I first saw Marie, I thought she looked like a woman who had just stepped out of Whoville. A long, slightly snubbed nose, tall, and short white hair swooped back in the way a Dr. Seuss character might keep it. On the first day of class, we played a little icebreaker game where we had to go around with a sheet of unique facts and ask three questions of each person to determine which unique fact belonged to whom. When she was free, I stepped straight up to Marie and immediately asked, "Have you been engaged five times?"

Yes.

She promptly responded with, "Do you play the guitar, violin, and piano?"

Yes.

Thus we began our friendship understanding each other perfectly.

We were about as different as two people could be. She opened her mouth to speak in class at almost every opportunity. I did not. She had lived in Boston her entire life, couldn't stand living in Manchester for ten months because it was too small, and she lives in a house right near the highway so she can have the "white noise" of traffic. I am a country girl through and through. She knows a smattering of half a dozen languages, from old Russian (her parents' tongue) to Mandarin, and she knows how to swear and ask for beer in each of those languages. I only know a little Spanish, and I could barely swear in English even if I wanted to. She's in her forties and has been engaged five times. I'm twenty years younger and don't even have a boyfriend. She's tough and just quit working in construction where she taught rough guys in the classroom and held her own. Well, the toughest thing I've done is yelled at twenty-five teenagers to be quiet and told a girl to get out of a guy's lap at camp.

We were destined to be great friends.

One thing we did have in common: compassionate natures. Beneath her tough exterior, Marie has a heart of gold. The first thing that popped into both of our heads as to why we wanted to teach English was so that we could help people.

Marie also had a way of making me laugh, if for no other reason than that she was a good storyteller and I couldn't relate to her. After my second or third day of teaching, I sat down next to her after delivering my assigned topic of blind dates.

"You know, Kayla," Marie told me, "you almost made me want to go on a blind date again. The last time I went on a blind date was a long time ago. It was a Russian guy, and he came back with me to my apartment. But then he wouldn't leave! I said, 'What are you doing?!' And he said, "We're going to leeve together.' And I said, "Well, I'm sleeping on the couch!" And before I knew it he had filled my refrigerator with cheese and the bedroom with cheese (it's a Russian thing) and the place smelled--it was awful. Finally after three weeks I told him that if he didn't leave I was going to kill him! So he left. I know it was my own fault he stayed so long. I should have put my foot down right away."  (very rough quote)

Marie and I also differ in our family situation. On the last day of our course, she shared with me how she hardly has any family in this country. All she has is a half brother, a father who doesn't care for her, and an uncle. That's all. She's been on her own since she was seventeen and in a way she's used to it, but there's still a part of her that never gets over it. A part of her that still feels lonely. A part that is partially missing.

Wow. Looking at my own close immediate and extended family, I can't even imagine how she must feel. At the same time, I think of my huge spiritual family and how special it is to be part of God's family. I long for Marie to experience that same sense of belonging.

Perhaps you'd like to know what a typical day on the CELTA course included for me. Well, between 6:15 and 6:55 a.m. I would arise, depending on how late I'd been up the night before. Get ready for the day, squeeze in a little Bible, print any papers I need, shove in some breakfast, and dash out the door at about 7:54. After a three minute trek to the bus station, two of which are spent at the crosswalk, we wait another five minutes for the bus. It pulls in, we hop on, and we're out of there for a ten-fifteen minute drive.

A word about bus drivers. I wanted to be friendly with every one I met, but once I gave a friendly hello to our bus driver and he just gave me an oily smile and leered at me behind his dark sunglasses. I decided to be a bit more choosy about who I lavished my cheerfulness on. However, our usual bus driver was my favorite. A lanky man wearing pants that were a little too short, he gave a casually warm "Good mohning" or "How ah ya" to each passenger in a perfect Boston accent.

 I decided that I liked him.

On the bus I either did class prep (usually handwriting sources at the bottom of each student handout) or people watched. Off the bus we got and onto the train. Usually it was on the crowded side in the mornings and wasn't conducive for conversation, so I picked those twelve minutes or so to pray over the day and for the city of Boston. "This city for King Jesus" rang in my heart repeatedly.

Off the train, up the stairs, and into the bustling city of Boston. After awhile I started becoming downright fond of the busy streets crawling with people of every ethnicity and class, like so many ants striding down a channel of the earth. Past Starbucks brimming with early morning coffee lovers, around the corner and in the back door of Faneuil Hall.

From 9:00 to about 11:20 we had input sessions. These were basically lectures, but we learned a lot of teaching methods by having them practiced on us. From 11:30 to 12:00 we had lesson planning. This was our opportunity to go over our lessons for the next day in our small groups and ask our instructor any questions we had. As time went on we got less and less help. At 12:00 was lunch break if you were lucky enough to be able to eat. After not eating right on my second day I made a point of sitting down and eating every day, if only to maintain my health and sanity. After feverishly downing some food, we scurried about getting our lessons ready. At 1:00 teaching began and kept going until 3:00. We usually had about a fifteen minute break, then dove into feedback from 3:15 until we were finished, whether at 4:00 or 4:45. If you were smart or didn't have a copier at home, you stuck around for awhile like we did, often until 5:00 or 5:30. Then back out into the street and onto the train. If the day was nice and we weren't too stressed, we walked home from the train station, about a half hour walk. If not, we rode back on the bus. Into the house we ran, and usually took a slight breather to gobble dinner and check e-mail. Then into lesson planning we plunged, filling out grammar analysis sheets, procedure pages, phonemic scripts, coming up with things that could go wrong and solutions, inventing concept checking questions, finding visuals, and the like. For me, I was lucky if I finished and went to bed by 12:30 a.m. Between 1:00 and 2:00 was probably my average, though 2:30 was not unusual. 2:42 a.m. my record. Then I'd wake up four hours later, begging God to help me survive through another day of the same thing.

In spite of this, it was amazing. I found myself growing more than I could have imagined, and gaining more and more confidence. And I discovered that I loved teaching. But more especially, I loved my students. Whether from Morocco, Russia, or Brazil, they nestled into a special place in my heart and stayed there. I wanted nothing more than to see them succeed and have fun while doing it.

That is, when I wasn't sweating through class.

It wasn't the students who ever intimidated me. Most of them were warm, encouraging, and eager to learn. What was scary was that instructor sitting in the corner gauging my every move. If you sat in your chair too much, they'd say so. If you paced about the room too much, they'd write it down. If you echoed the students, turned your face to the board while talking, talked too much, moved the lesson too quickly or too slowly, didn't chest your handout, didn't keep your board work tidy, didn't get their attention quickly enough, didn't notice students getting off topic, went three minutes over, or a million other things that are impossible to remember at once unless you've been doing this for a long time, they would write it down. And of course each instructor had different definitions about things, such as what was a fast pace or a slow pace.

Maybe you can see another reason why this course is called "intense."

I found myself learning to trust God just one step at a time. I took each lesson day by day and clung to Him for survival. He was pretty much the only reason I didn't panic. Even though most of my devotional time was spent on the Sabbath, I felt more connected to God than usual because I was in almost constant prayer to make it through each day.

After two weeks of this, I summed up my week this way on Facebook (it was the best way I could describe it): When I had every reason to cry, I didn't. When I had every reason to feel overwhelmed, I wasn't. When I had every reason to drop from exhaustion, I didn't. Someone must have been praying for me, and Someone must have been answering, because when I've cried, I've cried over God's goodness, when I've been overwhelmed, I've been overwhelmed with peace, and when I was exhausted, I was exhausted thinking what it would be like if I didn't have the stamina of Christ coursing through me. Thanks be to God! (And may it continue for two more weeks!)

Crying over God's goodness was no joke. I read 1 Samuel 22 and tears started streaming, it seemed to describe exactly how I felt.

But it wasn't over yet.

On Sunday, I had two papers to write, and I felt drained. Just talking on the phone for two minutes to a stranger left me crippled emotionally. I was afraid to go to church because the effort to not cry while sitting on the front row seemed too huge. So at my parents' suggestion I stayed home and worked. And worked. Then rode back to Boston and worked some more.

The next morning it was too much, so I got smart and brought my feelings to God. I was pretty sure He answered, "Who said riding out with Me was always easy?" I remembered that God had called me to take this course, and in taking it I was carrying out His will and riding with Him in this small battle. Then the words to my own song came to me, "Trust Me, Elijah, I have a plan. Join Me in the wilderness."

This was a wilderness if I ever saw one. And I got to experience it with God.

By the time I got off of the train that morning, I had recommitted everything to Him.

It's only in His will that I am free, after all.

The fourth week was hard, but through Christ, it was bearable. I hardly knew what to do with myself after I had taught my last lesson. For the first time in nearly four weeks I didn't have something stressful hanging over my head every second! It was a freedom so foreign and so delicious.

Two days after CELTA ended, we left for NY and GA where we attended my friend Becca's high school graduation and my brother's wedding to one of my best friends. I had the privilege of being one of her bridesmaid's, and I had fun being helpful and wearing a gorgeous aqua summer dress that was made just for me. They got hitched outside, though not over the dead horse's grave like I had suggested. I wasn't too offended they didn't take me up on my idea though. Somehow it was a joyous occasion anyway.

I would say a lot more, but frankly everything was so blissful I don't think I could quite capture it, and this post is gargantuan already. I could speak of how Jane's brother Jeff accidentally made his car alarm go off while acting out a story about Jane or how the bridal party started getting ready at 5:30 a.m. or how ants were crawling all over my feet during the wedding and it took all of my composure to keep myself from leaping about during the ceremony or how I borrowed a friend's guitar and sang my heart out in the new gazebo after everyone was gone until I gave myself a blister or how I got to comfort my crying brother one last time on the eve of his wedding day. But that would take too much time. And if you've gotten this far in the post, you are probably already getting bored.

After we got back from the wedding, I had two days. Two days to job dig. I had already made about a dozen phone calls in the car looking for teaching jobs, to no avail. So I checked Craig's list, the newspaper, and on-line sites. I applied, I e-mailed, I called. Nothing worked out. I so badly wanted to do everything I could to find a job that it took me awhile to realize I had to trust God to help me find a job as well. Having done everything I could for the time being, I decided to wait on Him.

So I decided to run drama for the Family Convention again. Tackling it for my third time, I chose to be smart this time. No more trying the run the show on my own. Regular consultations with God were in order, and together we planned drama day by day. God is the Source of creativity, so to that Source I fled. Often I didn't know what we were going to be doing that day or the next, but somehow I made it through, despite late nights, tense mornings, little food, and having to continually surrender it to the Lord.

At the same time, I had a lot of fun. It's funny how stressful things and fun things can coincide so closely.

Also, during the Family Convention, I came to truly appreciate the fellowship I experienced. Whether it was getting to listen to or unload feelings to Katie or Kimberly, listening to and encouraging Emily or Sarah as they graduate from high school, having one-on-one conversations with my buddies Meredith or Klara, or just having a short connection with Mr. Brown or young Chloe, I was grateful for the Body of Christ. Especially when some of us got to stay up until 12:30 a.m. playing volleyball outside.

A couple days after the Family Convention ended, my family went to a camp in Maine for vacation. Ah, what euphoria to sit in the sun on a rocking dock and devour hours of Dickens and fantasy fiction! Plus plundering yard sales, going on a boat ride, and getting some coveted exercise. I started gaining back the 4-8 pounds I'd lost this spring (which is a good thing).

Since then, things have been a bit more quiet. Quite the contrast to the first part of my summer. I've had doctors' appointments to get ready for college, I've filled out sundry paperwork, I've helped out a little at my school, I've made Clyde and Jane's wedding present, and I've worked. I didn't find a "real" job (despite filling out yet another application), but I am occasionally babysitting and helping take care of an elderly lady in our church. She's a dear thing and very easy to please; perhaps later I'll share an anecdote or two about working with her.

Besides that, I attended a Summer Bible school here (a grand time to study the book of I John with about thirty other youngish people). It was also another great opportunity to lap up more Christian fellowship. I felt quite boosted getting to sing, laugh, canoe, pray, dance in the rain, and share our hearts.

Then I took a spontaneous road trip to NY and PA by myself. Simply because I could. And because I wanted to see people and to do something with myself. And because I was pretty sure God put it in my heart to do it. I folded piles and piles of laundry, chased cows, flipped hamburgers, went swimming in the creek, hiked to a waterfall, studied the Bible, star gazed, went to campfire and graduation parties, went to the Imax, grocery shopped, and drank smoothies--all with people I was happy to reunite with or meet (with the exception of the laundry). Also, it was the longest I'd driven by myself. I made the most of it by playing my music very loudly and singing as loud as I could, whether it was Newsies, Jamie Grace, Josh Turner, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or Rascal Flatts. I have some eclectic music tastes.

And that pretty much sums up my summer, except for all the roller coaster drama of the unknown future school year. I'll probably write more of that later. However, I just wanted to take this opportunity to look back and share some of my summer memories. They are so many and scattered I feel like it would take months to write a really good post about them, so I'll just settle for this patchy job instead. Now you know a little more about my recent life, whether you wanted to or not. But hey, I guess if you got this far then you must have wanted to. Unless you're just plain weird or masochistic.

However, this is more than just about my life. You see, through it all, I see a common thread: the faithfulness of God. He has been so good to me, in big ways and little ways.

Sometimes it's good to look back and remember it.

I saw my summer, and it was very good.

Homesick

I went to the mall yesterday. Living in the country as I do, a visit to the mall can be a unique experience. Strolling down the pedestrian lane, your senses are constantly bombarded. Glittering lights dazzle your eyes, and a wall of cinnamon roll scent entices your nostrils. Bold signs of flashy models stare you in the face, while a loud beat beckons to you from the shuttered Abercrombie store.

For once in my life, I had reason to visit the mall twice in one week. The first time was fun enough; a little thrill of independence tickled me as I strode through the mall alone, wandering into whatever stores I felt like exploring as I killed time and priced shampoo. As usual I was gently harassed by the salespeople at the Dead Sea kiosk. Oh, those lovably annoying Israelis! They don't seem to understand that us New Englanders prefer to keep to ourselves and ignore one another. However, I respect them for remaining unabashed and themselves.

I remember one particular time (I may have even blogged about it, but it was so long ago that I wouldn't make you go back and read my atrocious fifteen-year-old writing in my archives) I was striding down the mall minding my own business. As I passed a Dead Sea kiosk, I heard one of their salesmen giving his "shpeal" to some potential customers. He was showcasing their once-famous buffing block thingummy--the rectangular object that has various sides that do different things for your fingernails. Anyway, as I passed by, he was waving his buffing block vigorously to emphasize a point, and as he did so he lost his grip and it flew over his shoulder--and bounced off my nose! It was a trifle embarrassing. I think he sort of apologized, but he acted as if he thought it was hilarious. I can't blame him too much.

As I left the shampoo store this time, I was accosted by a couple of these blessed Dead Sea henchmen.

"For you, for  you!" An Asian girl called to me, holding a tiny packet of lotion out to me. "It's a gift!"

I was wiser than that. As soon as I accepted it they would want to give me a lengthy sales pitch. I needed to hurry and catch up with my mom just then because she wanted to head home, so I politely declined and strode on.

"You dropped something!"

"You dropped something!" The girl and Middle Eastern guy called after me. I turned around to see them pointing at the ground. I retraced my steps for ten yards, scanning the territory to see what I had misplaced.

They sprung their trap. "You dropped lotion! It's free!" The girl exclaimed.

I was a little bit shocked by their deliberate deception, but it was amusing enough that I wasn't mad.

"How old are you?" the guy asked me. This hardly seemed like an appropriate question for a salesman to ask. However, I felt more comfortable with a girl there, and since I had no reason to suspect I'd see them again, I figured there was no harm in telling him.

When they heard, they seemed duly surprised. For whatever reason, the majority of people I meet these days seem to think I have the doll face of a twelve or fifteen-year-old, even though I've been out of high school for a few years now. I suppose small bones and a sheltered lifestyle don't help me look older either, even though I'm just a little taller than average.

"How many boyfriends do you have?"

Watch it, buster!

"None."

"Where do you live?"

Nice try.

"In New Hampshire."

"Where?"

"Aways away."

"How far?"

"An hour."

"It doesn't matter. Wherever you live, I will come there."

I didn't take him too seriously, but I didn't want to let him think that I would go along with him if he were serious. "That's okay," I told him. It was my kind but firm dismissal.

The girl read my unease instantly. "He's kidding," she assured me. "Let me see your nails . . . I'll do them for you, it will take two seconds!"

Yeah right. "No thanks, I really need to go."

"Two seconds!" She was desperate. But I was more desperate; besides, they had held me up long enough. My mom was disappearing in the distance. I extricated myself, much to their disappointment, and marched away, resolved not to let them trick me again.

A few days later I returned to the mall to print some pictures, and I wandered around again to slay time. I made a point of avoiding the area of my last Dead Sea kiosk encounter, but I still managed to pass another one anyway. If I had been in a chattier mood perhaps I would have engaged them in conversation, but being the New England stickler that I am, I declined all of their offers of lotion or pretended I didn't hear them, even though one of the salesmen was beaming his most gorgeous Middle Eastern smiles at me. Yeah, I truly love Middle Easterners, but sometimes they're a little too friendly for comfort. Especially guys.

As I wandered around the mall for the second time, I became acutely aware of the unique atmosphere of each store. The Dead Sea kiosks weren't the only ones demonstrating a different culture. Christopher and Banks lulled you with soft, classy music that blended well with their classy styles and carpeted floor. Forever 21 played lively pop music that made you feel like a hot movie star ruffling through their bright gaudy styles. Since I do not consider myself to be a hot movie star, I declined the part they thrust upon me and slid out a minute after sliding in.

 Bath and Body Works played bouncy melodies that kept you hopping from one scented soap and lip gloss to the next, dodging the attractive hawk-like clerks. I had bounced my way out of the shiny pink store in a matter of seconds--perhaps not what had they intended. If you peered through the slitted shutter eyes of Hollister you could see a sinister room setting off sharp Hollister clothes in wee spotlights. A suave shirtless guy guarded the entrance, even though he was helplessly pasted to the wall. I suppose to the cool it must seem as if his smooth voice is chanting, "Come, come, come, come, come" to the beat of the music, but to me it clearly said, "Keep--out--keep--out--keep--out--keep--out." I hurried past stores like this. I know Hollister and Abercrombie are cool and popular, but a presentation like that gives me nothing but the creeps. Their dark interiors and shuttered windows make me feel as if they've got something to hide, and the watchdog--er, male model at the entrance does a great job of scaring me away.

In Old Navy I feel a little more at ease. The music is peppy but not sensual, and the simpler styles and cement-look floors make me feel like a normal, common American. In JC Penny I felt almost at home. Here at least the music isn't domineering, and there is so much inside that I feel like I can let myself be swallowed by the clothes and not have anyone take notice of me. I am unexposed and at peace. Sure, I wouldn't be caught dead in most of the styles I see flitting about (not sure what's wrong with me), but at least I'm comfortable looking at them.

One mall, but a host of different cultures. One mall representing one country. Call me odd, but I felt as if I were in a foreign world. I saw many sights and sounds that were all American, but I didn't feel at home. Is this just because I'm a country girl? I doubt it.

As I watched the Summer Olympics parade today, I was reminded of the variety in our own world. Even as an ESL teacher trainee living in Boston for four weeks, or as a casual tourist to Europe, Asia, and Australia, I am always excited to see and experience different cultures. There is so much variety in our world, it's stunning!

One world, but a host of different cultures. Call me odd, but no matter how much I love each country I've visited (Norway, Israel, Australia, Sweden, Canada) or love the students I've taught from different countries (Russia, Turkey, Japan, China, Morocco, Brazil, France, Italy, Haiti), I've never felt truly at home in any one of them. Is this because I'm an American? I doubt it. I've walked down the lane of an American mall and I haven't felt at home in my own country. Why is this?

Could it be that this world is not our home? Could it be that we were created for another place beyond this life, a place that is so real and bursting with life that this world is only a shadow in comparison? And every day that we come closer to it, we sense it a little bit more. The sweet smell of the woods or the cheerful color of a little flower remind us that there's more to look forward to. Other things seem vaguely familar, or they stir us for reasons we can't explain.The close heart fellowship of another believer you've just met. The warm smile of a stranger. The blaring majesty of the "Hallelujah Chorus." The inaudible whisper of comfort from One who hears your heart's deepest cries.

All of these are glimpses of Home.

And when we feel like a foreigner in our own country, maybe that can remind us of our Home as well.

In this case, it's good to be Homesick.

An Invitation

The letter arrived today.

Four simple words. Who would have thought they'd carry such import in my fate?

I had been expecting that letter for over a month. Day after day I scanned the pile of mail eagerly, searching for my name emblazoned on an official-looking envelope. Nothing. Why did I seek this particular missive, you ask? It was only to seal my future; this next year, and perhaps many years after that.

Having graduated high school, I did what the average American Joe Blow does: dreamed of going to college. As I finished up three years of Bible school, I applied to three colleges. I chose the one furthest away, where the atmosphere is clear, truth is pursued, and the Constitution is fanatically studied. Since then, I have plotted and dreamed my heart into a balloon. I wasn't sure I would get in (their academic standard, though not Ivy League, is still rather choosy), so I prayed earnestly that if God DIDN'T want me to go there then I WOULDN'T get accepted. I was thrilled when they let me in.

There was just one problem: money.

Without going into details, we're very rich, but according to American standards we're also poor. Also, I have a personal conviction about not going into debt. God's Word clearly states that as believers we are to "owe no man anything," and since I know that God is Jehovah Jireh, my God who provides all our needs, we decided that if He didn't provide the money to go to college then He didn't want me to go. Considering the fact that He got all four of my older siblings through college debt-free, I know He's up to the job.

So, much to the surprise of my admissions counselor, I rejected all of the loans offered to me and applied for four scholarships. And I waited. Two of the smaller ones came through, and one didn't. Still, there was a fourth, the one that had successfully thrust most of my siblings through college before me. Could God use this scholarship to send me on my happily ever after in the Constitution Loving Land?

I waited. I surrendered my dreams. I waited. I trusted for God's best. I waited. And, because I hadn't done it enough, I waited some more.

The letter arrived today.

"I'm so nervous for you," my brother Craig told me as I fumbled with the sought-after envelope. I laughed and tore open the seal. The letter began as follows:

"Dear Ms. --------(my last name):

I am pleased to inform you that the Foundation has approved a XXX.00 grant to you . . ."

If I am to seriously plan on going to college, I need about TWENTY times that amount.

I am grateful for every bit of generosity I have experienced, but if it's going to be an amount like that then in some ways it may as well be nothing for all the difference it makes. I also found it ironic that the "little" scholarships I had earned from my tiny town amounted to over three times the amount that this formerly bulbous scholarship was.

My first reaction as I read this was to smile. I was infected with a mixture of irony and "let's see what God has in mind." I told my family and ate dinner cheerfully enough, but as the news sank in, I started shriveling on the inside. Only a good cry and a little talk with my God at His house could make me feel better. And perhaps a good journal scribbling session too.

The cry of my heart is, "Now what, Lord?"

I don't want to give up on God. I could fully believe Him for a miracle to see me through college, whether through a gift from an unexpected source (I've seen it before!) or a rip roaring job and a lot of grace to work my tail off while I throw myself into my studies. On the other hand, I don't want to be foolishly stubborn if He's trying to point me to a different path either. It's okay to believe God to heal a dying horse, but if it's good and dead and He still hasn't raised it, there's little sense in beating it.

In some ways, I've hit a wall. But like the Newsmax article I heard today by Ben Stein, "So what if our backs are against the wall? God is our wall." ("Find Order in the Chaos," Newsmax August 2012, Stein, p. 26)

Another thing Stein said was, "You cannot lose if you surrender to God and ask in humility for him to guide your life. Or, to put it another way, the strongest defensive position is in prayer and surrender. Once you have sincerely surrendered your life to God, you cannot lose."

The words to a favorite Andrew Peterson song came to me, and they instantly became my personal prayer:

"Take me to the mountain, I will follow where You lead,
There I'll lay the body of the boy [dream] You gave to me,
And even though You take him, still I ever will obey,
Maker of this mountain, please
Make another Way."

In the midst of my devastation and disappointment, a ray of hopeful excitement kindled within my deflated heart. Whatever God has in mind is always perfect. This college was one of the best dreams I could have imagined. If God doesn't want me there this year, what else can be concluded but that God has something even better in mind! And since it's hard to imagine something better than attending this college, it must be a pretty amazing plan indeed!

Maybe I'm going to use the TESOL training I received this past summer after all! I had been wondering why God told me to take that course for no apparent good reason. God works in mysterious ways. Suddenly, the sky is the limit--I almost wish the sky were a little lower though so I could narrow down the possibilities. Lucky for me, I'm a dreamer by nature and I love coming up with ideas. Figuring out what ideas are actually God's is what usually proves the challenge, and like most other humans, I hate uncertainty.

Of one thing, however, I am certain. Jesus is holding my hand, and He will never let me go.

As I got up to switch to a better lit chair in God's sanctuary, I caught sight of an envelope lying deserted in the next row. It was from a memorable meeting last fall in which the speaker gave each of us an envelope with a special message inside. It read, "You are invited . . . Watch with Me."

I am privileged to watch with God as He unfolds His purposes in my life. I am re-accepting that invitation.

You're invited to watch with us, but I'd encourage you to accept your own invitation as well. God has one for each of us, and it's better than anything we can dream up on our own.

From Abyss to Abyss

It has been over six months since my last post. Six months. Dare I project my voice from this abyss into the abyss of this deaf world? Dare I put my muddled thoughts on the screen for anyone to read? Dare I let this mute tongue sing once again?

I dare.

I dare because if I don't start writing sooner or later, I will never be able to puncture the invisible membrane that would like nothing better than to bind my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I dare because if one doesn't practice putting muddled thoughts on a screen then one will never successfully put clear thoughts on a screen. And I dare because when I write--when I truly write--a thrill infuses my marrow with one conviction: I was born to write.

I have learned much since I wrote last. I'm not talking about what I discovered about King Josiah or Fisher Ames or the best way to teach ESL students modal verbs. Of course I have learned a little more about God, but then don't we all learn a little more about Him every day? No, since I wrote last I have learned a little more about Kayla--myself.

I have learned--

(Are you listening? You might want to lean closer and brace yourself--this could come as quite a shocker!)

--that I like to communicate. What's more, I have learned that not only do I like to communicate, but in order to remain a healthy, sane human being, I absolutely MUST communicate!

This may come as no surprise to those who know me well, but the import of this realization only dawned on me this year and it came as a huge relief. You will see why. But first, I must go back in time just a little.

To begin with, I was home schooled. What does this have to do with it? Nothing, and absolutely everything. Not only was I home schooled, but my nearest sibling is five years older than I, which means that I went all through high school without any different colored Popsicles to compare myself to. Dangerous? Hardly. I was extremely self-motivated in my studies and I still had a social life, so really the lack of comparison was good for me.

After I graduated high school, I started attending a non accredited Bible institute (sibs, friends, etc., bear with me, I have to at least pretend that someone who doesn't know me is reading). To say it was a small school would be an understatement; still, going from a class of one to twenty-six was a phenomenal percentage increase. Now I had peers in school with me, and it wasn't long before I could pick out those who liked to write a lot and those who didn't. Still, I was pretty blissful yet, and really didn't bother comparing myself very much. Sure, I liked to talk in class and give long testimonies and write long papers, but so did a lot of other people. I was nobody unusual, and I was happy that way.

In my second year of Bible school, the class size dropped from twenty-four to nine or ten. In my third year, we dropped to eight. With a class that size, there is no hiding. Your strengths and weaknesses are exposed for all to see. What's more, it seemed as if each class was progressively less . . . loquacious. Now, I have a high respect for those who can use two words to say what I would say in twenty, and I definitely believe there is value in silence. However, while the class tendencies changed, I didn't. If anything, I talked more to make up for the absence of all the other testimonies and goofy stories. I did my best to improve my writing by cutting out unnecessary words, but still my papers were invariably the longest.

Of course, in a class that small, we all earned our own reputations. The funny one. The quiet one. The "weather is always beautiful" one. My reputation became obvious when one of our teachers was assigning a short story to write and he emphasized that we didn't have to write a novel.

Everyone was looking at me. Or so it seemed.

I didn't mind at first. Somebody had to write the longest papers, and since I love to write, it may as well have been me. But after awhile it started to color my perception like a drippy sink spreading a rust stain. A knowing look thrown at me with a grin. A fake bet on the longest testimony. An observation on the value of conciseness. As much as I laughed and agreed with each loving implication, little by little a feeling of inferiority crept in. For some reason, the fact that I couldn't express a thousand thoughts in twenty words or that I couldn't limit my thankful list of thirty things down to two made me feel like an outsider. Not that I thought so in so many words, but the idea was there under the surface.

But, after several moments, that started to change. Perhaps the prologue was written when I tossed my fears to a Higher Power and shared things with my mom that I had never dared share before then. Perhaps a chapter was written as I had a conversation in the dark with a friend, or as I lay at night, reflecting and pouring out my heart to One who was listening. However it happened, it happened.

I realized that I liked to communicate--that I HAD to communicate. And that God had made me this way. It was no accident.

Suddenly, it all started making sense. Why else do I have to skip to my next door dorm neighbor and burst upon them with some random funny thought I'd just had? Why else do I increasingly scribble in that journal of mine? Why else do I have to write down everything I think of in reflection papers? Why do I have to tell my mom or someone almost everything I've done that day? Why do I have to talk out my frustrations before I can let them go for good? Why else do I have to tell everyone in meeting everything I'm thankful for or I will feel absolutely unfulfilled and like I've cheated God of glory? Why else do I not mind sharing the very personal workings of my heart for dozens to read or hear? Why else do I constantly restrain myself from posting Facebook statuses three times a day because I'm always thinking of something I wish the world could hear? Why else has God given me the dream of becoming a writer?

When a student graduates from my Bible school, the pastor (who happens to be my dad) gives each student a blessing. This blessing is not given lightly, but it takes into careful consideration each graduate's strengths, character, and calling. When it came turn for my blessing last of all, my dad chose these words:

"Kayla, God has given you a gift in communication. May you use it to turn this world upside down for Jesus."

With tears in both our eyes, he handed me my certificate.

You see, the Enemy made me think for a long time that what I have is not a gift, but a curse. I know better now, and I credit that to the work of the Almighty in my own rust-stained heart. Although old habits die hard, I gave my graduation speech (longest, as predicted) without feeling too apologetic. I practiced by at least not apologizing out loud. "If you owe Him any glory, better start that debt to pay," a hymn writer penned long ago. I pay best with the currency that God has given me.

They say it's possible to waste words. This is true, but I also believe that some words never written or spoken can be equally wasted.

And so, I return to my blog. My newest employer told me today that if I wanted to write, blogging was one of the best things I could do to start. You'll start nowhere if you don't start somewhere, I've decided. Besides, I am tingling to write more than a Facebook status, and procrastination is stifling. Hence, this mute tongue sings once again from this abyss into the abysmal world.

I hope it's ready to be turned upside down.

Not the God of Second Best

"And Abraham said to God, 'Oh that Ishmael might live before you!' God said, 'No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac.'" (Genesis 17:18-19)

Although sometimes called the Father of Faith, Abraham seems to be faltering a little here. Abraham is old. He's dreamed of having a son all his life. God says he'll give Abraham something special (his own dream!), and Abraham, full of longing, says, "Oh that Ishmael might live before you!"

What?!?

In other words, he's saying, "Isn't this good enough? You don't have to give me something better."

Or, "Here. This is what I came up with, I think I'd rather have the fruit of my efforts rather than Yours."

Does God settle for this "solution"? Of course not! God is not a God of second best or human effort. He is the God of all that's Best. And only He has the power to produce it.

So often we're like Abraham in this story. We're happy to settle for our product which is "good enough," but it never works very well. As we toy with mud pies of pleasure, God yearns to give us feasts of infinite delight. He might let us settle for our mud pies for a little while, but He's waiting for us to realize how silly they are and come to Him for something More.

Will we be quick to do so?

Prayer
By C.S. Lewis

Master, they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it's all a dream
--One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they
Imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! the wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The Listener's role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.

Answers

God usually has four answers to our prayers:

"Yes."

"No."

"Wait."

Or, "I've got something better."

When I was six years old, I all but prayed that I would get to be a flower girl. Some of my best friends got to be flower girls (multiple times!), but not I. One of my friends even received a great prize in exchange for donning a beautiful dress, dropping flower petals, and briefly being the center of attention: a dark wood jewelry box with a little white ballerina inside that danced endearingly to a charming tinkle when you opened the lid. And I coveted that flowery status. My consolation came in realizing that when my oldest siblings got married, I would be guaranteed the high ranking position of flower girl in their wedding(s). Every fiber in my being longed for it. I don't remember praying about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. I waited for God's answer.

Fourteen years later, He's asked, "How about being a bridesmaid instead?"

In my first wedding with a dear girl friend and a dear brother getting hitched to each other. What more could I ask?

God's answers are always better than what we had envisioned ourselves.

God's robust generosity

*Hustle*bustle*hustle*bustle

Do these make real sounds? Probably a "hustle" sounds like rapid footfalls, while a "bustle" sounds like huge 19th century skirts swishing. At least that's what I think.

As I hustle into one store and bustle into the next, sights, sounds, and thoughts pepper me from every direction. I see the young blonde lady in an automatic wheelchair, her cart bulging with pillows, accompanied by a black-coated man with a strange accent. I hear the grandmother telling her chubby grandson to put the mouth-watering Pringles back on the shelf.

"He's five years old and thinks money grows on trees," she tells the lady next to her.

"My son is 23 and he still thinks money grows on trees," another lady replies. They chuckle.

I stare at the item (it's not Christmas yet and the internet has ears), debating whether or not to get it. "Money is like manure," I comfort myself with the saying passed on from some family friends. "It doesn't do anybody any good unless you spread it all around." I pick up the item and stride toward the register. But what about this other person? Am I not spending enough money on them while I spend it on this person? I poke myself inwardly for thinking this way. Am I being too materialistic?

So many people hate Christmas. So many make fun of it as a pagan holiday, twisted by department stores to prey on mankind's greed. What am I motivated by, materialism or love?

In the midst of these conflicting thoughts, another penetrates: God gave generously. He gave us Jesus. For those with a personal relationship with Him, Christmas is never about materialism. It's about imitating our Creator by giving freely as He gave. Freely ye've received, now freely give!

Of course, I've known for ages that Christmas was about giving, not getting. Yet still the thrill of opening that package with my name on it continued to enamor me as a child. I tried to hide my selfish excitement, but it still glowed and bubbled beneath the surface, like a pet monster breathing underwater. It was difficult to mollify the cute beast whenever I talked to friends after Christmas. It seemed like no matter how nice my presents were, theirs were always a little nicer. I let my cute monster turn green and I hated myself for it as I tried desperately to be content with what I had. It wasn't my friends' fault if their dads made more money than mine did.

Why am I writing this? I'm not sure. Perhaps because I've realized that receiving presents no longer holds the same electric appeal to me. The euphoria is gone. Not that gifts don't bless me when they're given in love, but I've realized that they don't satisfy. They're empty wind. In contrast, giving is bringing increasing joy. Yes, I worry briefly as I watch money slide through my fingers every Christmas, but God is able to provide. He provided a lamb for Abraham when he nearly offered Isaac. He provided His Son when no other solution was possible. My God gives generously. Why shouldn't I?

I am glad our family doesn't draw names for Christmas. I can see why big families want to save money and not be drawn into materialism by flooding their home with unneeded gifts, but it's not the gifts that we need. It's the giving of them. If you want to save money, give in full faith and love. God doesn't like to be outdone in the giving department--He'll see that you're taken care of. I've seen this happen over and over again just in my small experience (though I'm not recommending foolish, out of the Spirit giving either). And don't just give to one person. If God gave His Son to save one person then where would we be?

For the thousandth and first time, Christmas isn't about getting. It's about giving. It may be hard to convince an eight-year-old of this but anyone older who has felt the euphoria of getting presents die knows what I'm talking about.

Christmas is God's object lesson for His people. Don't spoil it by keeping it half-heartedly. Exercise the same robust generosity that God did, even if it hurts. It hurt Him. It was worth it to Him. Is it worth it to us?

I hand over the money (hey, it's not mine anyway!) to the cashier, and warm with pleasure as I think about giving my prize to a loved one. Could this be a small picture of how God felt, and of how He feels today? I don't know, but it makes spending the money a lot easier.

And it makes Christmas just a little more beautiful.

An unusual day

Voldemort was back. The devil personified, he hid himself in an upstairs room while gradually gathering followers. Not only that, but he had somehow managed to hoodwink Christian followers--my friends! I only learned of it because my best friend told me she was invited to see him. Well, I did not fight so hard to see him destroyed only to sit back and watch him regroup! I marched right up into the upstairs room where he was and sat down uninvited. Before I knew it I was resisting the devil in the name of Jesus and honoring the blood of Jesus right in his face and in front of all those people in that little room.

I woke, my own fervent prayers having disturbed my slumber, then peacefully went back to sleep, knowing the Enemy had been vanquished.

Even I am disturbed by the ferocity of this dream. No doubt you are either laughing or thinking that I am very strange. I, on the other hand, feel like doing both. However, at the same time I am extremely thankful that the name of Jesus is just as powerful in nightmares as it is in real life. It's good to have your sword ready for any moment.

And thus began a very interesting day which I will sum up quite briefly:

I read my Bible and was reminded how desperately I need God every minute.

I nearly panicked when my dad called me three minutes before my departure time to tell me he still had the car in town. Thankfully my sister came to the rescue and let me use her car so I was able to just make it on time to . . .

A hair appointment! Yes, I used a coupon and got a free shampoo and cut. Nothing major, but it's delightfully fresh. Even more interesting was the conversation I engaged in with the hair salon lady . . .

Who turned out to be a Jehovah's Witness! We had an interesting time talking about the Bible and the end times. It was a perfect opportunity to ask some questions and show the love of Christ. Then I drove home and rode out again with my dad to . . .

The jail! Actually, I didn't go in. But we discussed Jehovah's Witnesses a lot on the way. Instead of turning myself in, I rode on to town and stocked up on a few supplies before school starts. I also by some miracle . . .

Got a large matted frame at Michael's for only $4.19! I could hardly believe it when it rang up at such a low price. Now a late Christmas present for Kate S. can finally be delivered. After that I went to Target, and having no success finding a skirt hanger, I . . .

Used my Starbucks gift card! I slurped my caramel frappucino contentedly as I strolled about . . .

Loading my arms full of books at Borders! They are going out of business so all their merchandise is 70 to 80% off! I just grabbed whatever struck my fancy, then spent a long time figuring out what I could sensibly afford. I parted reluctantly with some of my choices, but still came away with eight books, all but two of which were under four dollars! Then I drove toward home and . . .

Picked up my daddy!

Then I ate liver, practiced my rare broad-stroking skills in cleaning, made lemon meringue pie, and the Sabbath came. It was like a machine gun of events.

Grand things can happen when the sun thrusts back the cobwebby clouds.

Eternity in our hearts

Wow.

Sometimes there are feelings one can't capture. But maybe I'll be stupid enough to try.

However, in order to make any sense at all, I must make an enormous confession. It could shock, maim, or stupefy.

Are you ready?

Okay.

I've now read the whole Harry Potter series.

Yes, yes! I know! At this point you are staggering under the blow, offended or stumbled. Or you're rolling your eyes and muttering that it's about time I caught up with my generation.

Enough drama.

After observing one or two of my siblings trying the series for the first time, I discussed it with my parents and warily commenced reading, on guard for anything that might try hoodwinking me into thinking something abominable. I am not here to debate all of the positive and negative aspects of the series. Suffice it to say that Harry Potter has morals akin to Jack Bauer, and as I would rather my ten-year-old didn't immerse himself in Jack Bauer's ends-justify-the-means mentality, neither would I let him read Harry Potter and get duped into thinking he's always a great guy.

However, as I devoured the last book, my breathing short, I felt something stir within me. Something I couldn't name. And then I was done, closing the back cover with a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment. I laid the book down in the wee hours of the morning, my mind racing. And soon after that, something like despair set in. Despair that the series that I've long enjoyed over the summer is over (now what do I look forward to?:). Despair that the story came so close to hitting the mark, and yet barely fell short. And despair that if I ever wanted to write a story like that which actually did hit the mark, I could never make it that good.

What made the book fall short? Simply this: it didn't express a love for the truth. It expressed a great deal of other powerful things, but that one important thing was lacking. Oh yes, there was truth sprinkled in all right, but why does Harry Potter have to be such a liar? Why did he have to resort (however rarely) to using one or two of the Dark side's tools/curses?

And yet there is so much truth that the story displays: an epic battle of good versus evil, the power of faithful friends who are willing to die for you even when they don't know what's going on, and the power of love--more importantly, the power of sacrificial love. The final movie (which I just saw in Imax 3D = awesome) doesn't even emphasize this last part, but the book does. Something stirs within me when I think about all of it.

And then I remember the power that art has over the spirit. And I remember that God has put eternity in our hearts. Whatever it is, God has placed a yearning within us that knows deep inside that in the end there is going to be a Battle. The Enemy has yet to succeed in making cowardice a positive attribute, and so stories of courage thrill our hearts still. We long to see good triumph over evil, and we easily experience fear, tragedy, or exhilaration in the description of a battle because we know we are meant to be a part of the Battle.

Love has been twisted and idolized in our society, but in stories like this we know what real love is. As Someone so eloquently put it, "Greater love hath no man than this, than he who lays down his life for his friends." I don't want to spoil the story of Harry Potter for someone who hasn't read it yet, but this happens. In a climax so poignant, a life is willingly given up, making no defense, and people are magically shielded as a result. Sound familiar? If I hadn't heard that the author has questions about God, I would have thought it was quite purposeful, except the point isn't emphasized strongly. It almost hits the bull's eye right on, but the (dishonest) hero finishes the villain off and the Gospel connotations are left hanging and unnoticed.

Despite this discouraging fact, I am still amazed. Amazed that this redemptive analogy, in the midst of the gripping heat of a battle, is actually present. I guess it shouldn't surprise me in our Western Judeo-Christian society, but one has to admit that over the past thirty years our Western world has largely become pagan. And here, in the midst of what some Christians would deem a pagan, wicked story . . . is the Gospel staring you right in the face. Jesus Christ gave His life, making no effort to defend Himself. He not only laid His life down for His friends, but also for His enemies. And because of that precious blood that He spilled for others, we who believe are magically shielded from the Enemy's worst curses.

Mind you, the analogy between Harry Potter and Jesus Christ very quickly breaks down. Very quickly. I've already alluded to Harry's tendency to lie and not behave ethically. However, the story as a whole still resonates a chord within me, and it astounds me that just as God can take a pagan ritual in the jungles of New Guinea and insert truth about Himself that prepares the hearers for the Real Truth (see Don Richardson and the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course on "redemptive analogies"), so can He insert truth about Himself in the pagan story of Harry Potter, even if the author had absolutely no intention of doing so. We long for Truth, and although not as palate-cleansing as Narnia or Lord of the Rings, we find an imperfect yet intact measure of it in a fanatically popular story like Harry Potter.

The story resonates with us for a reason. God has put eternity into our hearts.

What an amazing God we serve!

Again, wow.

A Noble Profession

In the course of my life I have formed a glorious opinion: the artist is one of the most noble occupations one can have. Unfortunately, in the course of my life I have also come to a tragic conclusion: the artist's job is one of the hardest of all. Probably every outer instinct you possess is reacting to my theories. I say "outer instinct" because you haven't stopped fully to think. Let me explain myself.

There are many noble occupations in the world that I value. The construction worker is just as important as the farmer because while without one we would starve, without the other we wouldn't be able to travel to the store and keep ourselves from starving. The janitor is just as key as the doctor because while without one we'd have no way to be cured, without the other we'd have so much filth that there would be too much sickness to even try to cure it. Such jobs and countless others are vital in proper care of the body, but we all know that the body is temporary.

Teachers! Ah, yes! Where would we be without them? I would not be writing this and you would not be reading if we hadn't had teachers to pass on knowledge and to mold our young minds into sharp, thinking instruments. And yet--there is so much more to life than just head knowledge.

Artists, on the other hand, don't seem to have direct impact on the mind and they seem to have even less on the body. Or so it seems. We admire a spectacular painting, breathe in the soft strains of a sweet melody, or delve into another world inside a book, and when we leave the art we've been exposing ourselves to, any onlooker might say we were no different. In fact, what have we gained? We cannot silence a rumbling stomach with a painting nor staunch the flowing blood of the wounded with a tonic chord. A story doesn't usually teach us that C6H12O6 is glucose; our minds seem to have barely expanded. And yet we've already agreed that the body is temporary, and there's more to life than what you know.

So what does last?

The fact is, there's something deeper than the body and deeper than the mind. The spirit (or heart) and soul are the essence of a person. Now, I'm no theologian or psychologist. I'm not going to explain and dissect where one begins and the other ends. But I'm just as confident that they exist as I am that there's a North Pole, even though I have never seen it and don't fully understand how it works. The soul is the deepest part of you, where it surrenders itself is where you will spend eternity. But personally, I believe that there's something that's almost as deep but not quite as deep, and that's your spirit. It is loosely linked with your personality and even more loosely connected with your emotions. It is the outermost shell of your soul. This is getting way more abstract than I wanted to go, but bear with me.

How do you respond to a fine work of art? Does it make your heart beat faster, your breathing slow down? Does it fill you with excitement or awe? Why? You may have a difficult time explaining this. There is no outward reason your body should respond or your emotions fluctuate as you bask in the art. The only reason I can think of is that something within you is responding. As the beauty of what you are seeing, or listening to, or reading calls out to you, something inside of you is answering. That something is your spirit. As the art is reflecting the wonder of a Creator, we, as created beings, are responding naturally, drawn to the creation that so clearly cries, "Look! I am beautiful! Somebody made me! And I'm reflecting my ultimate Maker!" And if our spirits are tuned in to this voice, our automatic result is worship. We leave the room exactly the same on the outside, but forever changed on the inside.

Needless to say, the Enemy doesn't like this.

Anything that ministers to our spirits is going to face resistance from the powers of darkness. Why? Firstly, our spirits are just a small step away from our souls, and the Enemy wants these under his prickly belt. If he wants to get his sticky fingers on our souls then he will undoubtedly set out to crush our spirits. Once this shell is punctured his opportunities widen. Secondly, anything that even remotely inspires worship of the true Creator is to be discouraged.

And so the battle rages. I am not here to debate what constitutes good or bad art, but I think many Christians can agree that much art is crudely twisted. Paintings swirl into pornography, melodies of heaven crunch into sounds of hell, tales of valor morph into subtle promotions of deceit.

You would think with so much bad art more Christians would be inspired to counterbalance it. However, here's where Satan has stepped in again. He has taken one of the most noble professions (ministering to the spirit) and has projected it as an elevated hobby. He convinces people that you have to have a rare talent to ever make a go at being an artist. He discourages adults who were prolific artists as children by embarrassing them with their crude style. He depicts artists as feeble wanderers who can barely scratch out a living until the picture has almost turned into a reality. He impresses the importance of "real jobs" like banking and cooking while minimizing your art so much that you feel obliged to put it at the bottom of your priority list. "It's really a waste of time, after all," you tell yourself sadly, then you go for a run, go to work, feed the dog, and fritter away the rest of your time on the Internet.

But is art really a waste of time?

No.

And again I say, "No."

What's more important than ministering to one's spirit? I can think of only a few professions off the top of my head that go deeper than helping just the body and mind: those involved in ministry, and parents. If you're a missionary or pastor your priority is the soul, the core of man. It is possible to be a missionary and a teacher, or police man, or secretary, or anything else, I know, so many of us may already be missionaries even if we don't realize it. These people are vital, caring for souls as well as bodies, minds, and spirits as long as they remain focused. Parents too are essential because they appeal to the bodies, spirits, and souls of their children in a "controlled" mission field. The artist, however, need not distract himself with caring for the body. No sirree, they can target the spirit right away and by the blessing of God stir the spirit into worship. And if the Holy Spirit is in it, that spirit may be softened into unfolding its delicate petals and surrendering the soul within to its Maker.

This idea may indeed be fantasized, I'll not pretend otherwise. But like every story of true art, I believe such fantasies contains gems of truth truer than any spoken. So if you're an artist of any sort, take courage. Your work is more important than you know. And as warped as the world's appetites have become, they are hungry for the true art you have to give them. I say this to myself more than anybody else: don't let them go hungry. Don't be afraid to put forth your art as a testimony to the Creator. Naturally speaking I'm scared sick to do this because I know I don't have what it takes to be a great artist. But greatness doesn't matter. It's the real Artist that does.

Think of Him and the impact you can have together.

When you get a lemon . . .

. . . make lemonade!


But what I want to know is this: Why, oh WHY do we only have to get the answer from the optimist? (Don't answer that; it's a rhetorical question.) I mean, there are plenty of other kinds of people out there that could give us answers just as interesting and maybe even more pertinent to our lives. I will show you. Here is what I imagine other people would say for the punchline of this famous proverb (wince away!):

When you get a lemon . . .

(The actor) . . . be thankful it wasn't a rotten tomato.

(The optimistic pessimist--yes, I believe these do exist because sometimes I'm one!) . . . ferment it and see how much fun you can have making it disgusting.

(The masochist) . . . give yourself a paper cut and squeeze the lemon on it. (Of course!)

(The blonde) . . . see if the pawn broker will believe you when you tell him you've discovered limes made of real gold.

(The lawyer) . . . see if it has any money inside, then charge the person who sent it.

(The dentist) . . . put it in toothpaste so your patients will return often.

(The country singer) . . . write a song about it. You could call it "My Achy Breaky Lemon."

(The government) . . . collect enough to string around the earth and then pretend they're not there.

(Jack from the beanstalk fairytale) . . . watch out for tall people and scout about for the golden goose.

(The Israeli) . . . call the IDF--it could be a bomb.

(The Chinese) . . . slap a "Made in China" label on it and sell it cheap at Wal Mart.

(The mother-in-law) . . . swallow it when no one is looking.

(Jack Bauer) . . . try to look busy for 24 hours then shoot it.

(Taylor the Latte Boy) . . . transfer to a different Starbucks--fast.

(Thomas Edison) . . . plug it into the wall and people will say you're either mad or brilliant.

(Romeo) . . . make sure it's really a dead lemon before killing yourself.

(The whale) . . . swallow it--and keep it down.

(The shoplifter) . . . return it and ask for a refund.

(The relativist) . . . decide it's a peach so everything is all right.

(The Democrat) . . . blame it on the rich people.

(The practical) . . . save it for when someone has a stomach bug.

(The politically correct) . . . don't call it a lemon, you racist! You might hurt its feelings.

(The realist) . . . realize it's a lemon and don't pretend it's anything else.

(The evolutionist) . . . don't get too stressed wondering what kind of simple cell this creature came from.

(The socialist) . . . make sure everyone else gets one too.

(The Mercy) . . . tell it you're sorry for it.

(The Prophet) . . . tell it that it's yellow and sour.

(The Exhorter) . . . tell it that it could become lemonade.

(The Giver) . . . offer it sugar.

(The Teacher) . . . invent the perfect Minute Maid recipe.

(The Server) . . . I'll just go ahead and make the stupid lemonade!


The list could go on and on . . . I keep thinking of more. Anyone have any more ideas?

If I don't have love, I am nothing

1 Corinthians 13

This is such a famous, oft-quoted chapter that it's easy for me to glaze over its import. But no. I'm going to be volunteering at a teen camp next week, and unlike last year when I faced the total unknown, this year I enter the ring with faces, faces packaged with their own sets of beliefs, habits, attitudes, and (worst of all in my mind) coolness. Lovable faces. And unlovable faces. Am I going to look down, be aloof, act shy and distant? Or let go of my inhibitions and freely love, converse with, and embrace people with whom I have almost nothing in common? Am I going to minister with my superior Bible knowledge I got from Bible school? Or am I going to fully trust the Holy Spirit to guide while simply showing Christ's love? As 1 Corinthians 13 points out, I could have or do amazing things, but if I don't have love, "I am nothing."

Zero.

Zilch.

Nada.

And I know now this is true, especially for a counselor or camp worker.

And I shudder.

I shudder, because naturally speaking, I don't have what it takes. I'm horrified at how hard it is for my cold self to love certain kinds of people. And yet--and yet, we are never dealing in "naturally speaking" terms when Christ is in the picture. If Christ is in me, that means His love is in me too, and I'm praying and believing that His love will flood through me to people I come in contact with. It doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter if I'm an oddball. What matters is Christ. What matters is my choice to love Him. What matters is our choice to love others.

I need Thee every hour, and I need Your love. But since You are Love, I'll be satisfied with just having You.

Intertwined

1 Corinthians 6:13,17 "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body . . . But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him."

Wow, this is interesting. Our bodies were born with temptations, but that's not what they were designed for. Our bodies are meant for the Lord, and the Lord is meant for the body. Maybe this is why God originally seemed to have no intention for David or anybody to build Him a house. God was aspiring to something greater. Not greater as in bigger or more important, but greater as in something infinitely sweeter.

God, the Creator of the universe, wanted to dwell in the halls of our hearts.

He wanted to not just see what's in our hearts, but to be close to it.

He wanted to be a vital part of what's dearest to us.

And He wanted His Spirit flowing freely through us, not as helpless puppets but as servants gladly doing His will without having to really worry what His will is. God wants to be so closely intertwined with us that our spirits are one. I don't mean this heretically. I'm not trying to promote equality with God or flatter "the god within us." But I do believe that God wants to live within us, that He wants to be unfathomably close. And some of us are too scared to let Him in. Some of us (including me) are sometimes afraid to let Him have absolutely full sway.

I don't want to be one of those people

You hold my right hand

It's amazing how every once in awhile I'm going along and suddenly I see myself in a very unfavorable mirror. Faults start bristling every which way out of my head and I'm shocked to see how unlovable I really can be. Although this sensation may leave one's emotions feeling fragile, it accomplishes one important thing: driving one back to God. And so, to God I went, and I stumbled upon this passage:

"When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward You. Nevertheless, I am continually with You; You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." ~Psalms 73:21-26

It clicked.

I may be an expert at opening my mouth and putting my foot in it, but God is still holding my hand. I may be irritable and weighted with pride, but that doesn't mean God is running to stay away from me. Grace would not be grace if it were deserved. And I'm reminded by a quote by Max Lucado (I think) in which he says, "God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus."

He is everything.

And to salt it away, I pulled out my guitar. I'm really just a novice at this instrument since I've only been playing around with it since my daddy gave me one for my birthday in April, but I have fallen in love with it. I've dedicated my guitar to God and have named it "Reese," which means "zealous." As I played, I sang of God's amazing grace, I sang of my soul panting for God, I sang of the Holy Spirit, I sang of a walk with my Shepherd, I sang of the choice to not make God small because He is brighter than the sun and closer than the tiny thoughts I have of Him. And I sang of just one look into His face.

Listening to Truth-filled music is like listening to a refreshing love letter from God. Your heart responds, and you sense a sort of communion. But I believe that playing Truth-filled music is like having a purifying conversation with the only One who can make you pure. This communion is sweet indeed and is near the zenith of what one can experience on earth.

Mustang Gospel

I got to ride in a convertible the other day. It was a warm sunny day, and a chipper church friend and neighbor spontaneously called up to ask if anybody in our household wanted to go to Kimball Farms for ice cream. When I found out that we'd get to ride in her convertible, I didn't have to think very hard. I probably would have said yes even if there had been no ice cream on the other end! But having ice cream was definitely extra gravy. (Ha ha! The power of words--you're probably inwardly cringing right now at the ice cream and gravy juxtaposition? Hmm, well, I did it on purpose:)

I've decided that the Gospel is like a convertible Mustang.

No, we weren't riding in a Mustang. In fact, I'm blithely terrible with car names and I don't remember or really care what kind of car we actually were riding in . . . the only point in caring is so I can tell people what it was, but since most girls don't care a lot and most guys aren't shocked that you don't know (unless their names are Stephen or Daniel), then I don't mind being blissfully ignorant.

Anyway, as I thought back over the sweet savor of the wind on my skin as we glided around curves and basked in the sunshine, I decided that the Gospel is like a convertible Mustang. It is a free gift and virtually a free ride to heaven. It is perfect just as it is, no matter whether you're driving to get ice cream in heaven or not, and to add to or take away from the simplicity of it would mar its beauty. You still have free will, but since the deal comes with making God your Driver then you know there's only one glorious destination (ice cream!) as long as you let Him stay there.

Yes, it might not always be easy once you've accepted this free ride (please don't think I'm speaking of prosperity gospel here!). Bugs may hit the windshield, or cold wind might whip you about, but you're still in the Mustang. The Gospel isn't any less desirable even after an apparent "beating." It's still complete and whole and wonderful, and it's still classy as long as you choose to see it that way. Passengers may vary, but the Gospel never does.

Neither does the Driver.

My Strength

Psalms 59:9a "O my Strength, I will watch for You."

I was just stopping to think about what it means to call God my strength. It means He's inside of me, or even ingrained into the grit of my being. He's the blood in my veins, the breath in my lungs, the marrow in my bones, the fiber of my muscle. He is the force that makes it so that I can even function. It means that I can't move or even live without Him. We usually don't think about our health or our strength until we realize we don't have enough. Do we realize this? Do we watch for our Strength? I want to live my life with a continual awareness that "I need Thee every hour." Only then do we truly have Him. Yes, we may have had Him before, but God doesn't like to force Himself on people, or He would have made us into virtual robots. But when God becomes a necessity rather than a vague desire, then He will manifest Himself to us.

"When you want God as much as you want air, you'll find Him." --my dad

A psalm of imprecation

A Psalm of Kayla
4

Oh God,
Snatch the helpless from the jaws of the enemy!
Apathy is a cunning spider,
She spins a web of carelessness,
A large-encompassing snare,
She numbs her prey with pleasure,
She stealthily binds
With sinewy strands of doubt.
Her victims are lulled
And are slaves to her hunger
Before they know she exists.
Deliver them, oh God!
Rouse them to their danger!
Slice their bonds!
Cause Apathy and her prey to see
Your glory.
The rescued will worship,
Apathy will cower,
She will shrink to
Nothing
In Your presence.
Stamp her out
So that all that remains
Is a mangled corpse
And a loathsome pool of purple.
Then let Your hand of grace
Raise those who are now
Free
To Yourself
Ignite
Your passion,
Let it be a beacon to a murky world,
And all peoples will stand
In awe
At Your salvation.

A psalm of praise

A Psalm of Kayla
3

Praise the Lord!
When defenseless,
God was my champion,
When feeble,
He was my strength.
Praise the Lord!
When my blood ran thin,
His blood flooded my veins,
When my bones cracked,
The Almighty became my marrow.
Praise the Lord!
I wrestled with my enemies upon my bed,
They gnawed,
They sneered,
Your whisper enveloped me
Like an embracing fleece,
Your Name fortified me
Like an unshaken citadel.
Praise the Lord!
His compassion is a fountain,
Joyfully abiding;
His power is a tsunami,
Sweeping and unstoppable;
His faithfulness is a quiet stream,
Steady and ever present.
Praise the Lord!
For He has bequeathed His victory to me,
He has never suffered defeat
And never will.

Call Me Ishmael

This is a story I wrote while studying Genesis:

“Ouch!” I grunted. My hand sliced the air for a kill. A plump deerfly fell off my arm, dead. “Too bad that wasn’t a real animal,” I observed. “Oh what I would give for a bow and arrow right now!” But then, a bow and arrow wouldn’t shoot me a drink from the sky, and a beast with hide softer than jerky would be hard to find without a stream nearby. Too bad such things are rare commodities in a desert.

My scalp itched, and I dug at it with my fingernails, scraping out the sand that had recently made its home there. I still didn’t quite understand how I had gotten where I was, sitting in the shade of a big scraggly bush in the middle of the wilderness, my tongue almost as dry as a block of sandalwood. My mind darted back through the past several days and beyond to when I was a little boy. What had gone wrong?

I had loved my father. I guess some would call him old, but I think that old men have young hearts. When I dug up the dirt on the floor of my father’s tent to build imagined houses, he would sit down with me and show me how to construct ziggurats like the best of them. When I had nightmares and ran into his tent, he would take me outside and show me the stars. When I got frustrated with throwing stones to “hunt” game, he got me a bow and arrows and showed me how to shoot them even though he had to learn first himself. Sometimes he told stories. Sometimes he laughed. Sometimes he just listened.

And he always prayed.

That pretty much sums up my first blissful thirteen years. Few ripples broke the stillness of the sweet pond of fellowship I shared with my father and everyone else in the camp. I was extremely fond of my mother Hagar, even if she was a little overbearing at times. Slender, strong, and beautiful, she spoke with an accent a little different from anyone else I knew. Her hair was jet black and her eyes dark and piercing, shooting lighting bolts to those she hated and sunbeams to those she loved. I suppose some would say she was haughty for a servant, but she always told me that if she seemed that way it was only because she was so proud of her boy and wanted to see that he got everything he deserved. For a long time I never understood what she meant.

One day when I was thirteen my father took me into his special tent to have a “man to man” talk. He sat me in front of him and gazed thoughtfully at me for awhile. When I think about it, he had been giving me a similar look for years now, only this time it seemed especially drawn out and almost . . . sad.

“I have some news to share with you, Ishmael,” he told me gravely, “joyous news.” Somehow I doubted him. “You are going to have a baby brother! As you may know, Sarah has wanted to have a child for a long time but has been unable to bear one. But nothing is too difficult for the LORD, and He is finally giving us what He promised us long ago. You will still always be my boy, but I thought you should know that some adjustments may need to be made.”

If my ears hadn’t been attached to my head I daresay they would have fallen off from the shock. Mother’s mistress was going to have a baby? Why, her hair was almost all white! I nearly laughed at the picture of her holding a newborn. I couldn’t understand the gravity in my father’s voice. This was excellent news! I was going to have a baby brother! I tried to picture what it would be like. I would show him how to make ziggurats, how to find Orion in the night sky, and how to shoot a bow and arrow. We would be best friends and do everything together.

An unnamed doubt wormed its way across my mind, but I shook it off. What thirteen-year-old needs to be worried about the arrival of a baby? I left my father’s tent with a light heart.

Three years later I left my father’s tent again, this time with my heart sinking into my sandals. My mother and I were being sent away. My father had a tear in is eye as he handed us some bread and a bulging water skin. His tear was cold and lusterless in the predawn light.

What had happened? During the past three years a shadow had repeatedly slipped its icy fingers around my heart. It groped for me when father first called me to visit Sarah and the baby. I saw the red gleam flash in Sarah’s eye as she caught sight of me. She greedily clutched closer to her the wrinkly bundle that was baby Isaac. After that day, the shadow probed and prodded me every time she turned me away from seeing Isaac until I finally gave up trying. It burrowed as I watched servants ignore my broken wrist for a child’s stubbed toe, and as my pet donkey disappeared for “the promised son’s use.” It stung every time my mother cried herself to sleep when she didn’t think I knew. What inflicted the most pain however was that my father seemed to have forgotten me.

I remember one night when I hadn’t been able to sleep I decided to go have a talk with my father. Maybe we would get a chance to gaze at the stars together. As I approached his tent, I spotted him with Isaac in his arms. I ducked behind a bush.

“You see all those stars?” he was saying to the gurgling little boy. “You’re going to have as many descendants as there are stars up there.”

I couldn’t remember him saying anything like that to me. I returned to my tent, purposing never to trouble my father again. The shadow was at home inside of me now, and my heart was heavy under a crushing weight.

Then the celebration day arrived. My little brother was now three, and my father decided to hold a big feast for him. Much fuss was made over Isaac, and I was awed by the magnitude of the festivities–my father had never done anything so elaborate for me. I guess I was a little jealous. All right, very jealous. The pent up frustrations of three years were loaded under a mountain of stones on my heart. And that night the stones split to reveal a volcano.

I don’t remember exactly what I said or did, only that it was stupid. But then the whole situation seemed stupid, so I guess it’s no wonder that I laughed. Yes, I laughed. I laughed at all the servants who were going milky eyed and fawning over Isaac. I laughed at the big commotion made over a toddler who didn’t even know what was going on. And I laughed at Isaac, “the chosen one.”

We left the next morning.

And now I sat under a bush, the final glimpse of my father’s sagging shoulders as we left burning in my memory. My mother had tried to bear it well. She had grasped the water skin tightly as we set out, her back straight and her head held high. Only I saw the tremble in her lip and the glistening of her eyes.

We started off toward Egypt, my mother’s homeland, but we took a wrong shortcut and ended up wandering in the wilderness for five days. The bread and water gone, my mother told me to sit in the shade of a bush as she went off somewhere. She claimed she was going to look for water, but I’m pretty sure she left me just so she could go cry without my seeing her.

I sighed and gingerly tried lying down on the rocky ground in what little shade the scraggly bush could offer. The sun was scorching and my temples throbbed. It seemed as though every throb served as a reminder of something I had lost. Throb: I had no food or water. Throb: I had no home. Throb: I had no inheritance. Throb: I had no mother here with me. Throb: I seemed to no longer have a father.

I knew now that I was wrong to mock my brother the way I did—he couldn’t help it if everyone saw him as a gift from God. Maybe I hadn’t been fairly dealt with, but it wasn’t really my brother or my father’s fault. Life isn’t always fair. My father of all people had discovered that, and yet he had never complained. He had set out from his home having no idea exactly where he was going. God hadn’t given him a map, only a compass. And that compass was God Himself.

And here I was, having left my home and having no idea where I was going, or if I’d even live out the day. Did I have a compass? My mind tossed about fruitlessly for some natural ability that I might have to help me out, but I came up with nothing. The only thing I had was the unconditional love of my father (somehow I knew he still loved me despite everything). Was that enough?

“God,” I prayed. “I know I haven’t really prayed much to you before this. I’m sorry about that. I know after everything that’s happened I don’t deserve to have you listen to me, but I thought I’d try anyway. I’m thirsty, God. I’m thirsty for water but even more than that I’m thirsty for the same kind of purpose and direction that my father had. He’s gone through tough times too but all along he’s had you to hold his hand.” I paused, afraid to continue. “Would you hold my hand, God? I realize that’s a lot to ask and I can’t think of any good reason why you would, but you love my father—maybe, just maybe, you could love me too if only for that reason.” Oh, what am I thinking? I grabbed a rock and hurled it, trying fiercely not to cry. God is too busy to hear my voice of all people! I’m just a youth, the son of a servant, and a worthless maggot. Why even bother to pray at all?

With that, I slumped into timeless existence, drifting off into feverish unconsciousness.

“Ishmael,” a voice echoed. “Ishmael!” A hand shook me until my mother’s face came into focus. For the first time in months, she was smiling. Next thing I knew, cool water trickled through my cracked lips. It could have been the ambrosia of angels.

Gradually I realized I was lying in my mother’s lap, beams of joy shooting from her face. “God has heard your voice, my son,” she said. “It is with good reason that you are called Ishmael. Come, let’s go from here. I found a well, and we now have plenty of water to travel.” She eased me to a sitting position before springing to her feet. She held out her hand. I suppose young men my age usually don’t take hold of their mothers’ hands, but I didn’t care. It was more than a hand I saw stretching out to me. It was a promise of hope. I grasped it firmly as I rose to my feet. The hand felt bigger and stronger than my mother’s, and I checked to be sure that it was really hers. More life pulsated in my grasp than any my mother could possibly possess. Then I remembered my prayer. And I remembered that I’m called Ishmael. God hears.

Breathing

A Psalm of Kayla
2

There is emptiness before and behind,
Nothing above or below,
A vacuum inside.
You, my God, are what I yearn for
Intensely,
I crave Your presence
Increasingly,
You breathed life into me,
Your breath is my life,
I will climb the mountain
To where You are
So I can breathe again.

Selah

You were here yesterday,
Where are You now?
Weariness smothers,
Walls close in,
Feelings fail,
Self-confidence crumbles,
And yet I stretch every feeble fiber toward You.
I had God yesterday,
He didn't change,
I did.
I fix my sightless eyes on Him,
I know He is faithful,
My reach can span this chasm
But His can.
I will breathe again.

Psalms revealed

This past year in Bible school we were taught how to write psalms. Of course, almost all of us were too bashful to read our psalms aloud in class (except Daniel; he boldly read his to us, including his glorious yet extremely comical "Psalm of Imprecation"). I read one of my psalms aloud, and I posted one on our student web site, but it felt too personal and too forward to share any more.

New blog title, new blog rules! :) No point in hiding stuff under bushels, and besides, since it is my blog it doesn't really matter (blogs by their very nature are personal and forward!:). And, just like any testimony, a little extra dose of proclaimed faith never hurt anybody.

A Psalm of Kayla
1

Oh God,
My God,
Can you see?
I wallow in despair,
My bones creak beneath crushing weight,
My friends accuse like enemies,
Their sword plumbs the depths of my soul,
A hidden fount springs to my eyes,
Is this Your voice?
I recoil,
I drive back in vain,
I squirm in self-pity,
Then cease.
Eyes not my own behold me:
My sin leers at a sightless face,
Scales tear and plummet,
I am desperate for You, O God!
You alone can extract my sin,
Ashamed, I hide my face,
Sin's visage is ugly,
I cringe,
I mourn,
Then I release my sin,
Hurl it far from me, oh God!
Let me never see it again.
You, and You only, do I seek,
For You my spirit gropes,
You are not far off.
The weight dissolves,
Soaring upward, I latch onto You,
I need nothing else
For You are my all,
I'll pursue You recklessly
Because You are truly
My God.

The hidden Sunday school lesson

I started teaching summer Sunday school today. Remembering fond days of yore when I was kid in the summer listening to The Railroad Children, I thought it would be fun to offer to read another book to the kids who are old enough to sit still and listen. So, pulling out new markers and coloring posters, I endeavored to get my wonderful little ruffians (seven children ages 7-11) under control so I could begin reading. My choice of book is a fat children's fantasy, The Tower of Geburah, by John White. I read it once to Klara and her siblings seven years ago, and I still like to pull out choice sections to read on Sabbaths when I want to think about my walk with Jesus. Yep, you guessed it--like the Chronicles of Narnia, it's an allegory! Maybe too similar to C.S. Lewis's masterpiece to be a coincidence, but that doesn't bother me. It's long been one of my favorite books since Craig read part of it to me when I was in Sunday school, and now I want the next generation to experience the same unknown joy.

So, after ignoring a certain impudent little boy's suggestion that he use my dress as his coloring poster, I began reading. And I found that I didn't have to work hard to make them pay attention. Weaving in what voices and dramatic inflections that I could, I read for nearly an hour with very little interruption. If the kids weren't coloring or getting a new poster, they were staring at me, spellbound. And when I showed them the picture of the giant yellow snake filling the dungeon and wrapped around the king, I got some very appreciative reactions.

But half the fun besides reading aloud is knowing that the Sunday school lesson is hidden right in the story, and my little listeners don't know it yet.

I wonder if God feels the same way with us as He brings lessons to light through our story.

Wound and never bored

Lately I've been reading some of Madeleine L'Engle's book Walking on Water, and I was rather struck by the following passage:

"There's a story of a small village (about the size of the village near Crosswicks) where lived an old clockmaker and repairer. When anything was wrong with any of the clocks or watches in the village, he was able to fix them, to get them working properly again. When he died, leaving no children and no apprentice, there was no one left in the village who could fix clocks. Soon various clocks and watches began to break down. Those which continued to run often lost or gained time, so they were of little use. A clock might strike midnight at three in the afternoon. So many of the villagers abandoned their time-pieces.

"One day a renowned clock-maker and repairer came through the village, and the people crowded around him and begged him to fix their broken clocks and watches. He spent many hours looking at all the faulty time pieces, and at last he announced that he could repair only those whose owners had kept them wound, because they were the only ones which would be able to remember how to keep time.

"So we must daily keep things wound: that is, we must pray when prayer seems dry as dust; we must write when we are physically tired, when our hearts are heavy, when our bodies are in pain.

"We may not always be able to make our 'clock' run correctly, but at least we can keep it wound, so that it will not forget."

And that, dear reader, is another reason why I am writing again. I may not have much to say that is worth reading, but I can share in order to encourage you and myself. Because right now for me prayer is almost as dry as dust, and maybe it's the same way for you. But that is exactly why we must keep doing it. We must keep our clocks wound, our spirits in fighting trim, our hearts inclined to the One who sees all and knows all. Sooner or later the dust will moisten into malleable clay, or settle into fertile garden soil, or turn into vigorous seedlings. Our only job is to trust and keep on keeping on.

In conjunction to that, the previous passage by Madeleine L'Engle was soon followed by another:

"Perhaps one of the saddest things we can do is waste time, as Shakespeare knew when he had Richard the Second cry out, 'I have wasted time, and now doth time waste me.'

"But being time is never wasted time . . . Canon Tallis says that his secretary does not understand that when he is thinking, he is working: she thinks he is wasting time. But thinking time is not wasted time. There are some obvious time-wasters, such as licentious living, drunkenness, adultery, all the things Paul warns us about. A more subtle time waster is being bored. Jesus was never bored. If we allow our "high creativity" to remain alive, we will never be bored. We can pray, standing in line at the super market. Or we can be lost in awe at all the people around us, their lives full of glory and tragedy, and suddenly we will have the beginnings of a painting, a story, a song."

What do I get from this? Not only was our Savior never bored, but we shouldn't be either! When all else fails, we can pray. This sounds very high and mighty of me. I am by no means a good example of this. In fact, I rarely struggle with boredom at all and it is far more challenging for me to turn my busy thoughts to the Savior who is "Closer than the tiny thoughts I have of You" (line from the song "Small" sung by J.J. Heller) than it might be for some people. I am, however, learning to think of prayer differently, and maybe you can learn with me.

"If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly . . . Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life." -Oswald Chambers

If you look closely at my profile picture/drawing, you'll see two figures at the top of a hill holding hands while looking off into a sunset. This is not intended to be a common romantic pose. It's God and me, walking and talking and enjoying life together. I have so much to learn!

But I guess that's the joy of learning.

A loosed tongue

If you have been to my blog before, you might be wondering if you still have the right address. Not only is the template different, but my blog title is different. Instead of the amazing Flapping Lingua, you are now staring at "Tongue of the Mute." Well, surprise! The casual reader may suppose that I don't post very often, hence the title. That is partially true, but there is so much more than that.

I guess I could come up with a way to say it smoothly, but I'll just say it plain and straight:

I've been thinking. (Oh boy, watch out!)

I've been thinking about how Jesus commanded us to make disciples. I've been thinking about how I believe God wants me to be a writer and help proclaim Truth in a deceived world. I've been thinking about my poor, rusty writing skills. I've been thinking about how I haven't written on my blog because of a busy life and because I'm just flat out tired of writing flippant things. I've been thinking about my desperate need to cultivate my own walk with God during the summer months away from Bible school, and the need to encourage one another. I've been thinking about how I often don't like to post testimonies about my Jesus because they're personal and it almost devalues them in my mind. But I've also been thinking about how Revelation 12:11 says that they overcame the Enemy by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. And I've been thinking about my tongue, so often mute. Oh yes, I certainly can talk about precious nothings--this lingua has no problem flapping when it wants to.

But God didn't loose me or my tongue so that I could flap. He loosed me so that I could fly. And He loosed my tongue so that I could sing for joy of Him. Kingdom living isn't about waiting for Christ to return in order to free our stammering tongues, it's about singing His praises here and now, living like He is already back so that when He really is then it will be an easy transition.

If Jesus were back, I would probably be posting every day.

So why not now?

That being said, I'm not planning on writing every day. In fact, maybe I won't end up posting any more at all. But I want to mark this as the day when the purpose of my blog is changing. I may yet tell my mundane stories or write on the hilarity of life, but I want to be ready to offer up my faith in writing as a burnt offering into cyberspace. This blog is not going to be the tongue of my mind so much as it will be the tongue of my heart. I would change my address except for nostalgia reasons and because I want people I know to still be able to find me. I have no intention of advertising this change to anyone, except maybe mentioning it to my family. If nobody reads this, that's okay. Faith doesn't need to be read in order to make an impact. If one person reads something here and is edified by it, then as Emily Dickinson said, "I shall not live in vain."

And if you are ever reading a testimony and finding yourself thinking more about me than the Savior I'm attempting to point toward, then please find another blog.

Now you know partially why this blog is so altered. It's turning into an altar.

Consider yourselves forewarned . . . .

Longing

How many of us long for the very thing we have already? I am not talking about the baser things, though I suppose it may still be true in some cases. That is, if a child or even an adult is longing for some "toy" that they obviously do not own, we must realize that it is not the toy itself that they desire but the pleasure that can be derived from it, and this could be equally received if they appreciated the toys they already own.

But truly, how many of us yearn for what we already have? Some long for travel and adventure, forgetting that all of life is a journey of unknown excitement. Some long to know their purpose in life when perhaps their purpose is to live in Christ and let God do the rest. Some long for a mission field, when maybe their mission field is within their own home or right on their doorstep. Some long for an opportunity to disciple, to write and proclaim Truth, when a blog is already at their disposal.

A teenager may long for freedom, but he forgets that because he can breathe and move without confinement, worship freely and reject sin freely, he is free indeed. A Christian man may long for victory, but he needs to remember that Jesus Christ has already won it and has given it to him on a bloodstained platter (1 Cor. 15:57, Rom. 8:37). A Christian lady may long for someone to be close, steady, and head-over-heels in love with her, but she needs to remember that Someone already is, and He went so far as to prove it by dying for her on the cross (Eph. 2:4-6). We already have all these things, but we don't fully receive them until we realize it and accept them. And then the God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think (Eph. 3:20) will do more than fulfill our dreams . . . because He truly satisfies the longing soul (Ps. 107:9). I am realizing this now maybe more than ever, not because I feel full, but because I feel empty yet KNOW I'm not.

When I was a child, I used to make wishes by blowing on eyelashes, and because I was afraid of dying, I always wished for eternal life. I did this because I thought this meant I would never die, but what I didn't realize was that eternal life meant abundant vitality in heaven after this shell has passed away. And because I was already saved, I in a sense "wasted" my wishes on something I already had. Don't make my mistake. It is pointless to long for something that is already at your fingertips.