Hosea 11: A Paraphrase

Hosea 11: A Paraphrase

(For my sisters, my Young Life girls, and all the rest of us who need to be reminded how gently, fiercely and persistently we are loved despite all our wanderings, fears and failures.)  

When you were just a little girl, I loved you. And out of captivity, sin, depression, anxiety and hopelessness I called you. But the more I called you, the more you ran away. You just kept chasing after worthless things to find your identity and purpose and life...you kept giving your time and energy and thoughts and affections to empty idols...shiny promises of life and meaning.

But in the end they never delivered.

It was I who taught you to walk. I held your hands as you took your first tentative steps, wide-eyed and wobbly, but you didn't know it was me. You didn't know it was me that healed and cared for you...watched over you and kept you from harm. I led you with cords of kindness. I wrapped you in bands of love. I carried your load so life and it's struggles wouldn't be so heavy on your shoulders. I bent down to feed you...to provide for you and meet your needs in the most gentle, complete and intimate way possible.

But you will not come back home.

You will be ruled by the tyrant enemy kings you chose for yourself, the ones who have anything but your best interests in mind...the ones who rule without mercy and compassion and justice. The ones who care nothing for the people who are subject to them, but only for themselves and how you can meet their needs and further their selfish agendas. All this because you refuse to come home to me...

...the one who created you, who knows you completely and loves you relentlessly.

War, chaos, conflict and strife will rage through your days...they will tear down the walls and defenses and safeguards you have built for yourself to protect your heart and soul...they will consume and destroy you because you followed your own faulty "wisdom."

You are bent on turning your back on me, and though you sometimes mention my name, and occasionally give me lip service, I'm not going to do you any favors any more.

But...


...wait...


How can I give up on you, my precious daughter? How could I ever just let you go, little girl? How could I destroy you, or let you end up like someone shamed, hopeless, wandering on the street with the light gone from her eyes and the life gone from her bones? My heart breaks at the thought. My compassion is stirred...warm and tender. I will not carry out my burning anger.

I will not destroy you or turn away from you.

I could never reject you...because I am God and not mere man. Because of who I am (not because of who you are, or anything you could do, or earn, or prove, or be). I am the holy one in this relationship...perfect in love and truth and justice...I will not bring my wrath to the table.

You will come running back to me.

I will roar like a lion, and when I roar, my children will come flying home like little birds. You will come trembling with hope, flying from all the barren places where you have pitched your tents. And then I will welcome you back to your real home, the place where you belong...where you are cared for, where you can thrive and flourish, where you are called by your name...where you have a history and a family...where you are know and loved with an unconditional, honest, never-ending, forever kind of love.

You will be home.

Hope, Heaven, & Why It Still Hurts

My Grandpa Eben passed away Tuesday night. I was at Target shopping for Young Life club supplies on Monday morning when my mom called to tell me he had taken a turn for the worse. As soon as my sister made it home from Denver on Tuesday afternoon we headed across the state, and we were an hour from the Tyndall hospital when we received word that he was gone.

Though it seemed to happen quickly, his death was not tragic.

I say this because my grandpa lived a long, rich life, and he followed Jesus faithfully. He loved nine children and one woman (for 68 years!) He ran his business with integrity and was a respected member of his community. He served with the Gideons for many years, working to get scripture into the hands of people who otherwise may never have laid eyes on a copy. He taught his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids to love and fear the Lord. He had no undone business here, and his heart was ready to come face-to-face with his Savior. He finished well.

My grandpa was 89 years old and his health had been declining for the last few months, so his passing did not really come as a shock. But while we were probably all as "ready" as folks can be to let go of someone whom they love very much, it is still painful.

Why?

How can we feel so blindsided by something we know is so inevitable? We spend our whole lives with the full knowledge that we - and all the ones we hold most dear - will eventually be gone. But we don't want to say goodbye, and we invest the best of our resources to delay doing so. If we could have it our way, we'd all live forever, and it doesn't matter how long we have to see the end coming, it still hits us like a ton of bricks in the long run.

But, why?

The primary reason I can think of for this is that we simply weren't designed to deal with death. Our hearts and minds and souls were not made know to the "end" of the hearts and minds and souls whom we love. It was never part of the plan and so we never get used to it. We're not supposed to get used to it because that foreign, forlorn ache we feel in the face of death is part of our DNA that reminds us where we came from. God has "set eternity in the hearts of men." We were created to live forever and this is why we long for it so.

In Young Life, one of our tag-lines is "You Were Made for This." The phrase sort of takes on multiple meanings, but primarily it is rooted in the idea that our mission is to introduce adolescents to Jesus...to Life & Light...to the only who can rescue us from the dominion of darkness, the curse of death. We were made to know Jesus. We were made to live forever.

My grandpa's faith is now sight and I can't help but wonder if on Tuesday night, when he left this beautiful (but broken) place and finally arrived home, he said to himself, "Now this...this is what I was made for."

New Years Weirdness

I get kind of weird around New Years...sort of idealistic, and compulsive...and conflicted. For example, I find myself longing to give away almost everything I own...while at the same time I'm keenly aware of all the stupid, material things I want since Christmas just happened, and I spend more time in shopping venues in the month of December than I do during the other eleven months of the year combined. Also, I get really antsy for change. Since - typically speaking - I'm not a person that does things too impulsively this usually amounts to me painting my nails red, or ordering meat for dinner. Fleeting thoughts of cutting off all my hair, or quitting my job and moving to Brazil enter my head, but I always think too much about poor motives, and/or negative long-term consequences...so I end up dismissing such thoughts.

In addition, I become somewhat obsessed with the notion of blank slates, and new beginnings...I like the idea of strategically planning ways to become more the person I want to be, and the person God wants me to be. This may come as a bit of a surprise to anyone who knows me well, because I'm sure there is little in my life that looks strategic, or ordered, or planned. Which is perhaps why I find things like 30-day challenges and goal-writing sessions intriguing. They promise an environment for concrete, organized, forward moving thoughts...and sometimes I just really need that as a diversion from the norm. (Just for the record...I don't think I've ever undertaken a 30-day challenge of any kind...I just like the idea of them :)

Since I've been thinking about these things, and what I'd like to change in 2013, I decided I better start with where I was a year ago.  So I dug deep in the recesses of the 2012 blogs (there was a total of four entries this year...so by "dug deep" I mean I scrolled to the bottom of the page) and reviewed last years January 1st essay on resolutions. Wait; before you go looking for it let me save your the trouble of scrolling to the bottom of the page. My 2012 resolutions were as follows:

1. Quit drinking Diet Coke.
2. Quit being preoccupied with my phone while driving
3. Set up a line item in my budget for travel
4. A couple of paragraphs about changes and growth I'd like to happen in my heart...and how none of those can really be summed up in a "resolution"*. 

I'll just tell you - straight up - the first two were failures. I'm pretty sure I've had a diet coke at some point in the last ten days, and I read my email at a stop light on the way to the coffee shop I'm sitting in right now...so suffice it to say...both were ineffective. I did not set up a line item in my budget for travel...however, I have managed to tuck away a few bucks here and there, and my sister and I have a trip to Paris on the calendar for May. I consider this a partial success. Check back in June to see if I still feel the same way, or if I'm home mourning my failure to make it to France this year. 

As far as that last messy bunch of things I listed in that entry (hopes, desires, whatever you want to call them) it's just as hard to measure a "success" in this area of spiritual development as it is to plan out the way to get there (as soon as I pull out a spiritual measuring stick, I nosedive into legalism). Sometimes Jesus has a different journey planned...so your final destination, as well as your means of transportation are not what you originally thought they were going to be. Sometime you think you're going to take a hatchback to Murdo, and you end up on a circus train to Morocco. Or something like that. 

Either way, I listed some vague ideals about loving people better, and knowing Jesus better, and being less critical of myself and others. Like I said, I can't measure those things. But I'm pretty confident in saying that 2012 was a year of growth in my life. I have learned more about Jesus...and how he loves me...and how that love manifests itself as grace, and how because of the grace he's shown me, I can extend more grace to others. I've also learned about how counter-cultural the notion of prayer (as an alternative to anxiety) is. There are lots of other things I've been learning too...which I plan to write about in the days to come. Because that, of course, is another one of my New Years Resolutions. :)

I am - undoubtedly -  a work in progress, as we all are. The things I learned, I learned mostly because I got it wrong a million times first. I learned them because God is unbelievable gracious and patient with me. And I will, of course, need to learn and relearn them over and over again. 

That being said, it doesn't matter how many time I fail at my resolutions, I have - in recent years - become an incurable optimist, and I will continue to make them...at New Years, and throughout the rest of the year. So my 2013 New Years Resolutions are as follows:

1. Quit drinking Diet Coke
2. Quite looking at my phone while driving
3. Go to France

And of course, some other vague things about running, being on time, and getting to know Jesus better. 

Supply Kit

Supply Kit
for Sarah Jill

Here is a net, to catch the lies 
that are falling from their lips
Here is a snorkel, so you can see icebergs
when they just see the tips

Here are my boots,
to kick the means boys in the shins
And here are the keys
so you'll never be locked in

Here's a strong cup of coffee
to cure most anything that ails you
And my heart. As a spare.
In case yours ever fails you

And last -but not least- here is your anchor
that brilliant redemption, all weighty with love
Will hold you unchanging and true 'neath the surface
whether tempest or stillness or sunshine above

Slacklining, chai, and Jesus...

I woke up this morning in paradise; that is to say that I woke up to a foggy, rainy spring day in the Black Hills. So I did what any rational person would do in this situation, and drank chai. And as I stood on my porch and watched the rain fall on a back drop of cloud-shrouded granite and pine and aspen I thought to myself, "Perfect. This is absolutely perfect. At this precise moment in time I cannot think of a single other thing I need or want besides this. Not more money, or time, or anything. This, here and now, is just right."

Now, the bizarre thing about this is that it sounds like contentment, right? But it's wasn't. Because even in that moment, when I was at a loss to name even one thing that could have possibly made me happier, there was this intense, unnamed longing...deep within my soul. This beauty that is the Black Hills in the rain, which is truly one of the most beautiful things in all of creation, is almost painful in it's beholding.

But why? I believe it's because this kind of beauty is a sliver...just the slightest, faint whisper of the beauty that is Christ. And we were designed to experience it in its fulness. So this whisper calls us back to what our souls know we were made for...but can't quite get at just yet.

I went to the Banff and Telluride mountain film festivals in the last few weeks (I mean...I saw them on tour...in Rapid. Sadly, I have never actually been to Banff or Telluride.) and saw dozen of really cools films about people who are seeking beauty and adventure, and solitude and community, and justice and salvation, and adrenaline and peace, by all kinds of means. These people are relentless and inspiring in their commitment to and pursuits of these things. And the common factor in all these stories is that these people are never satisfied. They're never finished. They work hard and make sacrifices, and eventually reach their goals. But they don't get there and call it good. They get there, and they throw their hands in the air exuberantly, and cheer and cry...and then they immediately start planning their next endeavor. Because God put inside of us these longings for adventure and beauty and life-to-the-full. Because HE is adventure and beauty and life to the full. And we just can't get enough of those, because we can't get enough of HIM, whether we realize that that's what we're hungry for or not.

So I don't doubt for a minute that we should pursue these things, because there is sanctification in the pursuit. When we just feel like we can't get enough of traveling, or climbing rocks, or slacklining, or enjoying a good meal with good friends, or listening to an incredible new album over and over, or staring out at my valley through a downpour, or making art, or emptying ourself by serving someone else...it's because it's in our bones. This thirst is pointing us towards the one who will eventually be the fulfillment of all we've ever been thirsty for. And when sanctified...I think these things become acts of worship.

"The whole of the good Christian life is a holy longing. What you desire ardently, as yet you do not see...By withholding the vision, God extends longing; through longing he extends the soul, by extending he makes room in it. Let us long because we are to be filled...that is our life, to be exercised by longing. - St. Augustine

~Proverbs 13:12; Psalm 63 ~ 

Domestic Bliss (or...something like that...)

Food and I, historically, have had a rocky relationship. We've been on-again/off-again for the last 15ish years. That is the first reason why I didn't learn to cook at the age when normal girls learn to cook (somewhere between ages 15 and 20, I think...).

The second reason is that my lifestyle since, oh...middle school, has not been too conducive to eating many meals at home. Especially now, because my job involves many obligations in the evenings and I live 15 miles out of town. So "running home" to cook and eat dinner for one before a 7:00pm meeting, when I'm already in town, just isn't very practical.

Lastly, my mother, who - for most girls - is the primary source of culinary mentoring in one's life, was the queen of casseroles. And I hate casseroles. Don't get me wrong. My mother is not a bad cook. She's a fine cook. But she had five kids and taught piano lessons in the living room everyday after school. So casseroles made lots of good sense. Cooking in our house was a necessity, not an art. My mom had neither the extra time or extra money (or appreciative audience) to make a hobby of gastronomy. So I grew up thinking that if you cooked your own food, you ate casseroles and sloppy joes (or taverns, if you're from east-river) and Hamburger Helper (not my faves). If you wanted to eat pasta, or ethnic food (my faves) you went out.

(There is a fourth reason too, which is that I'm quite content with a half-pound of raw almonds, a Granny Smith and cheese. I can eat this as a meal about six times in a week before I get sick of it...)

And hence, I didn't learn to cook. Well, at least not when I maybe should have. And I was okay with it, except on occasion when friends would want me to come over and cook with them, and then the embarrassing secret was out. I'd be standing around dumbly in their kitchen and they'd ask me to do something like "make the gravy", and I'd have to have them walk me through it step by step. Acceptable when you're 10. Less so when you're in your late twenties.

And then...something happened.

One day, about a year and a half ago, I was hungry for pad thai. (That's not the unusual part...I get hungry for pad thai every-other day...) So I considered calling up Saigon and putting in a takeout order, but the $14 tab was a deterrent. And then is when the unusual happened. It suddenly dawned on me that I could cook my own pad thai. Wha-?? So I googled a few recipes, found one that sounded doable, and headed for the grocery store. About three hours later I had a plateful of decent-for-my-first-foray-into-cooking pad thai. It was surprisingly good. Not as good as the Saigon, but still, good. This was a life-changing discovery. I could make something I loved to eat...ALL BY MYSELF! And it didn't cost me $14. It cost me $22. 'Cause I didn't have any staples in my cupboard to start with. But next time, it might only cost me the price of some beans sprouts and an egg. So, sooner or later, this whole cooking thing could turn out to be economical.

My second culinary revelation happened this last December. My friend Steph and I were going to hang out, and she suggested we spend the evening baking. End goal: cupcakes. This didn't sound like a truly enjoyable evening of leisure to me. Well, the cupcakes did...but not the baking part. I can rattle off a list of local dining establishments with brilliant desserts. Why not make someone else go to the trouble, and we could just enjoy the fruits of their labor? But I consented and I found myself a few hours later in my kitchen, with $40 worth of baking supplies, flipping through a Paula Dean cookbook and learning how to scrape seeds from a vanilla bean. At 2:30am we finally sat down in my dining room to eat what were, without questions, THE BEST CUPCAKES I HAVE HAD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. No joke. They were incredible. Paula herself would have been proud. We made red velvet cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting and honey walnut cupcakes with goat cheese frosting, and I couldn't stop saying, "How is this possible!? We made them ourselves!" And that was the day that I discovered that I could derive joy from taking several hours to handcraft the perfect baked goods. Who knew?!?

And so, I've learned to cook. And learned to love it. Or at least learned what I love and what I don't. I don't love chicken, or beef, or pork. (I don't care if I never touch another raw chicken leg for the rest of my life.) I do love anything with sundried tomatoes, crimini mushrooms, and/or cream sauce. I've learned how to devein shrimp (thank God for youtube and an iPhone). And that couscous is the little black dress of the kitchen. And that my mini rice cooker is the best $15 dollar purchase I've made in years. And cream sauce...did I mention I love cream sauce?

So, I'd like to offer an open invitation. If you are reading this, you are invited to my house for dinner. I'm not kidding. Just give me a ring on the telly and we'll pick a day. I have a list a mile long of recipes I want to try. Consider yourself warned that whatever I feed you, it's most definitely the first time I've made it, so I don't make promises about any of it. And...I keep milk and granola on hand as a backup.

Resolutions, etc....

I'm one of those silly (read, "naively optimistic") people who makes New Years resolutions. Sometimes they last for a few weeks. Sometimes they last for months. I can't recall any that have made it to the following New Years. But whether you ace the follow-through or not, I still believe that there is value in the resolution-making process. The thorough and periodic evaluation of one's life and habits and priorities is essential to living intentionally.

In a perfect world, I would take a few days after Christmas and retreat alone to a cabin in the hills with a giant mug of tea and my Bible and journal. I would go in scattered and worn, and I would emerge three days later a new woman - restored and focused and ready to take on the coming year, with whatever challenges and blessings and craziness it might bring. But this world is not perfect...it is real. So I've spent the days since Christmas catching up with the relationships, the work and the general tasks of life that seemed to fall a bit behind during the holidays. I DID get to go to the mountains and sip hot cocoa by a fire, but it was in a ski lodge with 50 Young Life kids, so while the trip included lots of fun and bananagrams and knitting and snowboarding (okay...not so much snowboarding. More on that topic later...) and some bonding over a few cases of the 24-hour-flu, it offered very little along the lines of solitude and reflection. And so, I feel a bit like I've hit the 2012 ground running, without a real good chance to assess the situation.

Nonetheless, I still managed to get a few resolutions on the docket. Unoriginals that I just whipped up on the 8-hour drive back from Bozeman the other night.

For one, I'm nixing my diet coke habit. I don't think it's continuation would kill me real soon, but it's not exactly contributing to my health. Second, I'm going to try keep my hands and eyes off of my phone while operating a vehicle. If I keep it up, it will kill me, and probably someone else, real soon. So I'm kicking it to the curb. Lastly, I'm making a line item for travel in my monthly budget so that I can quit feeling like a victim of my own wanderlust.

So, those are my resolutions. They are specific and concrete, like any good "life-coach" worth his weight in consultation fees will tell you resolutions should be.

But those things are not the real things. The most important things. They are not about my heart. The real change I need this coming year is in my heart. And it is change that, in it's fullness, is well beyond my capabilities. Beyond resolutions, or better habits.

I need this year to be about loving people well. About knowing Christ more. About knowing how Christ loves me. About being changed by that love. About viewing my finances and my time and my other resources the way God views them. About Him redeeming my incessant need to compare myself with others, my twisted view of His mercy, my graceless criticisms of others.

These kinds of revisions are more than I can handle. I know this. I've tried. I've made checklists and reminders on post-its and many, many, well-intentioned "pinky-promise" prayers. But these issues are deeply rooted, and not easily or comfortably plucked from the landscape of one's soul.

Consequently, I am grateful for a savior whose affections are too fierce, too vast to leave me in the mess of myself. Who loves me here, but longs to bring me there. Who is more than capable of doing the heavy construction in my heart, that will, with time, produce fruit in my life.

So as we dive headlong into the new year, I pray for these things in my life, in my heart. I also pray for a day of solitude and tea...very soon.

Oh yes. And adventure. Always adventure.