Shoe Box Memories

The other night Chris and I started looking through an old box of letters that I had written to him that first summer of dating at camp and during the year I was away in Hollywood. Man, was I sappy and overwhelming!!! I am not kidding, I was sooooo very intense in the lovey dovey language I used. Reading them now, I wondered to Chris as to how he did not run for the hills when he first received them. We know now that it was God who kept us together when everything else said, "be afraid, be very, very afraid!" Anyway, I also came across an old newsletter I sent out during that time in Hollywood (for those who don't know, I was serving in mission there for a year) and was amazed at my own words. I don't remember being that contemplative and profound, but well, there it is on paper... it reads:


When I was younger, my sister and I used to take walks around the woods at the camp. She used to tell me not to look down at the ground, but up at the beauty around us. Have you ever found yourself missing the beauty of God’s creation because you were looking at the path so you wouldn’t stumble? My perspective was on what I could control. I totally missed what I was there to see in the first place. There was need for a change of perspective. This has been my experience over my year here in Hollywood. Recently, I have found that it is not about what I am looking for when there are more important things to be seen. My perspective has been on how I can control my life; past, present, and future. How can I watch the path so I don’t trip and fall and hurt myself? Jesus spoke to the disciples of a time, after he would be gone, when things would be very difficult for them and that they would need to look up. God didn’t let darkness win in the death of his son, but he overcame the darkness. That is not to say that there wasn’t great sadness at the death of the King, but that the outcome was a glorious one. There was a time when the people of Israel were wandering in the desert, that they found themselves plagued by deadly snakes. Their only hope to be healed was a glimpse upwards at a bronze serpent that the Lord told Moses to make. The pain of the bite was there, but there was an escape, a healing. That is something I have been realizing lately. The pain we feel in the process of healing is what we have to endure. I once heard it said that to look up means to access the reservoir of God’s grace. Not down at our own struggles, broken dreams, lost hopes. God is in control…so let him be. That is the lesson I am learning right now. “A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. O Lord, the hope of Israel…”(Jeremiah 17:12-13a). The throne reminds us that God is still in control. From the beginning, he has known. “Man’s true sanctuary is where a man knows God.” To be in a place set apart from this world where looking up isn’t scary is where I can say “O Lord, the hope of my life…” That is the place where I can relate to the story of Elijah. More than once I have referred to this year of mission as my “desert experience”. I have felt as though I, like Elijah, was looking for God in the earthquakes, windstorms and fires of my life over the past few years. And, like Elijah, God has revealed himself in a gentle whisper. I have found myself in the past running from the things that I was afraid of and, feeling alone, depressed and abandoned, I hid myself. Unfortunately, I often hid in the crowds of this world and not in the shadow of the Rock. I tried to fix things on my own and paid for it with isolation and loneliness. I find comfort in Psalm 91. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’…You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day…If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the Lord, who is my refuge—then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone…’Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.’” Hebrews 12 tells us to, “fix our eyes on Jesus”. That is what I am trying daily to remember. To look up…



Looks like I have already learned what to do in the "desert" that I find myself in again... Look up... look to the One who can change my perspective and my attitude and my situations. I was 23 then and 7 years later I am still learning the lessons of fixing my eyes on Jesus. Things continue to be hard here as Chris and I seek and discern our path and future. Recently Chris found out that he has to wait until January to take his oral exam (the final piece in the Master's degree puzzle) as his professor is on sabbatical till then. This has messed up his teaching job a USC Aiken for the Fall and has him pretty down. We are also still trying to figure out our income as of August when we will be finished serving at New Kirk. We know that God has our lives and our futures in his hands and he is sovereign and merciful every moment, but I find myself curious and anxious as I wait. I just want to know where we are headed and he is asking me to blindly abide... abide... abide... abide... The definition of abide is: to wait patiently for, to withstand, to remain in a place, to endure, to dwell, to last or exist for a long time, to wait. If you know me well at all, you know that to wait has always been hard for me. I know that God has always worked the most strongly in my life when he is asking me to do the hardest things. My time in Hollywood was one of those times of "hard." I hated waiting for it to be over, but in the midst of my complaining like the Israelites, God spoke to me in a whisper telling me that I was in that place for a reason and those people needed me... the me that God was working through, not the one who wanted to leave. I can use those lessons learned so long ago as I yet again endure a "desert" hot and tired, hungry and thirsty, though through it all cared for by my Maker, my Master and my Friend... Who asks me to listen and grow... to keep listening, listening for that still, small voice that tells me I am beloved and taken care of... the voice that asks me to trust and obey... the voice that asks for me to patiently abide in Him... I will be listening closely to the gentle whisper of my Abba Father revealing himself anew to me...