Give thanks for old journals…

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!  His faithful love endures forever.

August 30, 2010–New Orleans: I cried again today thinking about Chris Lazo’s story about almost going blind.  I remember him noting that as a photographer, what would his life be like if he couldn’t see?  Then he turned it around and asked what that one thing was for us. What is that one thing, for me, that I can’t live without?  My first thought was Dad.  I am so tired of missing him.  Everything now is different.

Give thanks to Him who heals me in times of grief!  His faithful love endures forever.

September 1, 2011–Los Angeles: 400 PM.  Completely clear of Hurricane Irene.  Boarded.  Buckled up.  And ready for takeoff to New York City.  Eeeek!  Am I going to miss the good ‘ole college days?  Yes, most definitely.  Would I go back?  No.  Life goes on and takes me with it, without my consent.  As it should be.  For often times, like now, my heart yearns to go back and make camp in a land and time pre-June-11-2010.  I know Dad wouldn’t want that, though.  The better part of me knows that too.

Give thanks to Him who helps me in times of adjustment!  His faithful love endures forever.

September 1, 2012–Hawaii: I am trying to get used to this new life, to Mom’s new life and her being remarried, to me being so far away and getting smacked upside the face with a harsh dose of reality and change every time I come home.  Oh, how to put into words what I am feeling!  Mad.  Sad.  Tired, of all this.  Of my vagabond life.  I feel so disconnected. I just want to be in everyone’s life again, back in the lives of those I love and those who love me.  I want to plant roots already, but I know it’s not the time.

Give thanks to Him who holds me in times of loneliness!  His faithful love endures forever.

September 1, 2013–New York: Today, as promised earlier in May, was supposed to be the grand opening for the coffee shop.  I went to see it with Artha, and it’s not even close to being finished.  I don’t know what I am going to do or where I am going to work or how I am going to pay rent.  I am discouraged, God, and I need you to show up, otherwise I am not going to make it.

Give thanks to Him who teaches me to hope in times of despair!  His faithful love endures forever.

August 29, 2014–New York: The August-September transition has never been an easy time for me.  Still when my faith gets tired, like at the present moment, I dare to hope when I remember this,

Your faithful love endures forever, Lord.  You’ve never let me down and you won’t start now.  I trust you.  Do your thing but please be gentle.

If you look for God anywhere, you’ll find Him everywhere.  And if you look for Him everywhere, you’ll find Him anywhere.  –Timotheus Pope from the City of Kidz

1. Thick morning fog at sunrise.
2. Blackberries right off the bush.
3. 615 AM workouts and walks with my swolemate.
4. Wildflowers.
5. Watermelon on a warm evening.
6. Accountability, vulnerability and all other things we love to hate and hate to love.
7. Permanent union between Cheerios and Frosted Mini Wheats.
8. Pool time, lake time, and any-variation-of-a-large-body-of-water time.
9. Fancy sound equipment for my dance parties.
10. Second homes away from home where I am able to hide, read, write, and sleep.
11. Beautiful examples of godly marriages.
12. Grace that flows like a river tidal wave.
13. Warm mugs on cold mornings.
14. Porch time with a dear friend.
15. This. 
16. Home cooked meals around the table.
17. Conversations of Kingdom come and Kingdom work.
18. A healthy body–knee caps which are in place, ankle ligaments which are more or less intact, and wrists which are doing their best to stave off carpal tunnel.
19. The opportunity to work with power tools and build corn toss boards.
20. Vision and direction.
21. That moment when the temperature and humidity drop right before the storm.
22. #SQUAD.  I am looking at you, Rebecca, Andrea, Summer, and Kenisha!
23. Monkey bread and black coffee.
24. Hope.
25. My neon Nalgene, still going strong after three years and many, many miles of travel.
26. P31 Bible Studies, affectionately known as “Mandatory Fun.”  With that, I also need to mention what a won-der-ful women’s staff we had this year!!
27. Barb’s Country Store.
28. The C.R.E.W. boys in all their goofiness.
29. Hugs from campers.  Hugs from counselors.  Hugs, hugs, hugs, and more hugs to fill up my physical touch reservoir before I go back to the city.
30. Emily, Abbey, and Fanta.  Enough said.
31. My hiking boots.
32. Nighttime debriefs with the Avengers.
33. Belly laughs.
34. Brothers in Christ who encourage and remind me that not all men out there are like the rich, sleazy, snooty Midtown businessmen I deal with everyday.
35. Pennsylvania thunderstorms.
36. Organized sports!!  All of them.
37. Explicit requirements to memorize verses and segues to share the Gospel.
38. G1 girls who remind me that cartwheels are not just for gym class.
39. Salad bar.
40. Humble beginnings and the growth in-between there, here, and now.
41. The move toward more creative, cutting-edge, respectable Christian art.
42. Yellow meal and cream of chicken dinner!  Sike naw, sike naw.  In all seriousness, though, I am thankful to eat three meals a day.
43. The power of prayer.
44. Peaches from our tree!  Coming Soon! Summer 2044!
45. Colored Sharpies and construction paper.
46. Shade and a cool breeze, especially on meet day.
47. The opportunity to dance with campers, counselors, and the Pope kids.
48. Letters, packages, and Postagrams!!
49. Bethel’s You Make Me Brave album.
50. These cool cats. 

*Also, if you want to learn more about what I do during the summer, here is the website [http://sb2w.org/citikidz/] and this is my shameless plug.  Check it out.

“O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder / Consider all the worlds thy hands have made / I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder / Thy power throughout the universe displayed / Then sings my soul”

–Carl Boberg & Stuart K. Hine from “How Great Thou Art”

I am sitting on the back porch of the sports pavilion, looking intently over the gravel road and densely wooded area.  The sky is ominously gray and the clouds are moving increasingly faster.  The pitter patter of precipitation on crisp leaves builds as I survey the first raindrops flying diagonally on the wings of the wind and onto the brim of the balcony.  Intermittent flashes of lightning illuminate the darkening spans, surety of the storm’s coming.  The stratosphere cracks open with an earsplitting clap of thunder.  Growls from the belly of the sky ensue.

As I wait in anticipation for the voracious storm, I look.  I listen.  I marvel.  I think on how small I am and how I would have it no other way.  My thoughts continue to meander and find their way out in peaceful lakes of gratitude.  For though I live in a world bent towards the biggest and the best, in a society addicted to glory and success, to hierarchies, to followers, and prestige, I sit on this back porch and revel in my smallness and in the reality that I plus God am the majority.  Yes, I may be slight, but I am with Him.

Selah.  

Now don’t get me wrong, this is not a 50/50 relationship.  My contribution is an indisputable zero.  All the same, it is to my nothingness that He adds 100% of His Love.  It is to my sin that He adds 100% of His substitution.  It is to my unworthiness that He adds 100% of His grace, all day and every day.  On my good, bad, and unbelieving days, He calls me His.

Thus as the rest of the world climbs their way up a ladder that ultimately leads to disappointment, I rest in my smallness and interlock fingers with the biggest and best and most glorious Being out there.  I no longer climb up because He already came down.  I no longer try or have to be awesome in and of myself.

Instead, I burrow deeper into my God’s embrace and ask for awe and for lots of it.  And little by little, He grants me such, in moments of silence, in the middle of storms, and countless times between so long as I have ears to hear and eyes to see it.  After all, He is far more willing to speak than I am willing to listen and desires to teach more than I could ever want to learn.

With that, the clouds sweep right and the sky’s white undergarments reveal themselves behind gloomy outlines.  The rain ceases and the air cools.  The storm and its darkness has had its stint.  But now I notice that far beyond the clouds, further than my eyes could see but what my faith always knew to be true, the Light never stopped shining.  It never did.  It never will.  And that Light will never let go of me.  To that end, I continue to look for lessons of the extraordinary in the ordinary.  I listen for His voice.  I marvel.  I think on how great Thou art and how I would absolutely have it no other way.