time and a promise.

If you could say anything, what would you say? I think there comes a point, when age graces us enough, when the clock has kissed us to the point where, words are more honest. When time has etched across our memories and hearts and minds enough days and months and years, that we can see with clarity the importance of just simply being honest. I think. I'm not positive because, as of yet, I have not breathed enough breaths to have time wear down the facade....but, I don't really want to wait until I'm old to live with honesty and truth at the forefront of my life. I have had my fill of playing the game expected, of living with the greatest concern being the approval of others. Don't get me wrong, I'm not interested in living my life like a bull in a china shop, crashing down with no concern at all for those around me. No, but there is a difference in living with concern for others in front of you and living with their approval as the driving force behind all you do. I am highly interested in being concerned and poured out for those in my life. However, I am not in the least interested in letting what they think of me dictate what I do. Because, no matter how we try and try and try to earn the approval of those around us, their will always be someone who looks at us through a grid that is completely wrong. There will always be people whose approval we'll never earn. And we can choose to let not having their approval break us and mold us into what they want, or we can choose to do what we know we're suppose to do, no matter what anyone thinks. No matter how anyone judges our actions. At the end of the day, there is only one opinion I'm interested in, and His opinion is my only concern because He gave His very life that I might have the choice to give it all back to Him. That definitely garners my full concern for what He thinks when I'm finally standing before Him face to face one day.

I've thought about all of this a lot lately. I've thought about how much I want to drink deeply of all He has put before me, of how quickly the moments slip by and how, time, like a magician, snatches years until one day, we wake up wondering how we can possibly be (enter age here) and where the years went. Maybe I'm an old soul, or maybe I'm just more aware at a young age of how quickly the years pass. For it has always been something I've been acutely aware of. I have never been under the delusion that because I am young the years will pass more slowly...I feel time moving all around me, I feel the sand slipping through the hour glass of time just as surely as I can feel the beginning of each new day. I feel my age and each year that has passed, I have noticed how quickly it goes. Perhaps for this reason, for the knowing, for the connection I feel with the tides rising and falling in my life and in those around me, I have no interest in wasting the time I've been given. I would rather have a full awareness of time passing than to wake up sixty years from now, wondering how I got there and where my life went.

I want to wake up sixty years from now poured out, used up, and spent in the best way possible. I want a life overflowing with memories of the glory of God, of knowing my Father like never before because of the passing years, ready and willing and yearning and eager to see His face. To wake up and know that the years hold tight to drinking deeply of everything He gave, of loving people with the love with which He loved me, of wonderful books devoured, conversations had, relationships built standing the test of the passing years, of times spent camping and eating food cooked over an open fire, of moments cherished in all their beauty, of staring up at twinkling stars, of the sun kissing my face as it rose and set, of laughing deep belly laughs, of baby giggles and hugs that lifted me off my feet, of dancing and singing and squeezing every single drop of joy out of every single moment given by the hand of a God who was satisfied with this life of mine well lived.

I want to wake up and remember times that were hard, that hurt, that cut deep and left wounds whose scars were healed by the Great Physician. I want to carry those scars as reminders of the grace shown and let that grace flow out to others whose wounds are still bleeding. I want the pain and hurt to be used to mold a heart that was pushed deeper into the heart of Jesus because of the pain and hurt felt. I want to remember how, there were times when all hope was lost to eyes looking at my life and I want to know that in those times, my heart trusted what it could not see, that it clung to my God despite the circumstances and came out of the darkness with His light shining forth. I want to wake up knowing that beyond all else, those who walked in and out of my life may not even remember my name or face, but while they were crossing my path, they caught a glimpse of the face of Jesus, and this is all they remember.

That's really the point, isn't it? In the end, to wake up not being remembered for what I've done, but for what He did with my life.

Or perhaps sixty years have not been allotted to me. Perhaps there are only thirty, perhaps more or less, it doesn't really matter. For no matter the passing of the days or months or years, if time for me stops tomorrow, I want to look into my Father's face and know that no, I didn't always get it right and probably messed up a lot, but that with every fiber of my being, I tried with a heart that belonged to Him to live each moment He gave with utter joy and a desperate pursuit  of His heart.

Yes, all of this is what I want and desire at the age of twenty-seven. Life stretches before me and there seem to be many years ahead, but I am not promised a long life. I am, however, promised a life of joy and hurt and laughter and pain and that it will be walked out with the One who holds every beat of my heart. And the promise is that He will work all things for my good, if my heart is His.

This is your promise as well. What do you desire most at the age in which this moment holds you?

sea and salt and reminders.

Note to self: Do not read Pat Conroy when homesick....also, don't watch Safe Haven while homesick. Double whammy for a soul whose veins flow with sand and salt and hot southern nights.

Sitting still, thoughts coming muddled with salty air, heart longing for nights drenched in star light and moonshine, filtered through heavy humid air. Mason jars filled with lightning bugs, like fairies caught with magic in their wings. Moss laden trees, pluff mud, and the echoes of a gray sea, caught up and tossed about in a lazy, hazy breeze. It begins a call through the caverns of a heart who forever echoes back the rising tides the call brings forth.

Steps taken in silver gray sand...wading through white foam, listening to gulls flying above. Lost in a place where time stops, held by ocean tides, long and wonderful and somehow lonely in all their fullness. Moments drug out, stretched long and wide, sweetened with food taken from salty water. It fills up a soul known to its shores, spilling over and out, and so we answer back. We are born and bred in salt and sand, their course running through our souls, etching lines across hearts and faces that are not at home unless breathing where horizon touches water.

And the sea imprints upon our hearts, softening the edges, creating souls that are forever torn in two. For to be born to the South is one thing, but to be born to her sea, to her Lowcountry that spans only a small shore line, this is an all together different thing. We hear her call every moment of every day, though we push it down, trying to silence the aching that wells up and spills over. Yet, it is always there, just below the surface. We may live many places, we may fall in love with them in different ways, but never will they compare to the way our souls still, the way they quiet when we finally go home. For to stand on her shore is the only place we can truly breathe. And unless you were born there, you cannot understand the deep and lasting mark we carry, forever branded by this place that will never let us go.

Our writers will try to express it to you...try to make you understand how this southern sea changes you. It is simply a place that is felt, that will only allow you to understand if you go looking for something. For its salt air heals many a wound wielded into hearts and souls who thought they would never be the same. Time alters there...it will slow into a crawl that only the south knows, becoming a balm that heals down deep through layers unknown. For the salt air seems to be a cure for things that cannot be seen, bringing forth much that we carry hidden away.

And it is in this place, in standing to gaze upon horizons that touch white capped waves, it is here that all that is born in my soul reaches up and above and beyond, gazing upon the face of a God who tenderly speaks through the crashing of waves upon steel gray shores. A reminder to a heart that beats with the ocean's rhythm,  that the aching is truly a deeper longing for the One who created it all.

morning, moments, and Aslan.

This morning broke clean and beautiful, filled to overflowing with a bright blue sky and golden sun. The night that held so much drifted away and now, sitting in the clear light, my coffee cup steaming beside me, all I can think of is how beautiful it all is.

Unpacking must be done, boxes to empty, a new space to fill with life abundant. For now though, before the day fully sweeps in, I'm sitting here, enjoying this mug full of coffee and thinking about all the day holds.

The mountains out my window have peaks covered in white snow, shining in the morning light. Up there, I know winter is still clinging to the tips of these beautiful mountains...where I am below, it's going ever so slowly. Our mornings hold the last breaths of winter and our afternoons promise Spring will come soon. Spring snow falls in spurts, every day different from the next, yet, the snow melts quickly and Spring pushes on.

Amazing how quickly things change, isn't it? If you look back to a year ago, I'm sure, like me, you'd wonder at how life has changed, moved, shifted. Or maybe, your year holds a moment, a flash, when everything changed. Maybe it's the first time it's ever happened to you, coming unexpectedly and with a force hard enough to take your breath. I had that happen in the course of this past year. First time it's ever happened in that way before. Suddenly, wham, with a blinding flash everything changed. Amazing how that all can happen on the inside and if anyone looks at you, at where your life is, it will look exactly the same to them....probably would even in the moment things changed. Yet, it did indeed change and everything from that point forward has been different and I am certainly not who I was.

I sit here and smile, thinking of that day, because all I can do (though it has not been easy) is know that life is wild and beautiful and sweet, ever changing, ever breathing around us, whispering of a set number of days we have, and not to waste them wishing things were different...wishing that they could change again, that the struggle would be somehow less. Less is not what life is about. It's about more. More moments, more giving, more living, more being who He would have us be in those moments He gifts to us, be it easy or hard.

The song "Fairy Dance" from Peter Pan drifts from my computer. Lilting and soft, it reminds me of a time before when I wrote of much I do not write of now. Of fairies and ogres, of walking through a land where children seem to be the only ones to remember the way. I wrote often of this....knights and dragons, perhaps Narnia right around the next bend. I wrote often because this is who I am, this is what lives and breathes inside of me. But, it went away for a long time. Smiling, I think of all this, and it's amazing how, though I haven't written of this part of who I am in a long time, it is still there, quiet and still, waiting to come out at the right time. Perhaps, with the coming and going of one Spring, and now with the coming of another, time has healed the scar enough to think of all I found so beautiful, all that filled my days with what children delight in reading...what adults do too, if they're old enough to admit it once again. For I have been molded by the first books I ever read down into my soul, first the Word which cuts like a sword, reading through it at seven, while at the same time reading "The Chronicles of Narnia" and these together painted a living, breathing picture of beauty and magic, filling the days of a little girl, painting a picture of a majestic lion, Aslan in the one world, but in reality, the beautiful picture of Jesus, whose name I discovered at the same time. This is what has molded my relationship with Him. This is what He saw fit to use to mold me, creating a yearning inside my heart to capture words like an artist wields a paint brush, painting beautiful pictures of lands we forget as adults, of how their beauty can show us a picture of who He is even when we do not know it.

So, perhaps once again, it will come, singing to be written of....and maybe, you will find your way to lands you have forgotten, seeing once again the face of the One who loves you, knowing He would speak to you in any way possible, even through the made up visions of a writer who loves Him with her whole heart.

"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are-are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

life.

The page is blank and the words won't come. The cursor blinks...waiting....waiting.....The wall is hard and I would bang on it until it gives. Until the dam breaks. Until there is...something...more. The battle rages and I want to be back in the heat of it. Back where the days were uncertain and full. Where things were before me that were tangible.

I am blessed. Blessed for this time with a life of stillness. Yet, more than the stillness there is an ache inside the deepest part of my soul for more. 

I have lived on the mission field. I have seen what it is to live what others romanticize. It is not romantic. It is life. Life is simply life, no matter where you are, no matter what you are doing. There are in and out moments, normal moments, frustrating moments, moments when you wonder why you chose this, because you are giving, giving, giving, and it is taking, taking, taking, and you are tired into the deepest place your bones hold....yet....yet, you wouldn't change it. For the moments that shine with brilliant beauty, where God speaks into your heart clearer than ever before, where children with black hair and slanted eyes stare at you, loving you, just wanting to be near you...this is all worth the aching bone weariness of being in a place like this, across a vast sea, in a land where time moves differently, where traditions are strange, where people expect more from you. 

I have lived this. I have fallen in love with children that no longer remember my name or face. Years have passed and I have been lost in their lives to an ocean of time passing, missionaries coming and going. Yet, their names, their faces, these are etched across the grooves of my heart. I have known what it is to feel alone, adrift in a sea of black haired, beautiful people. I found in those moments, the gaze of my Father was stronger still, wrapping me in all He was, holding me tight. 

I ache for this. I am not meant to live the kind of life that is comfortable and quiet and still. And this is currently the life I have for this season, so I know that even in this there is something He would teach me. Some lesson to be learned. For every fiber of my being cries out with a longing and ache to move, go, do, be His hands and feet. Be His mouth. To live outside of bubbles and comfort zones, to be pulled and pushed and stretched beyond myself. 

This is what I have lived and because I know the pain that comes with it, with the stretching and pulling and molding, I do not say it all lightly. But, I know that this is what I was made for. I am happiest when I am the furthest out of my comfort zone, when I am being poured out and used up and spent, when I fall into bed at night weary and worn and asleep before my head hits the pillow. So, this life I currently live of stillness and calm, of time that is mine to fill, to have the choice of what I will do, in all of this I am blessed and it is beautiful and I absolutely adore it. And those around me look at where I live, what I do, and they tell me how wonderful my life is. I know. Truly. I am in love with every moment...yet, that sense of being displaced, of knowing there will be more, it whispers to me in the stillness of the night. 

In the deep, when stars burn bright and time stands still, His voice tells of more, of all He is teaching in the waiting, of aches that are deep and pain that is stronger than any I've known. For the waiting has brought lessons that the pouring out has not taught...and they have been hard. I have found that when I am alone, still, unmoving before my God, this is where the stretching and molding are the strongest. Stronger than living in lands far away, on mission fields that are difficult, with children who demand more than I thought I could give, but gave still. It is the quiet that shows the inner depths of my heart and it is in this place that He burns away all that He would not have there. 

Tonight is quiet. In the quiet the ache is strong, as if it is a living thing, tangible, not ever letting me forget. Good. I don't want to forget, I don't want to become so comfortable that I will not go when He asks. I would live fully in this moment, in this season, discovering the beauty and joy that He will give, but always, always, I want to be ready when the season shifts, when the choice is laid before me, hard but clear. To count the cost, give up the comfort, and go. Be it across oceans or not. Be it in countries far away or in my own. 

The point is not where we are, but how willing we are to do just what He asks. For nothing is small, nothing is meaningless when we do it unto the God who asks and loves us beyond all we can comprehend. 

These are the thoughts that come in the dark of the night, in the midst of a move to a beautiful new home. 

How blessed I am, how much I long for, how faithful my Father is to all of this. And I am content to wait upon Him. For waiting upon our God is doing far more than we can ever imagine.