Annal 196: Tale from Undead Eyes, Blossoming Trees, and Unconditional Love

It's Friday morning (yes, I'm aware that I'm writing and posting this on a Saturday night, but for the sake of this story, pretend it is Friday morning.  Please).  It is the final Friday of your teaching practicum and for the first time in over two months you are running late (and by "running later" I mean you are only going to get to the school forty-five minutes before class starts... not two hours).  Your eyes feel as though they could close for eternity.  The skin of your face feels tight, like butter spread over too much bread (because quoting Bilbo makes you feel better), and as you glance in your rearview mirror you catch a glimpse of your reflection that sends tremors through your being.  The shadows you worked so hard to disguise only an hour earlier have been washed clean by your recently-shed tears, causing the resemblance that has been growing all semester between you the zombies from The Walking Dead to become undeniably apparent.

 

This glimpse is all it takes.  Your exhausted eyes begin to fill with tears yet again and as you take a deep breath to try to quell their shedding, the breath turns into a shudder and the tears break loose.

 

You try to regain control.  You try to pray.

 

All you can utter is, "God, I can't do this."

 

Your body feels weak as you maneuver your car onto the highway. All you want to do is turn around, crawl back into your small, hard, uncomfortable bed, burrow into the blankets, and disappear from the world.

 

Instead you keep driving.

 

Just as your eyes feel like they are going to glaze over your breath catches in your throat.

 

It's spring on the West coast, and this means not only that it rains only slightly less than in the winter but that the trees are blossoming.  And by blossoms I mean branches laden with gorgeous, pale pink blooms.

 

 

(if only I was also travelling down a fence-lined dirt lane too)

 

"I love you."

 

I'm fairly certain those were the words being uttered to me as I took on the view.

 

And with their utterance I felt that peace.  That perfect peace that passes understanding.

 

Now for some context :)

 

As I have mentioned before, my full-immersion practicum is done.  Right now is my "phase-out" period, where I hand back the reins to my mentor teachers and go back to being an observer.  Should be stress-free, right?

 

Nope.

 

I think we have established the fact that I don't sleep particularly well.  And for the last two weeks my sleep has been plagued with "school dreams"--the ones where you are doing everything wrong.  The kind of dreams that make you wake up in the morning convinced you are going to fail your practicum (even though you know that you aren't going to fail).  This week was my final exam conference.  You see, I had to write a final report about my practicum experience and how I have grown, my Faculty Associate had to write a report, and my two School Associates had to write a report.

 

Even though I knew I passed, I was still nervous.

 

My conference went better than I could have expected.  I received some pretty high praise.  My one SA told me that while he has had other student teachers, and they were all good, none of them had teaching in their DNA.  He said I was born to teach.  I'm the first student teacher my other SA has had and he said I set the bar really high.  My FA told him he hit the jackpot by getting me.

 

Incredible, right?  I had to try not to break down in front of these three men as they said this.

 

So my nerves should have been set aright.  Right?

 

But they weren't.

 

Because now that this one hurdle has been crossed, I have to cross the next.

 

I need a job.

 

I'm moving to Ontario in four months (yikes... that is coming fast)... and it would be wonderful if I had a way to support myself.

 

At this moment in time there isn't anything I can do about that.  But that doesn't change the fact that I felt immense stress over this issue.

 

I also got hit with a massive car bill and I had to ask my parents for help.  I was so proud of the fact that I was able to make it through this semester without asking them for financial aid (last semester was pretty humbling for me with respects to that).

 

So by Friday morning I'm feeling about as stressed as I can feel.  And I'm trying really hard not to vent to anyone about it because I figure no one really wants to hear about it, and most of my friends/family are also stressed, so they don't need me dumping on them (poor Charming... he didn't get the dumping but he definitely got my mood... but more on that later).

 

As I'm getting ready to head out the door my Mom calls me.  What ensues is about a twenty minute phone call where I finally let loose.  And my Mom proves to be incredibly understanding.  She sends me a hug via the phone and prays with me.  And with that I'm rushing out the door, no time to fix my now broken face.

 

I'm sure I could go into more detail, but this is getting long enough as it is.

 

The point is, the beauty of these trees began to break through all of the stress, fear, and hurt that I was harbouring.  I knew God was trying to get my attention.  You see, I wasn't even fully confiding in Him about all I was feeling.  I would tell Him snippets, and then I would stop.  I don't know why, I just know this is what I did.  So instead God got moody silence from me

 

Kind of like how poor Charming couldn't say anything this week without me taking some sort hurt from it (I keep hoping that he didn't fully notice and just assumed that some of my biting replies were merely sarcasm... the one perk of a relationship where most of our communication is through writing?).  By the time I got to my school I was beginning to realize all that I had put him and God through this week.  Both of them received an apology.

 

After school I drove out to my brother's place for the weekend (had to get my car fixed).  Along the way I was struck by how lush everything was.  The trees had far more buds on them than they had even a week ago.  It was rainy, but the sky was a dark, foreboding grey that cries out to every creative bone in my body.  I could tell this was having some sort of an effect on me, but still didn't know to what extent.

 

That night Charming went out of his way to let me know he cared.  Which in a way made me feel worse.  But it also made me better understand something I don't think I fully understood before.

 

God loves me unconditionally.

 

I have honestly been a mess emotionally this week (can't even blame PMS).  It has been over things out of my control, things I can't do anything about, and maybe that is why they have bothered me to such an extent.

 

I wouldn't have blamed Charming if he decided he wanted nothing to do with me.  Many are the times I lament my emotionalism and wish I could trade it for a calm, collected rationalism.  Instead he was patient and cared for me.

 

Kind of like how God gave me the blossoming trees and foreboding sky.

 

God took the beauty of nature to remind me that despite my craziness and despite the unknown that lies before me, He still loves me.  He took the beauty of Charming's words and time to remind me of His own unconditional love.

 

Despite my resembling a member of the undead horde, God wooed me.  Despite the fact that I was trying to keep my worries and fears from Him (silly, I know) and wasn't talking to Him, God wooed me.

 

He is continually taking what I would call my un-beauty and is reminding me that in His eyes I'm still beautiful.  He still loves me.

Annal 195: Tale from a Wretched Treasure

I know.

It has been a while.

As in longer than a usual while.

You have my sincerest apologies.

Really.

You see, after my last post I was plunged into the most stressful part of my long practicum.  That finished about two weeks ago and I have been enjoying that luxury known as "Spring Break."  I would have written sooner, but Charming came out for a week long visit, and I'm afraid I wasn't willing to spend what little time we get together on a computer.  Not even if it meant writing a post that I'm sure all of you have just been biting your nails with anticipation over.  Because people are just that into my blog :P

But that is not the only reason I haven't written in a while.  For the last 5 or 6 weeks I have had so many ideas circulating through my mind, but none of them have quite seemed complete.  I have talked to people, done reading, looked at pictures... but I could not seem to draw the connection between all of my numerous thoughts.

Then came my drive to church this morning.  You see, I'm visiting my brother and his family, and the drive to their church takes you through glorious farmland surrounded by rolling hills and mountain peaks in the distance.  It has been gloriously hot weather (for March anyway), and the sunshine is breathtaking.  Yet this beauty was not what  caught my attention.  While thoroughly enjoying this beauty, I have to be honest and say that my mind was more concerned with missing Charming (I put him back on a plane on Tuesday, and now have to wait a few more months before our next visit).  I finally pulled my thoughts away and decided to focus on the fact that it is Good Friday.

Last year I didn't get to go to a Good Friday service.  I had class late the night before so my sister and I drove back home the Friday morning.  So my thoughts went back to two years ago.  What I remembered shocked me.

Two years ago was the Easter after my Mom was fired.  It marked the beginning of a year and a half long journey through forgiveness.  I hadn't even started blogging at that point.

My mind started thinking about that journey of forgiveness.  If you had told me two years ago that God was going to take something that left me so hurt, rejected, and angry, and was going to somehow bring beauty from it, I honestly don't think I would have believed you.  Two years ago forgiveness didn't seem like an option.  One year ago it was a possibility but still something incredibly difficult to deal with.  While I will be the first to confess that I still deal with cynicism, that there are some parts of church that will get my back up, I can also confess that I am not the same person today that I was two years ago.  God has changed me.  He has taken something that was twisted and hurt and angry, and made something beautiful out of it.

There is this house near Fort Langley that a good friend and I love to drive by.  It is red, abandoned, and nestled in the middle of a field.

This house catches my attention every time I see it.  I wonder at the story of it.  Why was it abandoned?  What happened within its walls? 

Most importantly, how did a house like this come to be so rich in beauty?  How does it grab your attention and draw you in? 

During the service today we sung the song "How Deep the Father's Love for Us."  Here is the first verse:

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all meaure.
That he should give His only Son,
To make a wretch His treasure.

As we sung these words I could feel something within me stop. 

I am such a wretch.  Lately I have become more and more aware of this.  One thing I have noticed with being in a relationship is that I suddenly become far more aware of my flaws.  I would love to tell you that dating someone means you always feel great about yourself.  But the truth is that I have become far more aware of just how human I am.  Specifically, I begin to realize my shortcomings when it comes to my relationship with God.  And in that process I realize just how incredibly patient He is.

I am such a wretch.

And yet the Father's love is so great, so measureless, that He gave His Son to make me His treasure.  He takes me, a wretched, imperfect creature, and somehow He makes something beautiful out of my life.  He takes a wretch and makes it a treasure.

This process is not always fun.  Sometimes I get to spend time basking in God's love.  Sometimes He spends time telling me He loves me and that He finds me beautiful.

Other times He draws attention to my faults.  He shows me that while I have come a long way, I still have a long way to go.  I am nowhere near perfect.  I am flawed.  But with His power and His strength, I am being transformed.  To be left alone would be easy, but would produced only more wretchedness.  He Christ did not die for me to remain a wretch.

He died to save me.  To resore me.  To make me His treasure.

Annal 194: Tale from the Name Change

I had a realization over the weekend, and this realization provided answers to something that has been bothering me since the summer.

You may have noticed that I don't blog as much as I once did (I went from 4-5 times a week to twice a month... if I'm lucky).  To be honest, I wasn't sure why this was.  I have time in the evenings when I get back from my practicum, and writing posts has always been the perfect way for me to sort through all that is going on in life.  Yet I haven't.

My brother started blogging in September (and yes I am inserting a little plug for it... you can find him at http://thebiblesalesman.wordpress.com/), so most weekends when I go to visit him and his and family blogging comes up in the conversation.  True to form, it came up yesterday.  We were discussing the purpose behind our blogs.

You see, when I started writing, I did so because I was tired of the stigma attached to being a Christian single.  I knew there had to be more to life than waiting around for "Mr. Right."  And, let's be honest, I had more than my fair share of humorous encounters surrounding being single that I found it fun to share :)  God ended up taking my blog, especially during the last year of my undergraduate degree, and used it to help show me the identity that I had in Him.  And those of you who read what I wrote were privy to all that was going on in my life--the good, the bad, and most definitely the ugly!

Then something happened this summer, and in the most unexpected twist of fate (or more accurately God working in mysterious way), I found myself being pursued by a Charming.

And ever since then I have had a bit more trouble writing.

Why is that?

I think I finally figured it out this weekend.

You see, I'm no longer at the same place I was at when I first started writing.  In more ways than just my relationship status, I have changed in the last year and a half.  And the truth is that I felt purposeless.  I haven't known what to write about.  I haven't known what to share.  A part of me has still felt like I needed to be true to the "Annals of a Christian Single" and yet almost every blog I have written since September has felt somewhat forced.

To be honest, I had somewhat of a mini identity crisis in the last 36 hours.  I started asking God, "Who am I?"

And then I remembered all that He showed me last year.  How He spent a year wooing me and showing me how beautiful I was in His sight. 

I was feeling like I didn't know who I was apart from my "single" identity, but what God showed me is that I'm not a different person.  The woman He spent last year showing me I was is still me.  It wasn't my "single identity" in Him.  It was my identity in Him.

So while all of this was going through my head I came across something in the book The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson that I am reading for my devotions.  I'm in a chapter that is looking at the book of Isaiah and here is what I found.  I'm writing out a full paragraph, and it is long, but I'm hoping you will bear with me.

"Beauty is commonly trivialized in our culture, whether secular or ecclesial.  It is reduced to dcoration, equated with the insipidities of 'pretty' or 'nice.'  But beauty is not an add-on, not an extra, not a frill.  Beauty is fundamental.  Beauty is not what we indulge ourselves in after we have taken care of the serious business of making a living, or getting saved, or winning the lottery.  It is evidence of and witness to the inherent wholeness and goodness of who God is and the way God works.  It is life in excess of what we can manage or control.  It arrives through a sustained and adoratioal attentiveness to all that we encounter along the way: a forced march across a desert, a rock, a flower, the dragon Rahab, a face, a rustle in the trees, the 'cup of staggering,' a storm crashing through the mountains, wounding and bruising of all sorts, an old man's gesture, a lamb led to the slaughter, a child's play, an altar call, a good death, wings like eagles, the Scriptures, Jesus."

I read this this morning and it got me thinking.  It seemed to strike a chord within me, but I wasn't sure why.  It reminded me of a year God spent telling mye He created me beautiful and how to Him that meant so much more than simply my exterior.  It made me think of how once I finally accepted that to Him I am truly beautiful, He brought Charming into my life, and how at least once a day he tells me the same thing: I'm beautiful.

But I still didn't know how this pertained to me and my blog.  So, when I realized I wasn't going to be falling asleep as early as I wanted to tonight, I decided to read a little further.  And here is what I found:

"Every sunflower and oak, every dachshund and elephant, every young girl's lithe form and every old man's worn face, has an interior, a depth, a meaning.  There is always more, much more than, as we say, meets the eye.  There is far more to seeing than a functioning iris and retin.  Imagination is required to see all that is involved in what is right before our eyes, to see the surface but also to penetrate beneath the surface.  Appearances both conceal and reveal: imagination is our means of discerning one from the other so that we get the whole picture.

"Likewise every verb and adverb, every noun and adjective, every interjection and copula, is in living relationship with every other word said and sung by voices past numbering.  There is far more to hearing than an eardrum free of wax buldup.  Memory is required to make sense of even the simplest sentence.  Language is vast and intricate and living.  Memory is our means of keeping the complexities of syllables and syntax coherent, of bring together the voices of the entire membership, of getting the whole story, of hearing the voice across the room but also the voices from across miles and centuries.

"Imagination so that we can discern what is beneath the surface and respond appropriately to the life presented to us in this place.

"Memory so that we can stay in touch with conversations and sounds previous to and beyond those that are coming into out ears at this moment.

"Without imagination and memory we are reduced to surface and immediacy, we live in a cramped prison cell of the five senses and of the immediate moment.  But when imagination and memory are healthily active, the prison door springs open and we walk out into the large, multi-dimensional world that continues to expand exponentially.  'Beauty' is the word of witnes that we use to identify this world, this world that is both outer and inner, both present and other.  When we become aware of and then participate in the coming together, the wholeness, the intricacies of what is implicit always and everywhere, we exclaim, 'How beautiful!'"

I realize that was a large chunk of text, but I wanted you all to read what I read.  What were two means that God regularly used to show me how He saw me?  He used my imagination, my ability to see what rested beneath the surface, and He used the memories of past encounters, past conversations.

As I read that passage last night, I began to see my purpose for this blog.  I never want to stop encountering the beauty of God.  Rather, I want to be continually aware of it.   And not just that, but I also want to help other see it, to help others become aware that beauty is the "evidence of and witness to the inherent wholeness and goodness of who God is and the way God works."

It is not lightly that I do this, but I have decided to change the name of my blog.  For a time I was called to share the "Annals of a Christian Single," but I believe that was a step to a deeper calling, a much-needed step, but a step nonetheless.  I never want to lose sight of true beauty, of the goodnes of who God is and how He works.  And I want to help others to see this as well.  It is my hope that by sharing "Tales of Beauty," I will continually grow as the woman God intends for me to be, and that I will also help others to combine imagination and memory in a way that allows them to experience the beauty of God and His creation.

Annal 193: Tale from the Misty Mountain

I started my long practicum last Monday and the result has been me arriving at my placement school between 6:45 and 7:00 in the morning.  No big deal, but it means I don't have quite as much time for contemplation in the morning.  Add to the mix a cold I'm trying to fight before beginning my full-immersion teaching next week and a sore knee that has kept me from running, and I'm sure you can imagine what my mornings have looked like.

But this morning was different.  Today I am meeting with the other student teachers in my pod on campus (which is great since I live on campus).  So I could sleep in a little, take my time getting ready, and actually have a bit of time to think.

The sky is just starting to lighten now, and my mountain dwelling is completely shrouded in mist.  I can't decided who I'm more likely to see emerging from the grey: Rochester or Smaug.  To be honest, I think I would take either.

Yesterday morning I read something in my devotions just before heading to school and I have been mulling it over, off and on, for the last 24 hours.  It's from a book I'm reading called Wednesdays were Pretty Normal by Michael Kelley.  He was a pastor who decided to pursue full-time writing and whose two year old son ends up diagnosed with Leukemia.  This book chronicles the story of what he and his wife went through during that time.

In the chapter I just finished he talked about the idea of pain.  About having to press the button to give his little boy a bit more morphine when the pain became too much.  About longing for something that could dull his own pain.  This leads Kelley to a discussion of Job and Job's engagement with pain.  About how Job asked the real, hard questions that result from pain.  Questions like: "Why is this happening?" or "Is God real?" or "How can a loving God allow this to happen?"

Then Kelley starts talking about Job 38 when God speaks back.  Here's what he says about that.

"...after these thirty-seven chapters of accusations, questions, and pain, the answer God gave was not the 'Why?' Job was looking for.  It was the 'Who?' he wasn't.

"For the next four chapters, God talked about... Himself.  He talked about His power and His creativity.  He talked about His wisdom and His justice.  And He reminded Job that he, as a human, possessed none of those qualities in comparison to the Almighty.  Never once did God crack the door of eternity and say, 'See, this whole thing started when Satan came walking in here...'  Never once did He take Job into the future to show him the good that would come from his struggle.  Never once did He reveal the way He would redeem Job's pain.  Never did God show  Job one of the billions of Bibles that would be printed in the future, all containing his story.  Not one single answer to Job's specific questions.  Just descriptions of Himself.

"While that may seem unsatisfying on our end, to know that God doesn't offer answers or promise a glimpse 'on the inside,' we've got to ask outselves the question: Would knowing why really help?  And at least on our part, the answer is no.  It wouldn't.  Why doesn't bring back the lost time.  Why doesn't gather up the tears we've shed.  Why doesn't make the ache go away.  Why doesn't help with the anxiety of the future.

"But 'Who' does.  God is the redeemer of moments small and large.  God gathers up our tears and holds them in His hands.  God is the healer of the soul.  God is the caretaker of the future.  Who helps tremendously in ways that why never could."

I don't really feel like I can say much more to add to that.

But I would love to hear what others think.

Annal 192: Tale from Holy Ground

When I was twelve years old, I went through this phase.  I know you may find this hard to believe, but I am in possession of somewhat of an overactive imagination.  Shocking, I know.  So I fully understand that you will struggle believing me when I say that throughout my grade seven year I was constantly trying to find a way into Narnia.

I had The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe paper dolls that came with a backdrop.  I would close my eyes and try to stick my hands through the backdrop.

I would try walking through the back of my closet.

I would close my eyes and try walking through the coat rooms at my school.

Even now I will come upon a particularly romantic lamp post and will find myself scanning my surroundings for the arrival of Mr. Tumnus.  Sometimes I even refer to myself, in my head of course, as a Daughter of Eve.

The reason I say all of this is because you will then understand why everything about my devotions this morning led me back to C.S. Lewis, specifically to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

One of the books I am reading right now is The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson, where he looks at how Jesus is the way and how this is particularly reflected throughout the Old Testament.  Right now I am reading a chapter on Isaiah that looks at the holiness of God.  Peterson talks about King Uzziah, a man who had feared God yet ended up desecrating the temple.  He wanted to deal with God how he wanted to deal with God--"as one sovereign to another."  As a result Uzziah became leprous.  Peterson then compares this experience to Isaiah's temple experience, where instead of trying to use God, Isaiah went to worship and to pray.  He says something that really caught my attention: "'Our God is a consuming fire' (Hebrews 12:29), not fire to be played with.  Holy, Holy, Holy is not Christian needlepoint."  There was another point where Peterson commented on holy ground also being dangerous ground--you approach with reverence.

Hearing this brought be instantly to a discussion the Pevensie children had with the Beavers in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man.  Is he--quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?  Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe.  But he's good.  He's the King, I tell you."

So here I am sitting, thinking on what Peterson had said while envisioning a scene from one of my favourite books.  Then I reach for Worship by the Book, and start reading the last two distinctives of worship that Hughes outlines.  He talks of worship being wholehearted, and then his last point stopped me in my tracks.  He says that worship is reverent.

In Hebrews 12, Hughes points out that two mountains are mentioned: Sinai and Zion.  He says the author of Hebrews states that we have not come to the consuming fires of God on Mount Sinai, but rather to the consummate grace of God that is Mount Zion.  However (and this is key), Hugues tells us that our graced standing requires two things: obedience and worship which we see outlined here: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire'" (Hebrews 12:28, 29).

First of all, I thought it was pretty fascinating that Hughes used the same reference that Peterson used (Yay!  I love it when there are connections in what I am reading).

Secondly, I love how Hughes summarizes this.  Here is what he says:

"Very simply, both mountains reveal God.  The God of Zion is the same God as the God of Sinai.  And though we can approach him because of his unbounded grace, he remains a holy consuming fire... Christians ought to enjoy life to the fullest.  But they must also know and understand that God remains a 'consuming fire' and that acceptable worship takes place when there is authentic reverence and awe in all of life, not the least in corporate worship."

Sometimes I think I forget about who God is.  I know He loves me, I know He has given me grace, I know He has forgiven me, and I know that I have a personal relationship with Him.  But sometimes I forget that He is also a consuming fire.  That He is holy.  And that this means that while He is good, it also means we are not "safe" as Lewis terms it.

I think Peterson shows this best.

"Holiness is the most attractive quality, the  most intense experience, we ever get out of sheer life--authentic, undiluted, firsthand living, not life looked at and enjoyed from a distance.  We find ourselves in on the operations of God himself, not talking about them, not reading about them.  But at the very moment that we find ourselves in on more than ourselves, we realize we also might very well lose ourselves.  We cannot domesticate The Holy."

This is scary.  It is frightening to stand on holy ground and know that to do so means you will never be the same.  That to give God the reverence and awe that is rightfully His, to fully worship Him in such a manner, means that we have to put ourselves aside.  I wrote on Monday about how particularly self-centered I have felt lately.  But the truth is, it isn't about me.  And if I want to live my life in the holy presence of God, I need to realize that He is a consuming fire.  That He will bring to light the things about me that I don't want to see and that I definitely don't want others to see.

And that's not safe.

But it's good.