Full

      I've been to a lot of places since I last wrote, places like stress and exhaustion, and stillness and warmth. And in a more literal sense, I went to Oral Roberts University for the NCFCA national championship. I arrived at nationals feeling wind-swept and desolate. A sense of finality hung around the car door slamming and the hotel doors opening and the elevator trip up to our room. I arrived empty, but I left full.

Mollie<3

Hannah's hotel ballet

    What I love about my speech and debate friends is the warmth, the acceptance. If I say something that comes out wrong, there's no uncomfortable stares or awkward silence-it's painted over with a laugh and becomes an inside joke. Everybody hugs everybody. There's no pressure to conform-poets and baseball players and classical musicians and rappers and computer geeks genuinely appreciate each other's different interests and abilities. 

     Conversations are interesting, about personality types or the truth about Abraham Lincoln or the effects of music on behavior. It's really refreshing after being daily deluged with dozens of canned exchanges about weather, sports, celebrities. And conversations are deep, probing the flaws in humanism and the truth of creationism and personal struggles. Questions like "What has God been teaching you?" and "Why do you not watch TV?" are refreshing after the halfhearted "How are you?", asked by someone who doesn't really seem to care how you're doing. NCFCA people care.

     Of course, there's plenty of hilarity, too. Like Larry the Cucumber becoming a vigilante in Switzerland, and Ben's unforgettable Christian pickup lines. Oh, and this:

         Nationals brought competition up a level, but it also brought the relationships up. Maybe it was the "common enemy" factor-Region IV was finally competing against other regions instead of itself. But more than that, we got to spend time together outside of our suits. Monday night after checking into the hotel, we went out to dinner at this burger restaurant called Mooyah's (according to Ethan, that's the sound the cows make when they die, 'cause that's not demented at all). A group of us decided to walk back to the hotel, but ended up playing in a ditch instead. It was a ditch running in front of a private school called Victory, so there was a regal stone bridge with shimmering golden letters crying "VICTORY" arched over this pathetic trickle of mud. We laughed for a long time about that one. Anyways, after the clumsier half of us got our pants soaked, we decided it would be better to swim in a real pool. We ran to Wal-Mart to buy swimsuits, reflecting our excellent, well-cultured sense of homeschool fashion. Really, it was just because Wal-Mart was on the other side of the ditch.

   The next day, intense outdoor games of ultimate Frisbee and capture the flag turned us white kids into giant tomatoes. Swimming and theological discussions were our respite. During the tournament, there was much coffee consumed and much cafeteria pizza eaten, because almost everything else in the cafeteria was quite cardboard-esque. The tension of competition offered lots of opportunities to trust God, and lots of chances to encourage and be encouraged. At the end, some sported radiant trophies and other a flimsy certificate or two. I learned from both kinds. At the after-party, trophies and the lack thereof were drowned out by the stomping and the clapping of the Virginia reel. A handful of us stayed until past four in the morning, discussing suicide, Biblical counseling, and the balance of grace and truth. And making goat noises. And building introvert caves under tables. And watching Doctor Who, or rather, watching Greg and Grace watch and recite each word of a Doctor Who season premier.

    Some of my best memories have been forged at Oral Roberts University, but they are carried in the hearts of dozens of dear people I wish I could see more often. It's times like these that I am indelibly thankful for texting and for social networking. I know I won't be able to keep up every friendship, but I hope that someday we'll bump into each other on a university campus or city sidewalk, and then it will all be the same. I'll never forget you.

My Region IV family<3


"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view or you participation in the Gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. FOr it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart...since you are all partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."~Philippians 1:3-11~

The Art of Holding On

            Except for a smoldering orange patch crowning the hill which had hidden the sun, the whole sky was a grey twilight-blue. And I was in the middle of it, standing on the peak of a sloped gravel road. My shoes were in my hand; I felt the roughness of each sharp pebble beneath my feet. The ground all around me sloped downwards and sideways until the it vanished altogether, popping up again as trees and hills in the distance. My private gravel road was an island in that sea of trees and hills. The wind pushed my hair back from my face. Lifting my hands, I could feel it rush through my fingers. It laced in between each one of them, blowing through like silk ribbons. No matter how tightly I clenched my fists, I couldn’t catch hold of the wind-ribbons.

They made me think of Dicey’s Song, a beautiful book Mrs. Brock gave me to read a week or two ago. I have a nasty habit of reading quickly, devouring the plotline and the characters in one late, lamp-lit night. Dicey’s Song is the sort of book I’ll have to go back to, stretching it through afternoons and rainy days. Dicey felt the wind-ribbons, too.

“She thought to herself, she had to let go of what had gone before too, didn’t she? The people of last summer. And who she had been. Dicey felt as if she was standing in the wind and holding up her hands. She felt as if colored ribbons blew out of her hands and danced away on the wind. She felt as if, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t close her fingers around those ribbons. Dicey knew that she was sitting very still on a train, moving across the night. She knew her hands were wrapped around the wooden box that held the ashes of her momma. But she felt as if a wind blew through her hands and took even Momma away. What did that leave her with? The wind and her empty hands. The wind and Dicey.”

            Lisa and I were stretched out on my bedroom floor, reading through the names on the back of my Regionals t-shirt from 2010. Some people I thought I would hold onto for a while have slipped through my fingers. Other names, names that were only strings of letters to me then, have blown back around in the wind and become woven into my life without me hardly realizing it. I feel helpless.

            Lately my life has been tossed by the wind, fragmented. I leap between the world of speech and debate and my regular, San Antonio world. Sometimes the leap leaves me with a bit of jet-lag, and I don’t know how to connect to people in one group when I first leave the other. Ribbons are slipping through my fingers, out of my reach.

Words make more sense on paper. Writing doesn’t puff away as easily as thoughts. I wish I could write everyone I know a letter, telling them exactly what they mean to me. (Because even the people I talk to only once or twice have a place in my heart, especially if they are one of the many who took the time to draw me out when I felt most alone. That’s a lot more often than anybody would realize.) But the wind keeps blowing, and time and friends and words and emotions are snatched away and jumbled and sometimes blown back. Other times they are tossed from my island forever. I’m left with two ribbons that manage to stay wrapped securely around my heart.

            Dear friend, please don’t let me go. Even if I seem absent when I talk to you, even if I joke or forget to text or act like I don’t care. Even if I’ve just met you, or if we don’t know each other well yet. Please try to hold onto me. I need you, I want to know you, all of you.

            And even if the wind blew away everything I thought to cling to, this would stay constant: 

“As high as the heavens are over the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to His children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For he knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.” (Psalm 103:10-17)

Sometimes I wonder what Dicey wondered-

“You tell me to let go. But you told me to reach out, you told me to hold on. How can I do all those things together?”

            I can’t hold onto all the ribbons on my own. But if I cling to Him, everything will eventually be woven together with His love, for His glory. My God is faithful, from everlasting to everlasting.

{beginning to breathe again}

I can't honestly claim to have any connected trains of thoughts right now, but here are a few scraps:

    Regionals is over. It's nice to breathe again. We got home Saturday, and I spent the afternoon wandering in the greenbelt with the camera which belongs to my mother but has been kidnapped by me.
 



(this one is edited a bit)

 

 

Normally I don't care for taking pictures of flowers and trees. I like taking pictures of people, because they have faces and faces mean stories. I love trying to capture personalities. But flowers are nice and still if you want to relax. And the squirrel definately acted like he had personality.



 

Here are a few thinks I've jotted down in my notebook, things I've been thinking about:

    "Could I die? Could I bear the pain of flames crawling up, burning slowly limb by limb, a worm with searing, gnawing teeth? Would I throw myself before the bullet or let fall the guillotine blade without a quiver? I think I would. But would I love enough to surrender mundane everyday? To deny myself the comforts of my flesh? Perhaps not. And maybe that is where the martyr truly lies: a grave of minutes and appearances and preferences relinquished for love of One who needs them not but deserves them all."

       Isaiah 51:12-13: "I, I am He who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the Heavens and laid the foundations of the earth?"

"I will boast in You because I embrace what You hate

And You love me anyway.

Because I every day doubt your faithfulness,

But You are still faithful.

Because I look to physical idols for satisfaction,

Yet You still offer me joy.

Because I am hopelessly weak and broken,

But You are willing to repair me and use me.

Because I run away but You,

 In Your infinite wisdom and grace,

Insist on pulling me home to Your heart."

Voices

I haven't written in a while. I haven't had anything to say, and I haven't had time to say it. Sometimes I think one of those causes the other.

There have been tournaments...

 

 

and concerts

...and LOTS of prep for the above. Solo concertos to learn, ensemble pieces to mesh, choir parts to memorize, speeches to polish, rounds to debate, CX questions to prepare. Unique opportunities to lead and teach have also come up which I am so thankful for. But they, too, devour time. And then there's choir tour this weekend. Regionals the week after. And this little thing called school I've got to squeeze in somewhere.

    All of it amounts to noise in my head. "This is due in two days!" "Your concert is tomorrow and you're still not hitting the harmonic." "You won't pass the geometry test because you haven't had time to study." I'm glad I have an organized brain and I've always been good at focusing, getting things done, but blessings can be curses. I can't get the voices to be quiet. This season will pass, life will settle down. The voices will sleep. But what frightens me for the now is that all that noise will drown out the one Voice worth hearing, the voice of God.

    His voice says the most important thing is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength" (Luke 10). Loving God comes out in spending time with Him, and in "love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10, too). But the leeches of schedules and responsibilties have attached themselves to my heart and mind, sucking out my soul and strength. God gets the residue, the leftovers, when He should have the best of me. So I'm struggling, struggling to find the balance between my commitments and God's priorities. The one thing I know I can't let go of is my morning quiet time. I don't even turn on my phone before I've read the Bible, and prayed. Still, those voices nag at me, keeping me from really soaking in Scripture and really pouring out my heart to God.

    I like being busy, but busy with writing and friends and God's work. Honestly, I'm looking forward to when this wave of life subsides.  Until it does, though, I know I need to glorify God where I'm at. I pray that He will show me how.

Spring Reminds Me...

"For the love of Christ controls us...if anyone is in Christ, he is a NEW creation. The old has passed away, behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God who reconciled us to  Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation."

           

           God is the source and the lifeblood of the universe, and He imprinted His especial thinking, feeling, creating image in humankind. But we chose rebellion. Every day we sin, scorning the Hand that made us and sustains us. So the world is broken, cracked from the core. And each human heart is a picture of the world: rotting away, aged with sin, destined to crumble. But there is a restoration. We can be made NEW.

      Because I have put my hope in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the gate to glory has been opened. Out goes my sin, in comes the joyful purpose I was made for. I am controlled by the love of Christ. As His love takes the place of my rebellion, I become it. I am new. Just like every spring. Today, the cracked old trees in the ditch behind my fence are wrapped in green. Out from the piles of leaf-skeletons sprout chutes, and the chutes blossom into color. New.

And someday, it won't be only hearts that are new. The grass won't only be green in the spring. 

Then I saw a NEW heaven and a NEW earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things NEW.”

(Revelation 21:1-5)

When I read this passage, its promise brings me to life. All the weariness of living for the God the world hates, of battling sin and sacrificing myself, is worth it. Because there's a future beyond now, a bright and eternal future. I will live in a new world, lit by His face.

When Worlds Collide

      There's not just one world-not really. There are billions upon billions, a world for each person who has breathed, thought, believed, doubted, loved. If you imagine the thousands of years earth has spun, that's a lot of people. Just right now, there are over seven billion souls. Seven billion worlds.

     Yes, worlds. We all may look at the same stars each night, but even those we see differently. We use lenses that are tinted by our own personal disposition, experiences, and beliefs. Those qualities are so strikingly different from soul to soul that it's like living in different universes. I mean, I dance in grocery stores all the time. It embarasses my little brother (backwards, I know), but I can't help it. I wonder how many people I dance by who see my vibrant world in blacks and greys. I wonder how many souls I've brushed up against who aren't here anymore because they lost hope.

            I snapped this photo at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo because of the man in the booth. At least sixty, working a balloon dart booth with a traveling rodeo...not exactly the American dream. How different his story must be from mine, my story of friendships and relative wealth and opportunities! Maybe he had that, once, and lost it through bad choices. Maybe he regrets that now. Or maybe he has always struggled financially. Maybe he grew up without a father. I don't know; pretending I did would be judgmental and pretentious. But chances are he sees the world very differently than I do.

    Christians tend to see things in a similar light because we all "have the mind of Christ" (1st Cor. 2:16). But even then, we have different stories and burdens that we carry to the Cross. And even after Christ loosens the chains of sin, its residue will cling to us until the day this fallen life ends. I go through dark places sometimes with my own sin. Imagine how much darker those pits are for those who have no escape! In a non-negative way, our personalities shape our worlds individually, even with the united mind of Christ. Different things make us laugh and cry, and although we are called to love all men, there is no denying we love some more than others.

    Even though there's this plethora of parallel worlds, we can only BE in one, our own. There's no way to jump the borders into someone else's. Yes, we can empathize. Yes, we can get to know a person quite well. But we will never know the deepest parts of their hearts; only God is a soul-searcher. And we can never become them. I have my parent's DNA and I've been raised with my parent's constant influence, but I am not my parents. "By the grace of God, I am what I am" (1st Cor. 5:10). What we can do, though, is catch glimpses. And based on those glimpses, we can reach out and touch someone else's world.

    My younger cousin made me this sweet picture. Read the poem! It awoke me to a reality: I mean something to her. In her world, I am important. I never grasped that before. It's frightening that I've touched her world without knowing it, without even thinking about the influence I want to have. Glimpsing myself from her perspective has made me wonder: who else am I impacting without knowing it? There are people in my life that I would do anything for; am I that to someone? Most importantly, when they look at me, do they see the love of God?

    So I challenge you: try to catch a glimpse of someone else's world. Try to reach outside of your own soul and touch theirs. It may be painful, seeing from their view. But I know I'm the happiest when I'm not thinking of myself, and that only happens when I'm thinking of how I can point others to Christ. I can think of very few things more beautiful than choosing to see, and choosing to love.

Here

Some days I just want to get out of America.

    Even the average "poor" person in my country is in the top 5% of worldwide wealth. This wealth means there is enormous pressure to have certain things, wear certain clothes, go certain places, and look a certain way, to have lots of friends and a special activity that you shine at. I feel this pressure every day. I see girls around me that are prettier than I am. I see them texting a bunch of admiring guys. I see them with more Facebook friends than I have, and a LOT more profile picture likes, and it's hard not to be envious.

     I know these things aren't important. Almost every day I read Psalm 90 to remind me of how futile  human existence is-"For all our days pass away under Your wrath; we bring our years to end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away." Looking back on the annals of history makes my mind spin: so many centuries have come and gone, so many billions of people have lived and loved and died. Who knows them now? Their names are almost all forgotten. One day grass will grow over me, covering my life and my memory. The people I worry so much about impressing will be gone, too. Ultimately the only way my finite existence can become of any importance is by serving the infinite God. So it doesn't really matter when I flip open my phone and there are no texts waiting for me, right? Except it's hard to align my hopelessly illogical feelings with what my head knows.

    It feels like if I could just be packed into one of those little Ugandan churches and feel the thunder of their bilingual worship roll over me, then I could finally rest in the heart of God. If I could experience their poverty and hold their dying babies and see the joy they still have because the Lord is their strength, then I could trust Him. If I didn't have to worry about the little things like mascara and cell numbers, then I could do great things for the Kingdom of Christ. Except, that's not how it works.

    I am discontent not because of where I live but because I don't really believe that God is enough. I am "prone to leave the God I love". If I run away to Uganda, my sin will chase me there. God has planted me in America, in my family, my neighborhood, my church, my city, to reach out to the people around me. Because He knows best where I can glorify Him. He knows how my tiny piece is going to fit into the grand puzzle of His plan. So HERE is where I am. It's a good place.

And you know?

God is just as much HERE as He is in Uganda. He is here in every passing face, in every Word of Scripture, in every moment. I just have to look for Him.

Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to Heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, even if I dwell in the deepest parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall reach me and Your right hand shall cover me.

 

(Psalm 139:7-10)