wonder and thankfulness

Thankful I got out of school early today after my midterm. The rain was drenching the city, and I was cozy inside. Finally spent some time in quiet prayer.

I am so thankful for David. He is just the best.

I wonder about our friend Eleanor, walking across the street with her busted wheely-bag and no umbrella.

I am thankful for beeswax candles and the way they make night special

I wonder about the little one growing inside me

I am thankful for advent and my favourite season coming soon

I wonder about leaves and why certain ones turn certain colours, and in certain patterns

I am thankful for Jesus and how He never gives up on loving me

I wonder about the people I love. I love hearing from them. I wonder about new people who might come into my life.

I am thankful that the LORD is the stronghold of my life.

Henri's got something to tell me again

I have a couple friends, not really close, that, although I really really like them and admire them, I just can't get close to, or seem to think positively about. It isn't that they are greedy or obnoxious or stubborn. In fact, it is quite the opposite: from my perspective, they have no fears. They are gutsy, adventurous, smile through the worst, and seem to be gifted with the sunny path of life with few pebbles or obstacles. Which of course, must not be true, but they never speak of their fears or short comings. And I'm jealous of their fearlessness.

While I am adventurous and love the wild, I have a more than healthy sized fear and respect for everything I face. For me, hiking a mountain isn't just joyful, it is an accomplishment: facing my fears of being unable to climb or be fit enough, my fear of heights, my fear of getting stalked by cougars, my fear of dissapointing David, my fear of not being "outdoorsy" enough...The list goes on.

I've been afraid of a lot of things my whole life. A lot of my childhood memories are remembering being afraid of something! A staple song I sung well into my teenage years was, "whose in the middle of the dark...God is..." While I've certainly been on journeys to heal fears, I still think of myself as a fearful person deep down. "Perfect love casts out all fear" is a great mantra, but it is hard to access that perfect love all the time when you are deeply afraid. As faithful as God has been to me during times of fear in my life, I guess I needed a little bit more encouragement, especially as I compared myself (never a good idea!) to these seemingly fearless people.

I used to read a lot of Henri Nouwen. I devoured it. Just recently I read a quote from him that I haven't read for a long time and it just struck me deeply:

"Jesus dwells in your fearful, never fully received self...Where you are most human, most yourself, weakest, there Jesus lives. Bringing your fearful self home is bringing Jesus home"

I can't tell you how safe I feel knowing that Jesus lives in my fearful self. That where I feel most rejected and scared and weak is where Jesus embraces me?! Wowee. It feels good to my bones. And if it is true- that this is where Jesus lives, than I don't want to be like those people whose fears are securely hidden- I want Jesus front and centre! I want him out in the open! I want to see him daily! Working through my fears, showing me where he is, telling me he loves me, yes, even weak, human, fumbling,fearful elli.

partner

I love this man.

So much is happening around us and between and to us and in all of it I'm so grateful that I can experience and filter it and enjoy it with David. He fills me with life and peace and laughter, freedom, bravery, honesty, adventure, wonder, love and challenge and joy and so much hope.

Thank you God.

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