Apple

Every time I talk to God, He's eating an apple.  It happened again last night.

It's easy to fill a blog with the magical moments of God.  The aptly-timed appearances He makes.  The joys of simple things like the majesty of creation or dancing in the rain.  Prayers answered.  Blessings poured out.  The incredible stuff that makes anybody remember why they love God in the first place.

But God isn't all sunshine and roses.  He's the real moments, too.  Which is why, after some debate (because even a writer needs her private moments with Abba), I've decided to share with you part of last night's encounter, that you may perhaps see a different side of God.

I'd been lying in bed praying, sort of out loud with my face buried in my pillow.  Tears streaming down my face.  There's a lot of stress flying around this heart and while I want to kind of shove that out and focus on what I also know is truth (that even this is ok and there's so much more than this), sometimes, my heart can't take it any more and despite every piece of evidence to the contrary, I can determine that life as I know it sucks and start to cry out for something more.

I always feel a little guilty - often more than a little guilty - when I get in that mode.  My life is absolutely blessed, and I am conscious of that every day.  It seems less-than-good that I would take the few ways I am still waiting on blessing and dwell on them so much that I neglect the good that truly is.  Not that I ever forget it.  As I've said before, it's tempting to take such prayers down a long and whiny road and that's not the solution either.  So last night, I just prayed.  Until I ran out of words.  Then a song came into my head - "I am not shaken.  I am not moved.  I wait upon You, Lord."  (I changed the "we"s to "I"s because it was just me.)  To follow, "You'll come.  Let Your glory fall as You respond to us.  Spirit, rain.  Flood into my thirsty heart again.  You'll come."

That phrase.  "You'll come."  Every time I said it, which was a lot as this chorus played over and over and over and over in my head, I felt guiltier and guiltier.  He'll come?  He's already here.  I know that.  And I was getting grumpy at the conflict of wanting the blessings I don't have and feeling guilty because I already have more than I could ever merit.  I wouldn't want God to think I was unappreciative; but I wasn't ready to give up the remaining thirst and emptiness inside me.

Then I sang those words again.  "You'll come."  And there He was.  Leaned up against a wall, eating an apple.

"I'm here.  What more do you want from me?"  *crunch*

Startled, but not entirely surprised (I know Him for precisely this), I laughed.  Out loud.  And found no words, right away to answer.  A few seconds later, the words flooded out.

I want more.  I want more than this.  I want you to come and fill in these holes in my life.  I'm grateful for what I have, and I don't want to forget that, but I'm really tired of being grateful.  I'm tired of pretending that what I have is enough, when really - wait, I know it's enough.  don't think I don't.  it just doesn't always seem like enough.  ok, it seems like more than enough, but I still want more - my heart is thirsting for these few things You won't seem to give me.  I want more of You.  I want this to be what I long for it to be.  I want You to answer me.

That's sort of my answer, as rambling and back-and-forth as it was.  He bit His apple again, and my heart went back to the song.  "You'll come..."

"I'm here.  What do you want?"

And we started all over until He looked at me in that unsettling way that God has about Him as I fumbled for words for the questions I was too afraid to ask.  What if I trust You for today and there's nothing tomorrow?

His answer: Yeah.  What if?  *crunch*

No, really, God.  What if this drives me down to the last bit of everything until I've got nothing left?

Again.  Yeah.  What if?  *crunch*

What if I think You've promised me and it never happens?

What if?

The conversation went on like that until He had my heart laughing.  He's answering my questions with questions, as we know God does.  He's inviting me to play worst-case-scenario if I want to and what I often find is that I don't need to.  That it's not worth the weight I've given it and that I'm much more content being content with today, which I already know is turning out fairly well.  

What I love about His apple is that it's casual.  It's a low-maintenance fruit, something He just shines on His sleeve and bites into.  It's enough to be a slight distraction without disrupting the very serious moment my often bratty and grumpy heart is trying to have with Him.  And it's the epitome of relaxed - He's not worried about this, so why should I be?  He is at ease enough to be eating.  He is confident enough to be munching.  Somehow, His confidence becomes my assurance and things are ok, which I always knew they were even when they didn't seem so.

The truth is that by the time I get all my brattiness out of me, all my entitlement and worry and disappointment and discontentment, my problems don't seem so big any more.  And I kind of want an apple.

So finally, I look up with just one more question.  Why are You eating an apple?

Because it is good.

Dare

There's so much in this world that kind of pressures you into being stronger than you'd want to have to be.  There are times, chances, circumstances, that seem designed to test your mettle.

And I'm the kind of person who can be exceptionally strong and for awhile in my life, I kind of relished the challenge.  There's not a whole lot of whatever this is that can break me, and there's a certain pride in that.

Then I saw a game of truth or dare on television a week or so ago, and I got a glimpse of something new.

There's always a little ruffle in my feathers when I think of a good dare, and just knowing the possibility is out there makes me tingle.  A little intimidated and a little ready.  Bolstering my bravado and ready to prove myself - even if I'm not playing!  So when this came across my tv, I felt the same mix of intimidation and excitement, readiness and questions about just what would be a suitable dare for daytime television.  Nothing that couldn't be lived down, but come on - these are ratings, people.  It can't be boring, either.  (And we've all known a droll dare or two, haven't we?)

After a couple of rounds of what I'd call simple truth - nothing groundbreaking, embarrassing, or all that revealing - the guest of the day finally fell on a dare.

Here we go.

You could kind of see it in her, too.  The guest was a little intimidated, and you could see her pulling her courage to readiness.  And a little flush of red in the host as she was about to lay this dare down on the table.  Then there it was:

Do ten jumping jacks.

Oh horror of horror.  It's the kind of dare that if we were sitting in the basement in our pajamas and someone dropped that bombshell of a challenge, we would roll our eyes and mock the challenger and plead for them to come up with something better.  In fact, I think I did roll my eyes a little.

But I think this is exactly the kind of dare most of us need.

Because, at least for me, I'm too often so busy and so wound up and so ready to display my courage, so ready to be strong, so willing to stand in the face of tremendous circumstance to show my mettle...that a lot of days, you'd have to dare me to be silly.

And silly would be just what I need.

I think we take life too seriously.  I think we look at our circumstance and determine that everything is something to be overcome.  I think we look in the mirror and think we're not there yet, wherever there happens to be (and it's always changing) and decide we need to do something different.  I think we're too willing to declare ourselves too slow or too weak or too unimportant and then start looking for ways to show ourselves fast, strong, and able.  I think we look at life as one big challenge that we set out to conquer and for all our intensity and all our labor and all our bravado, we do just that but we've forgotten to live it and so we're really no happier than when we first began.  

And I think there are a lot of us who are sick and tired of everything being a fight and who would like for a change to not have to be strong.

The first day God answered my aching heart and told me I didn't have to be strong any more, I broke down and cried.  In that instant.  It was that much of a relief to not be strong.  It was easy, though, to find myself overtaken by weariness, too, and to lose my spark to do anything.  That wasn't what He was after, either.  He had to take away my fight, then dare me to dance.

Which, I guess, is how I became known as a girl who never wore shoes, who laid outside in a cold rain in January, who picks up the plastic candy cane and does a 1920s dance in the middle of Walmart to make her niece and nephew smile, who suddenly isn't afraid to make sound effects and goofy noises, who isn't so poised all the time, and who gets complimented on her smile more than she ever imagined possible.  Among many other silly moments.

From one simple dare that didn't push me to be strong any more, that didn't push me to fight, that didn't push me to prove myself but rather just an invitation - an uningnorable invitation - to be what the mirror would have called foolish not so long before.

It's hardly foolish; it's fullness.

To adapt a popular country song, life don't have to be a bunch of drama, a bunch of knock-down, drag-outs, cryin' in the rain.  (Easton Corbin)  So the next time you feel like life is pushing your buttons, like you have to be strong one more day when you didn't even want to be that yesterday...dare instead to be silly and see what you come up with.  Life is meant to be lived, not conquered.  Smile a little.  And dance.

I dare you.

Truth

We know about the woman who met Jesus at the well.  She ran into town proclaiming Him the Messiah with the simple phrase, "Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did."  (Or, as we know the story better, "everyone I ever did."  John 4:29)

But that isn't the whole story.

This was a woman with a reputation.  As any woman who has ever had a reputation can tell you, there are too many people who can tell you everything you ever did...and too many people willing to do just that.  This is kind of why she was at the well at such an odd hour of the day.  Where most of the women drew water together in the mornings, she couldn't handle the stares, the snickers, and the snide remarks any more.  So she worked her entire day around not running into them.

Then one day, she meets a man who tells her everything she ever did.  ...And she runs back into town to tell everyone.

They probably weren't immediately impressed.  A few probably rolled their eyes.  Maybe they muttered, "Well, of course.  It's not like it's any secret, honey. (Because when women, even good churchy women, are talking about you and then have the chance to talk about you in front of you, they always call you 'honey.')  I've told you everything you ever did.  She told you everything you ever did.  Her neighbor told you everything you ever did.  Remind me again why this is news?"

On the surface, it probably didn't seem to be.  Yet here was this woman who knew her truth, who had heard her truth, who already knew everything she ever did (and so did everyone else) and a strange man met her at the well and told her the very same things she'd scheduled her day to avoid hearing.

Yippee?

Yet, this woman is overjoyed.

We can't just read this story and think that this is the story.  Because the truth about her truth was that everybody knew it and probably anyone could have told her.  Then she hears it again and suddenly, the speaker must be the Prophet?  That's quite a leap.

Maybe it was because he was an out-of-towner.  He was a Jewish man, not a Samaritan, so he wasn't hearing the story every day like the rest of the town.  But imagine for a minute that you're a ho.  And imagine you spend the majority of your life trying to escape your reputation as such.  Then imagine this out-of-towner walks in and pegs you as a ho and knows all of your previous activity.  Is your first thought - This man is a prophet! - or is your first thought to let shame overtake you, bury your eyes in the ground, mumble something about how fast word gets around, then come to your senses and look up and do your best to deny it?

Maybe it was because he was a man that for a change, she didn't know.  Maybe she knew he wasn't the type she'd met in the streets or nightclubs or whatever passed for such in those days.  Maybe she thought this man was so unlike all of the other men she'd met (and known) that there had to be something special about him.  He must be a prophet.  Because "nice guys" just don't exist; there had to be something more.  But don't you think if this was your story, you'd more quickly jump to assuming he's a con artist and just like every other man than to think he's super extraordinarily special?

As a woman with both a reputation and a story, let me tell you that it's not that Jesus tells you everything you've ever done.  It's not that He comes and speaks truth into your life.  It's the way He says it.

It's the way He lays it out there without the faintest tone of judgment but with the grace of mercy and forgiveness plastered all over it, and yet you don't feel - listening to Him - like He's adamant you require forgiveness.  I mean, not like it's urgent.  It would be easy to hear your truth put so gently and to assume you need a shower.  NOW.  But Jesus doesn't make you feel that way about it.  He just kind of puts it out there with a tone and an attitude that says, "So this is your story.  So ok.  Can I have a drink?"

It's the way that something about the way He says it catches your heart mid-throat and for the first time, you kind of feel like you're swallowing your story instead of it blowing up all over you.  It's the way that you hear it and your eyes don't lock to the ground, you're not buried in shame, you're not worried about who hears or how they know this or how this makes you look.  Somehow, the way He says it makes it just truth and not stigma.  Just part of the story you're living and not a story to live down.

It's the moment you start to be free.

Because it's this man, relaxing on a rock near a well, who knows everything about you and still wants to drink from your cup.  He speaks your truth and you hear it - again - but in there, too, is the invitation: you still have something He wants.  You still have something to offer.  It changes your whole perspective on who you are, what you've done, what you've still got to give, and yes, what this man might be.  A thirsty man who wants a drink and unlike the rest of the town, He doesn't care if you touch it.  He's asking you to share your draw with Him; and He's offering to share His cup with you.

No matter who you are.  No matter what you've done.  (No matter who you've done, as this woman shows us.)  You're more than your story or your reputation.  There is something in you that Jesus wants.

That is the truth.

Walk Away

This past Sunday night was Praise in the Park, a joint worship experience with my church and two others from our community.

It's the kind of event I look forward to - outdoor worship with the beauty of creation all around, sounds of praise carrying on the air, good friends and a chance to meet a few more.  It all just seems unencumbered, worship at its free-est, the kind of place where a girl who feels this running away in her heart has a chance to really get away and at the same time, reconnect.

Because that running away has been there again lately.  In the busyness and the family and the calendar and the days and the nights that all but run together right now and the circumstances that keep me here rather than there or far away when I ought to be nearer by and the restlessness - oh, the restlessness - that in times like these, there's not time to stop and worship.  There's not time to sit and pray.  There's not time to sacrifice to be anywhere because everything is everywhere and everyone seems to need something and forget what I need and I just can't bring myself to settle down for even a minute and sit still for anything and I can't breathe.  And when I can't breathe, I panic and run harder because there's got to be fresh air somewhere.

Sunday night, I was in that place.  Gasping for air and emotionally exhausted and debating whether the trip to the park was worth anything at all because what I really wanted was some time alone and a good night's rest, and the shelter house wasn't going to have either.  I kind of felt this duty to myself, at least, to go because it's the kind of thing that if I don't go, I'll wake up in the morning upset that I missed yet another something and then I'll feel only more pressed for time.  At the same time, I'm watching the clock tick away and thinking there's no time for this.

So whatever.  I went.  Because you never know what might happen.

I could not stay still.  Through the first three songs, I kind of wandered, trying to keep my eyes focused on the gathering but hopelessly ready to get out of there.  Ready to run.  I planted my feet and tried to stay.  Closed my eyes and tried to sing.  Opened my eyes and tried to breathe.  Looked around me at a lawn full of people and just felt stifled and pressured and pained.  And I'm fighting all this because I don't want antsy to win.  I don't want this pent-up whatever this was inside of me to turn me away from yet another moment with God.  I want to worship.  My heart, weary as it is, is thirsting to worship.  This is worship.

And I can't get into it.

And I start to feel like something is terribly wrong with me.  Like something is horribly broken.  This is exactly what I need and what I want and what I long for and what I'm aching for and it's right here and I couldn't care less.  Then again this gnawing to turn away and just leave.  Hop in the car and go home where I'm thinking if I can just sit down and make everybody shut up and make the world stop, for a second maybe I can close my eyes and breathe and something will be ok.  Not that anything in particular was not ok.  It's just life; it's not worth getting stressed about.  It's just been a long couple of weeks and this girl's heart wasn't made for distance.  I just wanted to draw near and was now frustrated that I couldn't in a moment when I really thought I ought to be able to.

Then I gave in and turned away.  A little at first, trying to hang on to hear one more verse, one more song.  Trying to watch everyone else worship, hoping it would catch.  Trying to hear the voices of those who had their own details, I know, but they weren't mine and looking for something like hope in there.  Then turning fully away and...finding air.

Air and a moment that I know no words will describe.  I turned around and it was like there was nobody, and that wasn't a bad thing.  What I remember most was the feeling of air hitting the depths of my lungs for what felt like the first time in forever.  There was this expanse of green and somehow, I couldn't even see the lot full of cars.  What caught my eye was the leaves in the branches, the sky above, the little bridge crossing over the little creek...and absolutely nobody.  The band played on, and this worship washed over the moment, washed over me, and I couldn't help but feel my feet start to dance.  It took  but a few seconds to give in to the smile seeping onto my face.  I stayed a few minutes more, just sort of tapping a toe and trying not to make a scene, not that I cared much any more, then danced out to my car with a song that wasn't even playing stuck in my head.

It was the second Sunday in a row.  In neither case had I expected it.  Two Sunday nights ago, after a day that could have busted my spirit, I had no consciousness except that God had been all over that day and in spite of all circumstance, I had joy.  So I'd spent that evening dancing in the yard - literally, embarrassingly dancing - and singing like no one could hear me, though maybe they could, with one hand raised to the heavens and my eyes flitting between closed and the emerging stars.  And when I found myself in the same heart just two nights ago, I remembered that night nine nights ago and...that's just my God.  That's just how awesome He is.

I forget so easily when I'm exhausted and busy and broken and tired and restless and hurried and aching and whatever else that God isn't something else I have to do.  He isn't necessarily waiting for me in the middle of yet another event, another busyness, another something.  More often, He's waiting for me in the quiet, which I've completely forgotten exists and yet am absolutely longing for and still hoping to find.  Then He tells me to go.

I had to go to the park.  He called me to go.  Then I go, and I feel like running away and I feel more profoundly like not running away and then there's the invitation to turn away but it still feels like running and finally I give in because I can't fight the angst and the itch and the restlessness any more and He intercepts my weary, restless heart and slows me down and I'm walking...not running...away.  On purpose.  That I might run into Him.

What Love Is

Sometimes, I forget to love God.

Life gets crazy and I don't know.  It's easy to start out loving God, then He puts these other energies of love in your heart, and before you know it, you're doing what looks like love but has become more like duty and all of a sudden, you look around one day and wonder where God is and if you've even been loving Him at all.

The past few weeks of my life have been that kind of crazy.  These have been the kind of weeks where there has been a lot of love to do.  You know.  With skin on.

At first, I really love times like these.  Because I wake up unscheduled, ready to tackle the day as it comes.  Ready to respond as is necessary to the world around me, in order that I might show love.  Which, at the time, I feel filled to overflowing with and ready to pour out.  It's such a cool time because everything feels like an adventure.  I love that about love.

As time drags on, though, I get sucked in.  I love love.  I love loving.  So I start going to bed every night thinking about the day's love and what tomorrow's might look like, and I wake up in the mornings thinking about how to weave love in.  Suddenly, I've got this mental to-love list that looks more like a to-do list, and there's not a lot of time for that adventure of love anymore because everything seems unexpectedly scheduled.  There's no time for the moment.

And that's what love really is.  Love is a moment.  It's this timeless suspension of eternity that dangles just long enough for us to touch it.  It is a place where time doesn't matter and there always seems to be enough of it.  Time, that is.  Love is that thing that pops up and takes you somewhere you don't think you'd choose to go for an amount of time you don't think you have to an opportunity you don't think you're suited for and you discover that even if you aren't, the moment is exceptionally perfect and it's beautiful.  

I get trapped in that.  I really do.  I love that moment so much that I want it.  I want it every day.  Every second.  Every moment until I don't even notice time is passing at all because it's all love.  But I try too hard and what I end up with isn't love.

Then I don't have time for what love really is.  And what love really is - that moment that love is - comes to seem not like love at all but like whimsy or foolishness or sometimes, selfishness.

This is compounded in a span like these few weeks have been where life and circumstance have taken me away from the place where I'd normally come back to love - Sunday morning.  Now, I could get into details, but I'm finding life is greater when not all of the details matter.  Because they don't, really, and I shouldn't try to make them.  But the past two Sundays, I have been unable to be with my church family.  Unable to be in worship.  Two Sundays ago, I could not go; yesterday, I walked out early.

My to-love list was weighing on me, as well as more than a good share of restlessness that is both rooted in and an aggravation to times like these.

There are always a lot of voices in my head when I'm not at church.  Voices mostly of those who don't know what it means to be a Christian and who might see me on a Sunday morning when they wouldn't expect to, then ask: why aren't you at church?  Or: don't you go to church any more?

It got in my heart a little yesterday.  Ok.  A lot.  Why aren't I at church?  The excuses didn't seem good enough; they probably weren't.  What I settled on was this restlessness.  This complete inability I had to sit still, to engage with what was happening in worship.  To even think about my God.  I realized it was my own distortion of things like love and God and faith over some busy weeks, compounded by circumstance that kept me apart.  So I asked myself:

Do I love Him?

Because I know there are people who get cut off and distracted and blocked and taken away like these past few weeks have seemed to do to me and then they decided they can do without God, and it's hard to get them back.  Life steps in and separates us and even love is a burden (because it has become a duty instead of a moment) and I get it - it's easy to throw your hands in the air and decide no.  No, I don't love God any more.

Thankfully, that's not the case with me.  At least, not yesterday.  And not today.  And not any time I can remember or foresee.  There's something about my God I could never shake free from, and the more life creeps in and corrupts love and drags me away from something so simple as Sunday service...the more I absolutely thirst for my God.  The more I can't get Him out of my head.  The more I get the same worship songs playing on repeat in my mind.  The more I start looking for some quiet time, some place to get away.  The more I start praying when I don't realize I'm praying.  The more I start looking for what love is.

And the more I realize all that stuff that seemed so foolish and whimsical and selfish and wasteful...that was love all along.  Of course, I remember that it was.  I remember that's where it started, where I got lost in love in the first place.  Because I love that about love...and so deep into it, I too easily forget that that's what I love about it.  How blessed I am that in all the ache, the circumstance, the distraction, and the distortion, Love Himself draws me back to love so that I can remember...

in a moment...

what Love is.

The moment.

Life is spiritual.  Your physical existence doesn't contribute to that life.  The words that I have spoken to you are spiritual.  They are life.  - John 6:63