New mercies

"I remember it all...the feeling of hitting rock bottom.

But there's one thing I remember ,

and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God's love couldn't have run out,

His merciful love couldn't have dried up.

They're created new every morning.

How great is your faithfulness!

I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).

He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits

To the woman who diligently seeks.

Its a good thing to quietly hope

quietly hope for help from God

It's a good thing when you're young

To stick it out through the hard times.

When life is heavy and hard to take

Go off by yourself. Enter the silence

Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:

Wait for hope to appear.

Don't run from trouble. Take it full face.

The "worst" is never the worst

Why? Because the master won't ever

Walk out and fail to return

If He works severely, he also works tenderly.

His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.

He takes no pleasure in making life hard

In throwing roadblocks in the way..."

-Lamentations, THE MESSAGE

...did I mention fragile?

These last three weeks have made me painfully aware of how fragile I am.
I forgot that there are harsh reasons why not many flowers grow out of the rocks.
I've had a pretty smooth blessed life where if there's a set-back, it is usually my own fault and doing. But lately...

The rocks don't seem to stop. I'm a mixture of shock and disbelief and confusion. I've never experienced God like this before. Never without small glimpses. Never with my future hopes being pulled out like a rug from underneath my feet.

When God changes your shape, your body resists and it is painful. When God hides his face and you see clearly how weak you are and how meaningless it all is without him, it hurts! His Bigness is a huge source of sadness for me. I'm not seeing the Goodness in his Bigness.

I don't know what makes a flower grow on a mountain peak. Maybe it got there by a stray seed carried up by the wind. I don't know why or how it started to bud. I don't know what would possess you to blossom up there all alone, totally dependant for everything. Probably one day I'll feel blessed and honoured. Right now I'm grieving having to grow here.

Mountain meadows and a new promise

David and I recently went up to Garibaldi for a couple days during my term break. This was what I most wanted to do on my break; I really needed the rest. God literally carried me through the last three terms, as he promised, and it was exhausting! I always feel at peace in the mountains and trees. I photosynthesize like a plant. God is the exuberant creator, and these praisers have been here for thousands of years. I wanted to go somewhere out of the city to camp so badly, and with only slight wavering trusted that God would provide. And provide He did: A vehicle to get us there (a classmate let us borrow her car without even directly asking her!) an extra day off work for David so we could spend more time in the mountains, amazing weather the whole time we were there, safety and protection with only a minor injury the last hike down, fresh, good food offered to us by other campers, and the most amazing, unexpected beautiful colour filled mountain meadows.

A good friend and mentor of mine once told me that God sees me as a mountain wildflower. This image has stayed with me for a long time, and continues to encourage and allure me. Hiking is extra special because of this. Although I don't feel particularly far from God ever, I had lately been thinking about my faults and shortcomings, and how inadequate and unfit for the righteousness and holiness of Heaven I am. I was feeling pretty...dull and dirty. I was totally unprepared for God's love to manifest so expansive and beautiful for me.

Our camp spot was 7.5 km up the in the mountains in a gorgeous meadow with tiny creeks and wild flowers. I was snapping photos like crazy! So much colour and life and beauty! The air smells different, the sounds are softer, so much green...There is nothing nothing like the wilderness! This is definitely a place I could meet with God!

We were hiking up Black Tusk on the second day when the path opened up into about an hour long mountain meadow. It actually stole our breath and we just stopped and said, "wow". As far as we could see the area was filled with wild flowers: indian paintbrush, sitka valerian, lupine, and many more:

There were creeks of fresh glacier water trickling down the mountain feeding the flowers and the friendly buzz of bees. I'd never been to an area that beautiful before.

And then it really hit: this is for me. God's hidden creation going crazy between mountains. So alive and fresh and colourful and beautiful and wild. A gift for me to see and breathe in and appreciate.

The pictures don't do it justice, as they never do, but the real thing was such a real reminder for me of God's love-his specific and intentional love- towards me. He knows how to woo me, how to pull me in again when I get fogged up by the city and who He is to everybody else.

I literally just realized as I write this that this is the promise I need for the new school terms. God carried me through the last three, as he promised in my theme verse. But this is a new term, with new challenges. He says I am a mountain flower, able to grow and thrive in the most unlikely spots. And I do want to thrive and live and bring life and mature. I want to bring bright purple to rocky grey. I want to be tough, but delicate.

On the same hike up Black Tusk, at 7600 ft, after inching up volcanic rock slide to get to the top, nothing but snow and black stone, we discovered flowers growing out of the rock:

God, may you make me a symbol so powerful. Amen.

enough

God alone is enough.

Let nothing upset you,

let nothing startle you.

All things pass;God does not change.

Patience wins all it seeks.

Whoever has God lacks nothing:

God alone is enough

- St Teresa Avila

Balance

When you lean too far one way, you've got to correct yourself with an exaggerated weight shift to the other side...But not too much or you'll fall. Concentrate on the centre line.

The more I look around, the more I open my eyes and really notice...
All of creation is supporting me.
The trees use their branches to lift me up
The wind pushes at my slouching back
The sun sends energy into my palms and eyes
Friends laughter feeds my empty stomach
Hugs give me rest.
My ficus, asparagus fern, aloe vera and jade plants tell me to thrive
Davie Street traffic noises say life will continue
Finally the apartment is clean.
And once again, I'm dreaming big plans and big pictures
Wobbley. Shakey. Cautiously.
Walking.

Balance might really just be hope and trust. No step feels secure, yet it doesn't make me slip. I don't know who God is. I'm really only beginning to know who I am...and if that even matters. I don't know how to live the good life. But I think I have it in spite of me. I pray in the promises of the true friend. That He carries me, sustains me, gives me balance, for His namesake.

"Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my saviour, and my hope is in you all day long" - Psalm 25:4-5

Dry cup

Uh oh.

I recognize this feeling.

I have very little energy for school. Zero motivation and no concern for test marks.

Tragic things happen to class mates and I have no sympathy.

The wise and peaceful path is rejected for the path of least resistance.

Everything starts to be a bigger deal than it is. And if I can actually realize that, that in itself is energy.

I could say I just need sleep, but I'm on a week long streak of nightmares (seriously).

My prayers sound more like pleas, and I don't fall into my usual delight in conversation with God. I'm crouching away, much to my frustration.

My glass it seems, is running dry. I recognize the signs. I know how this is. Although before I've been able to avoid it, the truth is I've done a really miserable job of resting this year. Part my fault, part that circumstances are difficult. How frustrating! My mind sends me in winding cylindrical tornadoes of no good: well life isn't about me there are people out there with much worse situations complaining won't do any good but i can't do anything else i've got no energy i don't want to be miserable but i don't know if i can recognize where to make the choice...

My Mom used to tell me when I was in a bad mood to go and help someone. This usually always does help, but I'm afraid that I don't have any overflow to give. Giving takes so much energy. And I think I know that energy comes from spending time receiving from God, but my actions don't resemble this type of knowledge.

I don't know if this summer has found you busier than you'd like, or more exhausted than you expected. I do have a warning: that this unrest must be met with rest. That tension must be let go to receive comfort, despite how selfish it may look or feel. That my striving must be stripped off and covered with grace. That I must say, "I'M STILL LEARNING ABOUT ALL OF THIS!!" and receive humility and grace. Oh God-Dad. Fill my cup.

Personal ritual 1

Growing up, my sister and I were constantly burying things in our yard. We had a collection of beautiful rocks that we’d placed in the small garden by the App’s fence, a beaded necklace in the bald patch of dirt where the maple tree from the neighbor’s bent over exhausted into our yard. We’d barter the leaves in transition colors to one another in fall; they were so beautiful. We never thought to press them between our Parent’s thick blue speckled Dictionary and keep them forever.

I buried coins in a sock, and never found it again, deep in the forest of tamaracks behind our house. It was mostly pennies. Another one barely lasted a year. It was more of an experiment really, glue gun sealed shut. I had made that one with a friend, which is something I never did usually- share my secrets. The candies made it through the winter, but I didn’t want to eat them.

I think of how the owners of the house must respond now, when digging up the gardens to find bald Barbies with duct-tape outfits, cracked glass marbles, letters wedged into plastic bottles. It wasn’t just outside either: the letters that could fit behind the fireplace edging, poems stuffed in corners of closets, glass figurines in crawl spaces, the space between the floor and what we though was an immovable china cabinet (when we realized the new owners might move it we tried desperately to scoop out the secret over dramatic notes we had slid in years before). I hope they aren’t found yet.

The spark for all of this hiding and burying may have started from old pirate movies we used to watch as kids, or from the miraculous discovery of a 1900’s reader in our neighbor’s tree house. It was old, their own kids into their late twenties. Buried under some dry rusty leaves was this fantastic moldy book. We didn’t take it down from the tree house, even though we’d be the last ones to ever go up there. It was fascinating to think of what this book meant, whose it was, and why they never came back up for it. I loved the idea of burying secret treasures, and imaging the thousands of other people who might be doing the same thing. Burying treasures and stories. Who knew how many trinkets were littering the soil underneath yards?

I was always on the search for treasure hunts. I assumed that others would be too, and I wanted them to actually find something. Even now, sometimes I pick up objects that I find.

God still speaks to me this way, giving me hints to where truth might be found, hiding where I don’t think he’ll be, littering my path with treasures that mean something to only the two of us. He is always reminding me that what is buried underneath, unseen, can be of infinite worth; so close to budding and sprouting up.

Admittedly, if David and I had a yard, I would probably be burying things in it. This probably ups my weirdness level. Maybe I’m part dog. Scattering my belongings in places only I know about. Gathering up my dreams and burying them…Hoping and waiting to see if new growth will come. Something me buried, my stories, all around.