the visitor's center

In January, I made a goal to read 25 books by the end of this year. Reading is a hobby I had to give up almost entirely over my college years and I’ve been enjoying picking it back up.

Earlier this week, I finished my 24^th book since January, putting me only one book away from my goal. I shuffled through stacks of books looking for the perfect one to finish with and settled on “Just Courage,” by Gary Haugen.

My logic for choosing the book was shallow. First, and most important, it was short. Less than 150 pages. Second, I’ve wanted to read it for a long time. And third, I didn’t expect it to contain anything very… convicting. I thought I was familiar with the author and the book’s purpose. Which meant I would be able to finish it quickly, because I wouldn’t need to spend long processing its contents.

Well, I just finished the first chapter, and this is one book I misjudged.

The author begins the book by telling the story of a day when he was ten years old. His father loved to take him and his brothers hiking—they lived near a beautiful mountain. His older brothers were strong hikers, but Gary was slower and weaker. His father would always hike more slowly with him, encouraging him and helping him along when he needed it.

One day while hiking together, they came to a visitor’s center. It marked the end of the tourist’s trails and the beginning of more dangerous trails used by experienced mountain climbers. Gary’s father and his older brothers wanted to continue on for a bit, hoping to reach the first base camp mountain climbers used before they headed to the summit.

Gary didn’t want to. He was scared. Hiking wasn’t really safe, and the sign marking the beginning of the trail his father wanted to take had a long list of the horrible things that could happen to you if you chose to take it. Never mind that the most beautiful stretch of the journey was beyond that sign. What if he couldn’t make it and had to turn around? What if it was just too much? What if it really wasn’t as beautiful as his father thought?

So, instead of following his father and brothers up the path, Gary chose to spend the afternoon in the visitor’s center. It was safe… and boring. There was no risk, but there was also no adventure. Gary missed his dad, and when his father and brothers returned with the thrill of the climb sparkling in their eyes, Gary knew that though he’d been safe, he had missed out.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’ve been choosing to walk around a visitor’s center in my life instead of choosing to continue climbing. These past several weeks of support raising have been hard. Support is coming in slow, and I’m learning that once I reach a certain point of discouragement, I lose a lot of my motivation.

I start to anticipate failure, and I stop climbing the harder trails. Out of all the calls I made last week, only two people picked up the phone and none were able to meet with me, I tell myself. It doesn’t matter if I call this week—it’ll just be more of the same, because it’s the holiday season.

That’s a lie. But it’s usually a lie I don’t catch until a week has gone by and I never picked up the phone because I convinced myself no one would answer.

The point of Gary’s story was that he didn’t need to be strong to make it up the trail—his father was going to help him the entire way. He wasn’t alone. The only thing he needed was to trust his father enough to move out of the safe zone and begin the adventure.

It’s the same in life where I’m at right now. “Jesus beckons me to follow him to that place of weakness where I risk the vulnerability of a child so that I might know how strong my father is and how much he loves me,” Gary writes. “I think he simply wants us to take a more demanding climb, where we will actually need his help, and where he delights to grant it.”

If nothing else, this chapter was a solid reminder that I need to stop sitting in the visitor’s center, hoping that the next time I look out of the window the mountain will be smaller. This is the mountain I’m called to for the time being.

I need to get out and start climbing, trusting that my Father is with me in each step—and when I move out of situations that I can handle on my own and into places where I need Him to show up, I can trust that He’ll be there.

Climb with me? :)

treasured in her heart

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart…”

Mary rested, curled up against Joseph’s side. She was exhausted. Next to her, Joseph’s breathing was deep and even, and he slept with one arm wrapped around her protectively. After delivering her firstborn son, the muscles in Mary’s body seemed to object to every movement she made. They groaned as she snuggled closer against Joseph’s chest, but she ignored them, shifting slightly so she could watch her sleeping baby.

She took in her birthing room. A cave. Where animals lived. The air smelled of manure and urine; there was hay strewn about the dirt floor and piled against the walls. Cows and sheep and goats had witnessed the birth of the baby. Her baby.

After the delivery, when the baby finally drifted off to sleep, Joseph lined the animals’ feeding trough with hay, and Mary settled Jesus snugly in his makeshift bed. Jesus. She mulled over the name in her head. The supernatural events surrounding His birth. How much had happened in the last months!

Joseph snored softly next to her, and Mary’s mind drifted back to the very, very beginning. The day Joseph had picked her. Well, he’d asked her, actually. But, of course she’d said yes. Joseph was an honorable man. He was a hard worker, and he was strong. But he was also gentle. Those two qualities could be difficult to find together. What girl wouldn’t have said yes? In the shadows of the stable, a sudden grin lit Mary’s face. Poor Joseph had no idea what he was getting in to when he’d asked her to be his wife.

And so, they were engaged. She was looking forward to their wedding. And then one day… in one day, everything changed. Forever.

She’d been working, just like any other day. She was a hard worker. But on that day, her work was interrupted by a visitor. Visitor wasn’t exactly the right word, she mused. The man was a messenger from heaven, and he had nearly frightened her to death. After all, seeing messengers from Yahweh face-to-face was just a tad out of the ordinary for a teenage Jewish girl.

But the words the angel spoke to her were even more out of the ordinary. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. Mary’s eyes slid shut as she remembered that sentence. The words that had turned her life upside down. And yet, she could not remember the effect the words had on her life without remembering the supernatural sense of peace that had settled over her heart after she’d heard them.

Yes. This was her purpose. This was the life Yahweh had called her to. That much was absolutely clear. Never mind that it was humanly impossible. Never mind that she was a virgin and had never been with a man. If this were Yahweh’s design, then it would come to pass. Of this she’d had no doubt. And so, she’d said yes.

I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said. With those simple words, Mary’s life was forever changed. Even as she rested in the stable, her eyes fixed on her baby boy, she had yet to understood the magnitude of her choice. The impact had been obvious up to this point. Very soon after the angel’s visit, she had traveled away from home to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who, the angel had informed her, was also expecting a child.

The visit was a marvelous one. The Holy Spirit had informed Elizabeth about Mary’s pregnancy… and Mary was sure this trip would be the last time she would be able to visit family comfortably. She was not far off in her assumption. After staying with Elizabeth for three months, her pregnancy was beginning to show. A pregnancy her family was unaware of. A pregnancy that would be regarded by all who knew her as infidelity to Joseph. But, unable to put it off much longer, she’d headed home.

At the memory of the days surrounding her return, Mary quickly shut her eyes… but not before a few rebel tears escaped and ran down her cheeks. She sniffed quietly. The words that had been thrown at her upon her return seemed to be permanently imprinted in her mind. The accusations. The questions. The explanations she’d tried to give. More accusations. The looks she’d received.

“Why the tears?” Joseph asked softly.

She quickly brushed them away, and looked up at the man who had been through so much with her. His eyes searched hers.

“I was just remembering,” she answered. “I was remembering the days after I returned from visiting Elizabeth.”

Joseph gave a dry chuckle. “You mean the days your father considered beheading me?”

“Beheading you?” Mary giggled. “It was I who was going to lose my head!”

They were exaggerating, of course. But the implications of Mary returning home carrying a child in her womb were serious, indeed. Her parents had pressed her, questioning her over and over. Who was the child’s father? Where was he? Had she been raped? And her answers, though truthful, had not exactly reassured them. How many women who bear children out of wedlock claim to have been supernaturally impregnated? That’s right. Not many.

She’d been quick to clarify that Joseph was not responsible, hoping to avoid involving him in her shame. And it would have worked, had her heavenly messenger not paid him a visit as well. Still unsure of Mary’s story, Joseph had planned on divorcing her discretely, hoping to avoid bringing her more public disgrace. But before he had done so, the angel visited him and explained what was going on. The angel left him instructions, which he followed – he took Mary home to be his wife.

Soon after, Caesar Augustus issued a decree. A census was being taken of the entire Roman world, and in order to register, each family had to return to its own town. Joseph was from Bethlehem, about 80 miles from Nazareth. And so, they had traveled…

Mary reached up and placed her hand on Joseph’s cheek. “Thank you for bringing me with you,” she said softly. “I know the law didn’t require me to be here, and I know I slowed you down. But thank you for not leaving me in Nazareth.”

Joseph smiled. “I wouldn’t have left you behind for anything. I would have missed the birth of our baby, and I would have missed you. Too much.”

“Do you think people will see us any differently when we get home?” Mary asked.

“Maybe,” Joseph answered. “And maybe not. Either way, this is the course Yahweh has set our lives on, and we’ll continue on it regardless of what other people think. Yahweh’s people often misunderstand Yahweh’s servants, but true servants don’t give up. We won’t either.”

The couple sat in silence after that, each pondering the events that led them to this point. This path of life. This baby.

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart…”

   

when you don’t feel like giving thanks

These past months, for the first time in what seems like a while, I didn’t immediately shake my head and ask God where He was when things happened that I didn’t understand.

I said goodbye to my horse and my grandma and started on the hardest season of my life to date—raising missionary support—all in the span of a few short weeks. And I often curled in a ball on my bed with a pillow and my blanket and cried hot tears but I didn’t ask God where He was.

Because I knew. As much as it hurt, I still knew He was there.

He placed the people around me that I needed to walk through those weeks of hard goodbyes. And so I kept walking forward.

Four months later I’m in the middle of this support journey… and in the middle of a week of frustration and discouragement and tears and more tears, I turned to ask God where He was and didn’t hear an answer. Just quiet. And my sniffling.

And I was angry. Because how could God not answer if He’s called me to follow Him to a specific place and the path to get there is the hardest I’ve ever walked? How could He not scoop me right up and comfort my heart when He knows in the middle of this I’m walking into a first holiday without my grandma and I just ache?

And of all holidays, it has to be Thanksgiving.

Why couldn’t it be Christmas or New Years? Difficult holidays without a loved one, yes, but not days that demand thanks by their very name.

Thanksgiving.

My newsfeed on Facebook is full of friends’ thanks. Thanks for a hot supper… for an evening with friends… for safe travel… for a weekend with family… for a child. I don’t add to the list, because I can’t seem to find any thanks.

And the worst part is that I look at my life and there are many things to be grateful for.

I have food.

A warm house.

Cozy flannel sheets.

A job.

A purpose for my life.

And so many more things I should be able to speak gratitude for, but when it comes from my mouth and even when I type it out, the words sound hollow. I’ve almost stopped speaking them altogether, because I don’t like empty words. God’s given these things, and the simple truth is that I am not grateful. I don’t care. I don’t want them.

My heard aches for other things—things I can’t have right now—and for some reason these everyday thanks no longer fill that ache.

I want my grandma back.

Some semblance of order to everything that’s going on in my life.

My support to be finished.

Pieces of this life puzzle to stop falling apart and start falling together.

And in the middle of this I turned to ask God where He was… because my heart was hurting to a point where that really was the last place I could go. All I heard was the sound of my own tears.

And Thanksgiving is in two days.

 

Friends, please keep me in your prayers. It's been difficult for me to write lately... I don't like to end posts with questions and sadness, so I don't write often when I'm in the middle of hard life seasons. I like to write when I can wrap things up neatly. But I have no neat ending here, other than to ask you to keep me in prayer. 


Mentally, I know that God has not left me alone in this season—He is with me and He will provide. But emotionally, this last week has been very difficult, and I feel like I’m at the end of my rope. I don’t feel His presence here and I don’t see His hand moving… I just ache.

Maybe I’m not as far along in this process of grieving the loss of my grandma as I thought I was… maybe the enemy is just trying to discourage me… maybe I’m just tired… maybe it’s a combination of all of the above. I’m not sure. What I know is that this week I came very close to just giving up… and I don’t want to do that. I don’t doubt that God called.

I’m really not even sure exactly what to ask you to pray for… I just know I’m in a place where I need other people to carry me to Jesus because I’m not feeling strong enough to follow Him on my own.

Thank you, sweet friends. I’m grateful for you.

family. fall. fun. {in pictures}

1. Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.

   ~ Anthony Brandt ~

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   So grateful for…

   
   

   family.

   calling a baby by name, even though he’s not here yet

   hugs from little boys

   brownies with frosting and sprinkles :)

   pumpkin carving

   that God is in the midst of all of it

   that no one fell off the log bridge :)

   warm soapy dishwater and piles of dishes after we eat together

   hay stuck to my sweater after a hayride together

   the way we laugh together and it makes everything okay
   
   

stomping on lies

I sit at a round table with seven other new staff friends I met at new staff training this summer. (If you missed the beginning of the story, see here.) There’s a huge white sheet of paper covering our table, and Jessica traces words on it with a big blue marker. The paper is divided into four quadrants and together we’re writing down lies—the lies we so often believe about God, people, and ourselves during this raising support process.

“I often believe God wants me to earn my support,” Lara says. “He won’t work if I don’t work.” Jessica’s marker sets her words to paper. The list grows.

God blesses based on performance.

He’s disappointed in me.

When I call, no one will be home.

People will think I’m begging.

I’m too sinful for this job.

My ministry isn’t as important as other ministries.

We’ve been processing many things these past days at the conference. If I’m honest, I didn’t want to come, but it’s been exactly what I needed. A lie is swirling around in my head, but I’m having trouble pinning down the words to describe it.

“God will do big things for other people, but He won’t do them for me,” I finally say. Several people at my table nod in agreement with this lie we’ve all wrestled with.

There are several people sitting in the room with me who can testify to the big things God did in their journey of raising support. Jane saw the last 60% of her support raised in three weeks, mostly through people she didn’t know. Allison had two supporters call her in one day, and together they paid off every penny of her student loans—all $35,000 dollars of them. God is doing big things.

But I don’t think He’ll do them for me. So I don’t ask.

I don’t pray specifically for big things. When it comes to prayer for myself, I’m beginning to realize that I often only ask for things I can do on my own, so if God chooses not to, at least I still can. And I rarely pray for specific things for myself (another thing one of our speakers challenged me with), so I’m not disappointed if God says no. I’m still realizing what a skewed view of God’s provision these lie has given me, and how little faith I really have in His character.

I want that to change. 

This week I realized that more than anything, I want to see God’s hand in my support journey in a way that can only be attributed to Him. Regardless of whether God says yes or no, I want to have the boldness and faith to ask Him for big things and trust that they are completely within His ability to provide.

So. One night while the rest of the girls in my cabin were sleeping, I sat cross-legged against the wall in the hallway with my journal, and I asked God for something very specific and very big. I haven’t told many people, and the ones I have often look at me like I’m slightly crazy. 

Maybe I am. 

But the only way I know how to let go of my tendency to ask God only for things I’m capable of controlling is to ask Him for something that is totally outside of my own strength.

I prayed that God would provide my support by the end of November. At the rate it’s going, I should see it in by the end of February. I call the latter goal my “realistic goal.” The former is my “super-faith goal.” :)

I want to ask you to pray with me for the end of November. If God’s plans are for me to be finished later, I’m okay with that… but I’m still asking for the super-faith goal and trusting in faith that God is more than able to provide within that time.

At the end of our last session at the follow-up conference, all the sheets of paper filled with the lies we often believe are spread on the floor near the doorway. On my way out, I stomped on them.