Elkmont, Alabama

I am in Alabama right now. I am in Elkmont, Alabama, sitting on a velvetish couch next to a marble statue of a horse and a glass case full of ethnically diverse Santa Clauses. My favorite is the Mexican one holding a guitar and wearing a sombrero. Elkmont is a charming town of about 300 people, all of whom seem blissfully unaware of themselves and in general, the world around them. I say blissfully because they are happy, and it has been nice to escape to this random corner of the world and remember how many different lives are being lived all over the world, and how self centered I can sometimes get.

I took a walk in the cold Alabama air this morning, was blinded by a brilliant sun, enchanted by people stopping to ask if I needed a ride into "town" and chased and bitten by a mangy mutt protecting a run down farmhouse. Unfortunately, the charm of the light and strangers did not overpower my fear of rabies, and my walk ended in a frightened and angry hop skip. But now I am showered, coffee'd up, and feeling better.

The woman who owns the couch and the Santa Clauses is my roommates grandmother. Aside from Santas, she also collects pictures of grotesquely overweight children from Enquirer Magazine. She then laminates them and puts them into a manila folder next to her cookie recipes. She showed her collection to us proudly within 10 minutes of our arrival. This morning after I came back a bit shaken up from my run in from with the dog, she called the neighbor to give him a piece of her mind, and then invited me to watch television preachers with her to make myself feel better. I accepted, and found myself pleasantly entertained. Don't judge me.

Purple Berries

The world lies still, soaked and saturated with meaning, waiting to be squeezed. I walked up a hill in Elkmont, Alabama today, and the way was rough but pain free. Atop the hill the sun was so bright I couldn’t see anything. I turned around to behold a dead field washed in the sun’s white light. Everything took on the white-washedness, including myself, and I climbed a bit further to an old rusted trailer that had most likely been abandoned and still for decades. I touched it, and wondered if it ached for the days when it pulled bales of hay with purpose and dignity. Something purple in the white tugged the corner of my eye, and I looked down to see a cluster of berries I’d never seen before. I plucked them up, and proceed to hunt until I had a full bouquet of purple berries and red leaves. I laid them out on the rusted trailer, an offering to the God who showed them to me, and turned the forgotten trailer into a holy altar. I knelt, and watched the tall grass that had overgrown the field dance and sway with the wind. No one but God knew where I was, and no one was there to absorb the beauty but God and me. We enjoyed it together.

A poem for Jess

This is a poem to my friend, Jess
whose mess is beautiful
and whose beauty is a mess.

To Jess,

whose room is a cavern of open books, fabric,
of thoughts and captured moments.
On their own, tiny islands- inconsequential,
but let her swirl them together, and a room becomes an
explosion of profuse and profound beauty.
She calls it disaster, I call it a treasure chest.

To Jess,

whose heart is soft and big,
filled with dreams, pain, wonder and lessons hard learned,
and ill at ease with its imperfections.
She calls herself enemy, I call her angel.
She calls herself stranger, to me she is home.
(I know better).

To Jess,

I love her and one day she’ll see
The extraordinary beauty in her room, her head, her life.
And she’ll stop trying to clean it up and instead,
laugh and revel in it.

s.l.o.w.i.n.g..... d.o.w.n.....

Every day you and I are assailed by billboards, radio, demands from school or work, etc. We are over-committed, over-stimulated, and often find ourselves rushing through a world of colors and noises, not able to take any of it in. Because I want to write, I'm forced to slow down a bit. You can't write what you don't see, and seeing takes time. Plus God has taught me that I lose my sanity if I don't stop everything every day to read His word, to journal, to push everything aside and rest in Him.

The last few years I have had this daily slow time with Him, but then usually when I close my journal or bible, or when I get in the car to leave the lake, the rush begins. I haphazardly slam together my day, skipping and flying from event to event, baking without measuring, driving without getting directions first, sending letters without stamps... etc. I knew this about myself, and in a way enjoy living life like this. It creates some interesting moments. But this past month the situation has taken such a drastic downhill turn that I've had to reassess my ways. Here are a series of things that happened which culminated in this blog, and the realization that I MUST slow down.

1) A few weeks ago, I lost the entrance key to my apartment building and parking lot. For three weeks, until I could buy a new one, I had to wait outside the parking lot until another car came and rush in after them, or else call my manager to let me in.
2) A week after that, I lost my license. I lost my license because I had used it to get into the gym because I had lost my student I.D. card. Seeing a pattern here?
3) A few days later I lost my keys. I thought I had thrown them into my trunk and then shut it. I called roadside assistance to get them to help me, but ended up finding them in a decorative basket on my desk. I had somehow managed to bury them under a picture frame, a stuffed animal, and jewelry. Why, oh why, would I have done this?
4) Around that time, I started getting into tea drinking because I could feel the stress building, and thought it might relieve me a bit. I was making honey orange spice something or other tea for my roommate and me, and leaned over too far into the stove and caught my scarf on fire... yes, me in the kitchen in flames. Not too much harm done, it actually added to the character of an already fringy scarf... but still...
5) The final blow came last night. I went camping this weekend with some friends, and last night we sat around a campfire cooking and singing and just enjoying each other in the moment. A girl beckoned me to come from across the fire pit, and without a thought I stepped into a pile of burning coals. Um, are you kidding me? Worse, I did not even realize it until someone pointed out that my shoes were smoking. I looked down and had burned a hole into my brand new running shoes. This was a hundred dollar misstep. (I had been waiting for the shoes for a month, and my parents got them for me for my birthday). I had to excuse myself and swallow an egg sized lump in my throat.

After this event, I saw two options. One, throw myself into a pit of despair at my apparent complete lack of stewardship and responsibility. Two, ask what God might be trying to teach me. I'm going with number two for now. See, I love my life, and I want to do things well. I'm learning in my classes, absorbing everything I can from older women, trying to be effective and humble in ministry, attempting to meet needs around me, but I know that I have GOT to slow down a bit. If catching two items of clothing on fire within a week won't teach you that, I don't know what will.

So I'm done running again for the time being, both physically and metaphorically. The former because of a new found lack of footwear, the latter because if I keep going this fast, I will miss important details like rent due dates and... things being on fire...

Please pray for me in this slowing down endeavor. You slow down too, and for goodness sake, turn off the radio in the car to think about where you've been and where you're going. Forgive the preaching, but let's help each other out a bit.

God hugged me today

This afternoon I sat outside with no shoes on and let my skin warm in the afternoon sun and cried because I hurt. I told God that this was hard and I needed him. And then, God met me.

Allison and Jacob Kemp (fellow DTS students) walked by with their baby Joel. Allison handed him to me and we talked as I loved on Joel and absorbed baby therapy... Immediately I forgot myself a bit.

Another friend handed me half a 3 musketeers and joined our conversation. It hit the spot.

Another friend drove by, parked, and got out to come talk to us. He had encouraging words, wisdom and love.

My precious roommate and her fiance stopped to talk and laugh and play.

A girl from my hall stopped and put her arm around me while I played with the baby.

I couldn't believe it. One minute, aching. The next, surrounded by so much warmth and love....

Thank you so much God. Thank you so much.

on people pleasing and the two sides of the coin

Today I ran on the outside track at the gym. I ran way too fast due to the summer weather, (I am now convinced that Texas weather has attention deficit disorder- summer. no winter. no fall. no summer.), my new shoes, and the fact that Pauline and I spent thirty minutes freaking out about how wonderful it is that our bodies work and we can laugh and pinch and run and play, and how we should do it now while we can. (We spent the previous thirty minutes realizing that one day we would have children, and that afterward the skin that stretched on our bellies would hang there loosely. What do you do?! Tuck it into your pants?! Hide it with a sweater?! We needed the positive thinking for our mental health, so changed to celebrating the now)

Anyway... So I ran too fast, and had to stop early and walk. Which actually worked out well, because for the next forty minutes everything I saw was a story. A squirrel hiding an acorn from me, a weeping willow tickling its shrub girlfriends, a man who ran so slow he almost did not move, but did so with such a determined look on his face you would have thought he were running the olympics. Even I was proud and stood straighter.

These stories were cut (though I cheated and gave tiny story sprinkles) in light of the following:

I looked over as I walked and saw a man with sunglasses on and headphones in, running like with arms out to his side, singing loudly to his music. I thought to myself, "now this is a free man. " And I thought about people-pleasing and what a waste of time it was, and how he didn't give a damn what I thought or what anyone else thought, (though anyone with any sense had to think he was rockin), and how happy he was as a result of this perspective.

So I decided to write about living to please people, and why we shouldn't do it. This is after all, the day the Lord has made, and you are the only you in the world. You might have no desire to run and sing out loud, but you might want to lay down on the grass, or introduce yourself to a stranger, or bake some bread. And it was going to be the greatest, most inspiring blog ever.

But then...

I rounded the corner and saw the other side of the coin. An older man in short shorts and nothing else lathered himself up with oil (though I actually only saw him lathering his chest and bald head), and sprawled out on one of the picnic tables to bathe himself. Now this man too clearly did not care what anyone else thought. (or else he did and was quite pleased with himself, which is somewhat frightening) and my "just be yourself" blog went out the window. I would have appreciated very much if he had asked my opinion on him laying there while I enjoy the fall weather.

I know how this sounds- like I think that people should be themselves unless it happens to infringe on my interests. But what do you think? Where is the line? I think it comes down to living as unto God and no one else. Please seek him earnestly before going to my gym and undressing outside.

Again, if you don't know Him, call me. I know this post is mostly just in humor, but I'd love to introduce Him to you.

jer 6:16

Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'

God says, "Walk in the good way. Rest. Ask for wisdom."

We say, "No thank you."

WHAT?!

My roommate and I talked about this verse last night. She said this pretty much sums up all of history. I agree with her, and I see it in my life. God says, Come my child, believe. Walk in the way. And sometimes I say no. But by His grace, sometimes we say yes. We say yes, and rest, and he soothes our broken hearts with balm.

I am on a retreat right now with my roommate. This week I made it, but barely. I knew I had to get away for a bit, and prayed that God would show me where. I mentioned it to Christen, and she felt the same way. We are at an undisclosed location (that we accidently disclosed a few times) that is terribly close to DTS, but I think God worked a miracle, because I feel like I am a million miles away. I've been able to get some perspective, to rest, to understand why things are hard, to laugh at myself, and to hope. God has told me, 'Abby, this is the way, walk in it.' I respond with this verse...

You have said, "Seek my face."My heart says to you,
"Your face, LORD, do I seek." Psalm 27:8

I pray that this encourages you, and honors God. I pray that you seek God, that you lay before him all that you are, and seek Him. You have everything to gain, and will lose much. But better is ONE DAY in His courts than thousands elsewhere. Better is one moment believing truth, basking in the light of it, than a day of lies.

May you rest in Him today.