jhm...

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow.

Seems too soon to have been a year ago. His life seems still more real than his death. What sense does it make to to feel like everything and nothing has changed? Weird.
Jordan said there was a deep sadness in my eyes over the last few days, and maybe so only because when my mind is at peace, it rests on him. Nothing about this is fair or simple, and I still like to believe that he chose to go. He wanted to go on ahead.

But I still wish he could see us now.

Father, I still trust you.

a keeper

Yesterday, I was so tired that I was near-delirium. As I was falling asleep, I suddenly had the most vivid memory of the last time I saw Josh. It was so real and random that I woke from my half-stupor and nearly cried.

He knew I was in Dallas before I was going to leave for the holidays, but I was so screwy about him that I wanted to see him, but didn't want to admit it, so I so kindly offered him the chance to take me to the airport at the crack of dawn the next morning. And so, at 4:30 a.m., or some unholy time of the morning, he knocked on Anne's door to take me. I remember I wrote Anne a note because I wasn't going to wake her that said, "It's 4:30 a.m. and I have a full face of make up on and my hair is done. What's wrong with me?" Ha...and so I answered the door fresh-faced and ready in the darkness of the December early morning.

He was dressed in torn jeans and some baggy t-shirt with a John Deer hat, and his hair was curly and long underneath. I remember laughing to myself because his style of late was so trendy that it must have taken hours to meticulously create each outfit: euro hairstyle, hair gel, expensive jeans and abnormal amounts of stupid accessories of some kind. But standing there in front of me now, he looked so unkempt, so.. normal. It's ironic that the last time I saw him he reminded me so much of the first time we met: torn jeans, Abercrombie shirt, hair long and curly on the ends.

I remember Anne came down with me to answer the door and he said hello politely, aware that she wasn't his biggest fan. Then he hoisted my huge suitcase and guitar over the side of his truck without a struggle, which was so strange because he was always so damn skinny and looked like he could blow over at any moment. We talked about how he had stayed up all night because they had gotten in so late, and everyone had eaten mushrooms but he hadn't. Right off the bat he joked that he had never gotten goodbye kiss at the airport and was looking forward to it. I laughed and said, "Oh, are you!?" teasingly.

I remember he didn't know exactly how to get to Love Field airport. But I remember that I was uncharacteristically laid back about getting there, only because I knew that he of anyone would find it without getting lost. We made it there without much event, and pulled into a Starbucks to sit and have coffee before he dropped me off. But it was like 5 a.m. and it was still closed. He made some comment about it opening later on the weekends.

He pulled out of the parking lot and I remember thinking that he was disappointed because now we didn't really have a place to sit and talk. As we pulled into the check-in area, he helped me with my bags but told me he'd meet me inside because he had to park the truck. So I waited for him in the doorway. After all my bags were taken care of, he took my hand. It was just normal or something. Everything was still closed, but we went to sit in the sitting area for the McDonald's. I remember he sat across from me and held my hand the whole time we sat there. I don't really remember what we talked about, but I remember watching him watch his hand and mine, and I remember thinking my hands were ugly and square compared to his long, slender fingers. I wish I could remember what we said, but I really only see images of him across from me.

So, he walked me to the security check-in, where he couldn't go after that. We faced each other to say goodbye and he reached down to give me a kiss. Ha. I remember laughing at his cockiness to think he really was going to get a kiss goodbye even though we weren't dating or really even talking before a week prior. But again, it just seemed normal. So I kinda brushed my mouth with his, teasing him. "Really, you're gonna..." was all he said before I decidedly kissed him. I didn't even feel silly about kissing in public and even remember that I pulled him closer with my right hand on his back.

It was a great kiss. Ha. And I'm not even saying that because it was one of the last moments I had with him. But it was. It had no awkward sloppiness of a first kiss with a new love. But it had still the feeling of your stomach dropping in excitement. Strange. Then I vaguely remember him saying that I should just stay here for the holidays. I could stay with his Mom and Jack, they'd love to have me. And I remember loving the sweetness of the idea, but I'm not proud to admit that the first hesitation I had was to do with the stupid plane ticket. Ha. So lame.

At some point we let go and I walked through security and boarded the plane, but I don't remember much about it. I think we texted each other at least 40 times before I made it to my house. I went directly to sleep when I got home and remember that I woke up to him lamenting that I hadn't stayed. It was a sweet awakening.

And that was the last time I saw him. I think I like this memory because it was such a perfect picture of the simple plainness of us together that always managed to get confused with these stupid arguments and ultimatums that put us in different corners of the ring.

And so I'll keep it here.

grace

She's pretty much grown now. Not much of the 'little girlness' is really left, especially with those damn vivacious curves. Lord knows she looks older than me. As we sat at lunch today, I noticed a few of those little awkward things that are becoming of a little girl not a woman, leaving just a linger of childhood.

She doesn't say "Bread Company Co," (because she didn't know that "Co" was short for company.) She doesn't mispronounce much anymore. She wears makeup.

To her much wiser, older sister, Gracie will probably still be 4-years-old until she busts me in the nose with her adulthood. Until then, I think I'll still enjoy the little awkwardness. I like how she trumps around the house, not knowing yet how to balance her thickening hips with the childish excitement of her task. I like that as she sat at lunch today, her shapely legs moved awkwardly in her skirt and flashed a bit of pink, flowery underwear. The consciousness of her femininity hasn't yet overtaken every movement of her body to leave her aware of awkwardly spread legs. I like her braces.

She wrote me a note before I left for YWAM and her words were this perfect blend of child and adult. "Carpe Deium!" she wrote. "That means 'seize the day,'" she added as an aside for me if I hadn't known. Her note was this strange thing I could touch and hold in my hands of her waning childishness.

Sure she's discovered how cute she is -- and how boys have discovered it too -- but it seems innocent. She loves life, friends, clothes, and all that comes with her upcoming womanhood. I love to watch her discover the ups and downs of being grown. Her desire for independence still flashes in angry, dramatic outbursts that are usually scripted eerily similar to whatever 'coming of age' movie she saw recently. But she's still discovering.

So, I'm praying that she'll discover safely. I pray that God would cover her from the ugliness of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I mean, I know she has to grow up. But, I just pray that He would cover her gracefully as she steps out. I hope she doesn't struggle with the same stuff I did, and that her beauty stills itself beneath her skin.

I hope she grows in grace.

'my love for you is real'

So, I'm home.

Strange to have up and left so quickly (thanks, Dengue Fever). It feels like I was pushing and begging and asking for breakthrough, and then I was sick and in the hospital and the rest is history. Maybe I'll know what the point of being "taken out of the game" so quickly, maybe I won't. But I have begun to resolve that I will still serve Him if it means I won't see any breakthrough, any beauty, any salvation.
As Screwtape writes to Wormwood of their plight to derail the Christian walk:

"Our cause is never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

-C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

I'm not sure I can really count this as "suffering" for Him, but I hope that there was something broken for the people there. I hope that our lives there even for that little while brought Him pleasure, and that He was proud of us.
Ha. Could He be proud?

Even as I have begun to tell people where I've been, my story seems so little. What I have to offer, what I have given, seems to little. And I don't know where I'm headed, but I know that I see things differently. I believe He has changed my heart toward the poor, and to the reality of what knowing and following Him really means. I believe He is a mighty and holy God, and I am humbled to be counted as someone He loves. His ways seem ever higher, His sovereignty seems so much greater, and His mercies are so much sweeter since I have been serving with so little to give and so little in return. Strange how that works out.

Mercy, Lord.

"my love for you is real. it moves like the summer breeze. my love for you is strong, Lord it brings me to my knees...."

my soul is restless, until it finds rest in Thee...

So, culture shock. I thought I would experience culture shock when I first arrived nearly a month ago, or when I returned to the "Western" world, but instead, it's the dichotomy of cultures within this country that is so strange.

For our day off, the team has been going to one of the ENORMOUS malls here. And still, I have never felt so unsettled or uncomfortable in all my life as I do here, on a day that is supposed to be restful. It's not even the strangeness of the disparity between the rich and poor here that really unsettles me. Even with our day to day life working in a slum, clearing away years' worth of trash and filth from people's makeshift homes or trying to bring any sort of aid to a people with nothing, I thought I would enjoy sitting in air conditioning, reading and drinking coffee.

But instead, this chaotic mess of lights and sound and taste makes me want to bury my head beneath something thick and heavy. I have more than once today wished I was back at the slum, talking to Ross or just sitting with people there. Weird. John told me that he never felt so alive as when he was doing his outreach, and I see exactly what he means. At first I thought he just meant "raw" as in, everything was stripped away, and his heart was newly hurt and newly healed and the sin that so easily entangles was for once being left behind. But I think he meant that his heart and soul were alive in the reality that this life does not satisfy.

We were made for something else.

I can feel my eyes glaze over and my heart quicken as I stare at the brightly lit stores here. And it seems like I am never so hungry as I am here, looking at 23432 restaurants which boast of cuisine from all over the world: sweet, spicy, salty, exotic, decadent. And still, my soul is an unrest. Nothing here satisfies. I can't buy enough. I can't taste enough. I can't see enough.

Yesterday I wrote in my journal that the Lord would 'ruin' me for the ordinary in this life. And, apparently, He does answer prayer. Because here, I feel ruined. I am alive to the fact that He satisfies like nothing can or ever will. Spending hours fighting traffic in exhausting heat just to get to our slum to give a hug or bring something to eat or a shirt to wear seems so much more restful right now than any of this that surrounds me right now.

And so, I am alive. I am alive to something else. I am alive to something other than just a 'new me.' I am live to Him and His heart.

It is there that my soul has found rest.

the world is a book...

and those who do not travel read only a page.
~St. Augustine

Kona, Hawaii to Tokyo, Japan to Jakarta, Indonesia.
Time for some reading. And some abiding.

We'll see about this. Right now, I am increasingly aware that I am willingly walking blindly into these next couple of months. I mean, this is YWAM. Our plan is to have no plan.

And I love that.

Here's to no plans, no sleep, and no place to lay your head.

oh how he loves us so...

If one thing i have learned here at YWAM, it's that God does in fact know what He's doing. However crazy-assed it may seem, I believe that He is still working all things together for good.

This post has come from the deepest places of my heart and my thoughts with and toward God, mainly having to do with my relationship with Josh and his death. I can only begin with words of praise; God is faithful. He is good to me when I don't even know it.

When I met him, I was a freshman at Baylor, thirsty for everything that was to come from 'becoming an adult.' And of course, I fell in love. Josh only had one tattoo then (ha) and loved to wear that Abercrombie shirt and those Diesel shoes that he used to share with Peugh. We were simpler, it seems. A good while into our relationship, I began to walk with God in an intimacy that I had never known before. I was always a Christian, but a Christian who sang worship songs blatantly aware that I would not sing "I love you." I knew Him to be a Creator, the God of the universe. I respected Him. I honored Him. I revered Him. But loved?

But then, I fell in love with God. I fell for Him deeply and fast. He cherished me. And it was then that I began to hear His voice as clear as I've ever heard any audible voice around me. "Come out from among them and be separate..." this verse haunted me for months as I wrestled with the knowledge that He was calling me out of this relationship with a boy I loved. I wrestled with knowing that both Josh and I were Christians, so how could He be saying that we were "unequally yoked"? I wrestled with knowing that He was asking me to be obedient no matter what my heart or mind said.

So I did. And to this day, and to my deep regret, Josh's last blogs speak scornfully of a girl who scoffed at his 'godliness.' His words in that blog haunt me, especially because we never got to talk about what he had written. To him, I had played the indubitable "God card." There was no way to explain to Josh then that I loved him, but God really was calling me away. Away to where, I had no clue. But away from Josh for the present.

So, I went. And Josh went. We walked miles away from each other, but managed to swing back around and throw blows every so often. It wasn't until the week before his death that we came to a point of total honesty about our feelings toward one another, despite years and tattoos and addictions that had passed between us. I almost believed that God had called me out to be separate, but was going to restore something there.

And then, Josh passed away.

Obviously, his death has changed me. And the Lord knows how I have struggled and wrestled and fought and cried over the plain unfairness of it all. And one day, I remember writing in my journal, asking God why. Not asking why had Josh passed away, but why had I heard His voice so clearly call me out of that with Josh. Was it because He knew Josh would die young?

For some reason, I went and re-read Josh's last blogs "Thoughts on God" a few days ago. I just had this strange desire to read every word and hurt all over again. So I did. But this time, instead of reading it in a place of pain and frustration, I really read his words. He talked about his life as a little no-nothing worship leader who found himself struggling with doubt, getting the "God card" from a girlfriend, falling into deep drug addiction, and finding hope - and finding God. He wrote about intimacy. He wrote about beauty. He wrote about a God that was beyond the church, beyond a religion. He wrote about a God he knew.

So as I sat with God under that big tree at the base of the hill here in Hawaii, I feel like He sweetly brought closure to a hurt that was so deep and so costly in my understanding of My Almighty. Josh knew God at his death in a way that I don't believe he did in the years that looked more like he was following God. I believe that out of a place of painful obedience and unknowing, God brought Josh to a point of knowing Him deeper. And I have never felt so strongly that now Josh knows now.

He knows.

And so, I am filled with praise to my Father. His works are mightier and sweeter than any I could contrive. He has taken my heart with his kindness.

"...and by this we will come to know that we know Him...."