better off without it

our month-long “fast” on facebook and other social media is only about three-quarters of the way through, but already i’ve drawn some conclusions. already, and in spite of the fact that i haven’t been very pure in my keeping of this fast, i can see that my life is not made better by facebook or the reading of blogs. in some ways, it is probably made a touch worse.

i can see already that without it as a fall-back activity into which i rush at those moments when i’m not sure what to do next, i choose things that have more life and more fruit. i have been more creative in these last three and a half weeks. and more present. and my mind less noisy. i have made things, both good things to eat and things out of fabric.

i have been outside, eating meals or sipping a beverage on the front porch or in the yard, sometimes alone during hazel’s naps, sometimes the tree of us sharing a meal, and sometimes outside with friends. watering the garden and spending many moments examining the soil for the first signs of seedlings, which always thrill me to discover. outside holding my baby’s hand as she walks more and more like a big girl, side-by-side with me, up and down the sidewalk and through the grass.

and my business has not, i don’t think, suffered form my facebook absence. i’ve popped onto facebook here and there to address business messages, to update a business status, or to upload a photo. but i don’t think it’s made much of a difference. i am more confident in my identity as a creative artist now, more sure of the product that i offer and the heart that i carry into it that makes my photography its own, valuable thing. that tends to make me strive a little less to “sell” myself and my work. still, i’m not sure it is a prudent thing to ditch facebook and other social media altogether when one is trying to build and maintain this sort of business, so i know i won’t be giving into that unthinkable dream of going off the facebook grid.

and i have found that pinterest actually hold potential to enhance my life a bit. for instance, it taught me how to make my own deodorant and “beach hair” hair spray, both of which i did this week. and it’s brought me to many delicious and wholesome recipes that i’ve been trying out. and it has given me inspiration and guidance in making a crafted present for hazel’s first birthday. pinterest, if you actually step back and DO the things it aims to inspire you to do, can enhance life. a bit.

and blogs. well, there are probably only a small number that actually are worth sticking to. and they are the ones that talk to me about how to be a whole-hearted and present mom, and how to press into Jesus for each day’s needs. i sense that a purging of blog subscriptions might be in order.

facebook. oh, love and hate mingled! what an ambivalent relationship. but i’m thinking that keeping it within the confines of one, maybe two, days of each week will be the new normal. because i love the freedom of mind and time that has come from keeping it within bounds this month.

so there’s where i’m at. and here’s some of the beauty i’ve been indulging in and creating during this fast:

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hazel and the peonies (an almost birthday post)

almost a year ago the peony plants in my backyard – ripe and ready – held out and waited to bloom until she did.

on may 31st, the first one opened. hazel was born in the middle of that night. so on the day of her birth – june 1 – they were all out in their pink, soft-petaled beauty. tim cut them and brought them in, arranging them in vases and pitchers all around the room where we lay resting. they kept us company as we got acquainted.

this year, the peonies did not wait until june 1st. the first one bloomed a few days ago. but they will always be her birthday flower to me. peonies will always be hazel’s.

her she is. my flowering almost-one-year-old, with her flowers. 

winter, work, and yes

yesterday the first snow flurried through shards of sunlight and clusters of golden leaves.

i can’t believe it’s already that time of year: the front end of the 4-month midwest winter season. grey, cloudy, built of short days, and very cold. here we go. thanksgiving is just a couple of weeks away, and then we all know how quickly thereafter christmas arrives. it seems to surprise me each year with its coming.

and hazel will be six months old at the start of December. six. months. old. !!. it’s been half a year of loving this little girl and of watching her unfold, and half a year of having my daily rhythms, my body, my heart, and my very identity shift shape.

change is the only constant, someone once said.

it’s not too soon to look ahead to january. in fact, we have already begun. we have begun to look ahead because january will bring with it a shift in tim’s work (and mine, too, to a lesser extent). beginning in january, tim will work twice as many hours in boiler room leadership* and half as many  hours with his “normal” job at Hope Network. this won’t change much in terms of the total number of hours each week that he is working, but it shifts a greater percentage of our annual income into the land of faith. see, the truth is that the boiler room doesn’t have any money except for that which is provided from donors and grants and the hand of God. and if the boiler room ever doesn’t have enough money, we don’t get a paycheck (this has almost happened twice this year, but both times, at the eleventh hour, we all got paid after all!). with more of our total hours of work being with the boiler room next year, a higher percentage of our total annual income is not guaranteed.

(though whose is, anyway? in the economy we’re all living in, none of us are on very stable ground, even if we’d like to forget that fact.)

also, we need a new furnace. also, we need to GIVE AWAY MONEY AND RESOURCES because, to our embarrassment, we haven’t been letting these things flow from our hands in the way that someone who understands that nothing they have is their own ought to do. i feel downright congested for lack of giving. so, we’re gearing up to give a bit… give until it makes us a little uncomfortable. between the giving and the furnace and the “health insurance” we finally just signed up for, our cushion is rapidly shrinking. things don’t feel as comfy and secure.

nearly four years ago, when i first stepped out of the normal economy in which one gets a job and earns a paycheck from the business for which he/she works, i would get freaked out about a change like the one we’re about to make. i would get freaked out often, sick to my stomach with worry and dread that a bill would come up that i could not pay, that i was being irresponsible and a burden to others. i would sit over the numbers and crunch and re-crunch them and try to figure ways of scrounging and skimping to get by. that’s called a poverty mentality, folks.

you know what? i’m not freaking out this time. not deeply, and never for long. this time i have a million past experiences to remind me that He will never leave us high and dry, that He has always brought us the funds and resources we needed as we follow Him as best as we know how. always. i rest in that experiential knowing. so in some ways i’m writing this as a small testimony to celebrate how far we’ve come, Papa and i. that poverty mentality has been slowly starving to death in recent years.

actually, i’m a little excited about it, too. i’ve been reading a book (a book that i tried to avoid reading because i knew it would mess with me, and i wasn’t sure i wanted to be messed with) called Kisses From Katie, which is written by a 22 year-old girl who left her entire upper-middle class life to live like Jesus in a Uganda where, by His grace and provision, she has adopted 14 girls and begun a ministry that sends 400 children to school and feeds another 1500 or so. all within 4 years. and as i read her story — even the parts about taking near-dead babies to hospitals, carving jiggers out of the soles of children’s feet, and taking in widows dying of AIDS — i feel a little jealous! jealous because over and over again, on a near-daily basis, she is getting to KNOW the power and the compassion of Jesus! she is getting to experience that grace that is sufficient for her in the midst of her weakness, even and especially when she is in way over her head.

when was the last time i felt in over my head, to the point that i had to cling to Him, needed Him to show up or else the entire operation would absolutely become a disaster? it’s been a while. in fact, i think it was this season, when i first moved into the boiler room as an intern three and a half years ago and had 8-12 recovering addicts living in our houses. (i also felt that way for a couple of months after hazel was born)! but really, it’s been a while. could i live that way again, as a woman who is a wife and a mother?

i don’t think that just having more of our income come from a no-fundraising non-profit’s budget is going to accomplish that sort of radical dependence on and experience of the Living Christ. that is still a very small risk indeed, once you get used to it, and compared to other risks.

but what if i started to say YES, like Katie, to every person who comes my way each day. YES to helping them in whatever small way i can, just for that moment. YES to being present and listening. YES to sharing myself and the gospel. i wonder where that would lead?

what if we opened up our hearts and our home wider than feels logical or comfortable?

*i’ll write more at another time on the particulars and specifics of what tim’s new work with the boiler room will be.

six shorts

1.

the rain came today, and with it the cool, and one tremendous sequence of thunder. i stood on the porch and watched it fall, explaining rain to hazel, who took it all in with wide eyes.

2.

tim is lulling her to sleep now, which is a process sometimes, especially at night. he comes home after a ten-hour day with a young man who is three years old on the inside, and still he musters the patient endurance required to do the day’s dishes, ask his wife about her day, and help his daughter fall soundly asleep. that’s a good man, i tell you what.

3.

our garden, which was planted the day before i went into labor, is an undomesticated cacophony of casually sown seed bearing fruit in spite of the negligence of those who planted it. yesterday morning, nick and kirk came and tended to it a while, their skin glistening with sweat, and now it looks loved again. from beneath the thick mass of run-away green things they extracted two summer squashes of the deepest yellow, two spaghetti squashes, an onion, a handful of yellow beans, and a dozen radishes. soon there’ll be a huge tomato ready to pluck, to slice, to drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with good salt, and devour.

4.

chris is the sort of neighbor that is so good her picture should be the illustration accompanying the wikipedia entry on Good Neighbor. she is even and especially a good neighbor to the homeless guys who make their home on that abandoned house’s stoop in our alley. today she told me that she landed one of them a job, which is a second chance, which is very much like the kingdom. she has a tattoo on her wrist that i never noticed until today, but was not surprised to see because her life shouts it out: two nails that make a cross, and an ichthus embracing it.

5.

i’m missing Willy Street Co-op in madison. they had gluten-free peanut-butter brownies, baked on site and individually wrapped, for $1.50. any time we wanted a gluten-free baked good we would swing by there to get one. it was divine. i know of no equivalent solution to such cravings in grand rapids.

6.

this upcoming week we wind down from another year of following Jesus as the stockbridge boiler room. we’ll sit together and reflect on what has occurred within us and around us, and we’ll probably drink lots of french-press coffee while we do it. and we’ll clean up the boiler room house and garage so that it can be shut down for the month-long sabbatical. then we’ll spend a day together at a cottage on the beach of lake michigan, then dress up and go out to dinner. exhale.

it doesn’t depend so much on me

God’s correction is kind. “faithful are the wounds of a friend,” the wise king said (prov 27:6), and though i suspect he was referring to men, it’s true also with God.

i have fallen prey to some poor theology, friends, and as with most lies that lead us around on leashes, this one also contains some truth. i was believing that when my daughter is born was dependent upon me — me creating the best possible energy around myself, maintaining happiness and peace, getting all things prepared, having nothing left open-ended, keeping relational harmony, avoiding the bad energy of broken and unhealthy people, telling her often that i’m ready for her to come, and opening heart and my body for her passage. and that if i fail on any of these points, i could actually prevent her from being born.

me, me, me. if i did all of these things, surely my little one would have no choice but to come bursting into the world, and probably before her due date even arrived.

there’s still a week to my estimated due date. but i have been on an emotional roller coaster because i’ve been owning this responsibility to usher her into the world. it goes like this:  labor will seem to have made its tentative start, and then  it ceases hours later. i blame myself, searching myself for what i might have done to scare her back inside. then i regroup and try all my techniques with renewed vigor so that perhaps she’ll come the following day. i’m high, then i’m low.

“commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act. He will bring forth…” (psalm 37:5-6a). HE will act, HE will bring forth. it is HIS voice that speaks life into existence (gen 2:7), HIS breath that sustains it in every moment (acts 17:28), and HIS hands that bring life out from the places it is hidden.

HE, HE, HE. if i do nothing at all but trust in Him, my little one will come bursting into this world at exactly the right time. i cannot thwart it; the words that He sends forth will not return to Him without effect (isaiah 55:11).

i had some repenting to do this morning.

relax, child. be still.

there is an appointed time, a time appointed long before she was even conceived (psalm 139:16). wait for it.

(note: i always recognize the correction of the Holy Spirit because it is accompanied by peace and freedom. though there is conviction strong and sure, there is a marked absence of shame, guilt, and self-punishment.)

we are well paid

i am guilty of slipping into vocalized fear about having enough to get by on the small income that we have. truthfully, twice in the last three weeks i have been in tears of worry and self-pity over the bottom-of-the-barrel numbers in our checking and savings accounts. i know that we chose this life, this small income, it’s not that we can be called victims of an unjust system. technically, i know we could probably move a few rungs up on the ladder, but that isn’t where our Father has led us, and so that isn’t where we’ve gone.

but in these times when i give into fear, or talk too loudly about limited income, or mention all those things we “can’t afford,” i paint this picture that makes it seem like to follow Jesus is almost akin to being an economic martyr.

it isn’t.

i need to give testimony to this: we are paid well; we are living in abundance. our boss is our Dad, and our Dad is very rich.

this morning, as every morning, i ate fresh fruit, organic eggs, and wholesome homemade kefir. i drove a really nice car (borrowed) to the chiropractor’s office and got an adjustment that i didn’t have to pay for. i’ve gone out to a coffee shop and sipped a hot chai latte twice this week. last week we had to buy a new water heater, but because we had just gotten our WI tax return, we had just enough to pay for it without accruing any debt at all. without help, we were able to come up with all the funds necessary to make a down payment on our home, and to fix it up. and we got a washer and a drier, as well as all the furniture for our baby’s nursery, given to us. we haven’t missed a single payment on any bill in the course of our marriage for lack of funds. we get to have people over for dinner and host pilgrims generously; we get to visit spiritual and biological family in other cities just as much as anyone. and as i sit here writing this, i am devouring an entire bar of organic milk chocolate.

the Lord is my shepherd, i shall want for nothing. i will trust Him and not be afraid.

His provision always comes, and always in perfect time. sometimes it comes through the offer of a job for pay, or picking up an extra shift at work. sometimes He prompts someone to share/give to us items that we need, or to just give us cash. sometimes we get checks from unexpected sources for odd reasons (like a refund check for having overpaid on car insurance). sometimes things are on sale. sometimes we’re able to barter services. and through it all, He is teaching us to revel in the beauty and freedom of simplicity and thrifting. and He shows our hearts what is really necessary and what is not, giving us grace to let go of the frills.

i am wealthy. my goodness, i am so rich.

forgive me for all the times that i slip into fear and worry and self-pity, because it always turns out to be unnecessary.

hear this: being in the family business with Papa is a secure livelihood; it is stable employment in a depressed economy. and it comes with the best work environment and co-workers imaginable.

whatever small sacrifices we have made, or sacrifices we are now making to be obedient to Jesus, we have received it all back and then some, both here on earth and one day in heaven. it’s joy.

I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.
They are always generous and lend freely;
their children will be a blessing.

(Psalm 37:25-26)

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

(Philippians 4:11-13)

each in its season

nature, in all its seasonal manifestations, offers enough variety to keep a person on her toes for a lifetime. but have you ever noticed that within each season variety is often lacking? you don’t have to dabble very long or intensely into an attempt to eat seasonally before you will find that this is true: the first taste of each will be sublime, but then…. there can and will be far too many zucchini in the summer, and enough potatoes in the late fall to feed your family well into winter. and so you get creative, attempting to make many new things out of the same vegetable, but you might get to the point where you feel like if you have to eat one more tomato, you might go crazy. so they rot in the fridge or the pantry, and maybe you give up and go to the grocery store where you can have your pick of colorful and various vegetation from around the globe, from all the different growing climates — both real and artificial — the world has to offer.

this came to mind this afternoon while i was thinking about the season i’m currently in. this season of waiting, of being changed, but not yet fully. in six months a very mighty and violent disruption will occur in this household: a baby will be born. and with that baby, a mother and a father, too. waiting here in my second trimester, feeling that wee one wiggle around inside me, barely perceptible, i’m finding that this life season is consumed with the attempt to get my head and my heart around this thing. and i want to be present to it, attentive, grateful, slow. but this means a certain quietness. inwardness. and sometimes the thought of this season continuing for another six months, only to yield to another season that will be dominated by feedings and diapers and sleepless nights and possibly some baby blues… well, i’m afraid i’ll get sick to death of the winter squash and potatoes that nature is offering up… that i’ll want some days nothing more than to go to the supermarket and get some guavas and a prickly pear and a bunch of bananas.

but i have winter squash. and some potatoes.

this analogy feels weak when i put it down in a place where you will read it.

but what will you make with the in-season produce? what will you make of this season of waiting, of being transformed deeply in ways that i am sure you don’t even know the half of? (every vegetable comes when it comes because it is meeting a need for that particular time.) will you allow it to be what it is, submitting to the Teacher, who made all seasons for good reasons? or will you try to turn it into something that seems greener, brighter, and fuller of adventure stories?

there’s something for us here. let’s resist the temptation of the supermarket. the raspberries will be back in season soon enough. wait for it.

waking up 30

and i woke up thinking about faces. the faces of friends who have loved me well in my life.

and then i thought about this website i’ve launched and all that implies about another season of a different sort of work. i send it out into the world with a prayer that it will return to me achieving the purposes for which God has sent it forth.

and then i thought about this house that we’ve put in an offer on today, even though the pathway to getting the necessary financing for it is laden with obstacles and a delicate balance of timing things just so. and i know that, if we get into this house, we will say only, “it is God who has done this, and not we.” amen.

and then i thought about my body and the decreasing energy and increasing softness of it. i thought that the days of getting by without exercise might be over. that part didn’t make me feel so happy.

but mostly i am very pleased to have arrived here at 30, with a decade of 20s to look back at with gratitude for all that i have been brought through and been given, and all that i have become.

here i am far more comfortable in my own skin than i could have imagined being at 23.

here i have a story to tell, and the fruit of years of wrestling with God to harvest and pass out to hungry spirits.

here i am a woman, redeemed by the Living One, with a confident step and clarity of purpose.

here it is 70 degrees and sunny, which is my favorite weather. and so i think i’ll get on my bicycle and go to the park.

one year ago today

one year ago today i moved to madison, wi from grand rapids, mi.

with a trailer and truck bed full of most everything i own, and with a heart in love and willing to take a risk for that love.

saying that this has been an easy year would not be truthful. it has been a difficult one, for life here has not been instantly gratifying for me.

but:

• i got to be with tim in the same place and then marry him
• i set up my first home as a married woman
• i have been given jobs that i love and where i have great favor
• i am mentoring three amazing young women
• i saw that the convictions of my heart are free-standing and not merely due to the influence of a certain group
• i was adopted and am loved by a small group of folks, even when i have been ugly
• i experienced my Father’s love in new ways
• i watched a prayer rhythm unfold in a dedicated prayer room

this is enough to make it a good year, yes?

grace on the inside

it’s been a while.

here’s where i’ve been living: in the assurance that He is home, He is is hope. wherever He is, there is Life. and wherever i go, there He is.

so, His presence and His favor are unshakeable and unescapable. at any moment, through faith alone, i have access to the riches of His storehouse, the authority of His name, and the fruit of His Spirit.

and, along with this, i am dropping my agendas. i mean, really, i think something has clicked deep within my spirit in this regard. (“it’s about time!” said one who knows me well when i told her this). see, i used to make up elaborate job descriptions for myself, which outlined all the sweet things i was going to do for the kingdom of God. they were based around ideals and principles that were not wrong, only wrongly emphasized. i did this when i moved to the stockbridge boiler room over two years ago and i did this when i moved to madison last year. you know how that worked out for me? mostly i got disappointed, disillusioned, and burnt out. i think i felt a lot like that boat being tossed back and forth on the waves, with an anchor too insubstantial to moor me.

now, looking at the road before us, which includes some significant change, i am not writing a job description. no, not this time. i am not working out all the details in my imagination ahead of time. i will offer my hands, my heart, my words my talents, my self to my jesus, and then i will see what work He brings to me. to us.

for the first time, i feel peaceful about that. i am more comfortable with the unfinished picture than i would ever be in my own nature. which means, decidedly, that it is only He in me who has ushered in that peace.

whether i feed the poor, safe-house the orphan, shelter the pilgrim, fight for justice, photograph the lovely, heal the sick, pray for the lost, disciple His followers, go into training, keep house birth children, live in community… i will do it with a glad heart. but i don’t think that it is mine to choose which of these tasks to put my hands to. and… and on none of these pursuits is my confidence resting, my identity, my joy.

all this time – all throughout this difficult year – He has been working things in me. i have no illusions of having earned it because all the ways in which i would have assured myself that i was best positioned to receive His attention or to be transformed have been lacking this year. i have not lived in daily prayer rhythms, been in a Bible study, worshiped often, attended church, served the poor, lived in community, or trusted Him alone (no job) for income. nope, i have not been a rock star Christian this year. but you know what? His grace isn’t dependent on me being a rock star Christian. it’s free.

today i am marveling a bit at the miracle He has wrought in my spirit. and only He. this inward change is quiet, it is understated, and it is also foundational.

He has readied me. is readying me, still.