On Hearing the Burning Bush

Yesterday, I was driving kiddos around and we passed by an old abandoned house with huge flames pouring out. The smell lingered for miles. I said a quiet prayer and kept on my way. [There were already firetrucks on the scene].

I was pulling into the Walmart parking lot a few exits away several minutes later only to smell the flames burning again. Being so far away, I knew it couldn't possibly still be the house we'd passed. I smelled my shirt, thinking maybe the scent lingered still. But the smell wasn't attached to me. I started looking all around me, with it being such a hot, dry day and all. We were creeping down the side-road towards Walmart, when something caught my eye.

God used a burning bush to talk to Moses. And today, He did that for me too.

That's right, one of those perfectly trimmed, fancy landscaped bushes was completely engulfed in flames, just a couple feet away. There was no audible voice calling out asking me to strip my feet bare prior to my approach.

Rather it was a still, quiet moment and I haven't heard Him so clear in months.
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Tonight, I finally told granny about my upcoming trip to India. She freaked. She told me that was a mean joke. When I told her I was leaving in July, she went off on one of my old roommates, how that girl filled my head with rubbish. Now that girl is a wife and new mamma, I reminded granny, so obviously it wasn't her that led me to this desire to live overseas. Well, at least she will have a nice life. With her lawyer husband and little family. That's right Courtney, she has a perfect, beautiful life. I guess it's just over for you, huh? You're throwing it all away. Clink. She hangs up.

I spent time with my adopted fam this week and the conversation of dating was brought up. One of the girls said she feels like the weird one even in a big group of church friends. And I feel it too. Even amidst fellow believers, I feel like I don't belong sometimes. As I watch my Jesus-loving friends date recreationally when I spend more nights at home, I wonder if I'm right in all of this.

Just the fact that you have more international friends then Americans, grandma says, is foolish. Eventually they will all leave you and then what will any of it matter, aside from winding up alone and old? she asks. Soon enough, they won't want to hang out with you, Courtney, you're wasting your prime years here. My uncle wants take me out of his will because he says if he leaves me his money, I'd give it all away and what a waste that would be. It's better to leave to his girlfriend, he says.

This is extreme, but I feel it elsewhere. Sometimes I even think my beleiving family thinks I'm a bit crazy--extreme maybe. After quitting secular university and moving in with a homeschooling family of eleven, I get it. And how to begin to articulate all God has done through these decisions this year, how it's all lining up as He changes my desires and vision for life. I just find myself speechless and miles away. So, for now the extremes linger I suppose. And I trust more?

Some days I just want to prove the world wrong. I wanna go be a missionary to unreached people in India for the rest of my life just to prove them all wrong. To prove I'm not throwing it all away. That sometimes obedience looks radical through the eyes of our culture--it's all relative really. I don't know. I just know it feels lonely. And then there are days like today. Where I actually wonder what I have thrown away, what merit or comfort in the world's eyes I've given up in pursuit of this outwardly countercultural and presumably extreme lifestyle.

And so here I find myself, wrestling with my white picket fence fantasies contrasted against this gospel call to obedience--and what the means for me. Is the promised 'well done' enough to quiet the lack of belonging and doubt that lingers today?

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And so I gaze across at the burning bush and He quiets me.

I see you, daughter. I see the trials and the doubt. I see the struggling in and around you. The suffering, I see it too you know? But I AM WHO I AM--I have come down to deliver you, all of you. I know you're a little more broken these days and I know you feel the burden of this world. I see the oppression and I am sending you, my suffering servant to tell them of my promises. Daughter, you have learned to hope beyond the pain and they need to know it too. I know it's lonely, but fear not for I am He who never forsakes. 

Who am I, oh Lord? Don't you see my own suffering seems unbearable at times and yet it cannot compare to theirs. My selfishness and pride are paralyzing. What could I possibly have to say?

But I will be with you. And this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you:  when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.
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The crazy thing is, the very first time God spoke to me so clearly He told me to go to the mountains and share the good news. At the time, I had other mountains in mind. Now I hear Him again. Calling me to these mountainous villages of India. You will see miracles and you will trust me more. Little by little, daughter. I am delivering you.

And I promise, when you taste the milk and honey these temporal sufferings will be washed away. When you hear my words well done, your grandmother's voice will be but a quiet melody. 

Oh Jesus, please blind these eyes to the flattery of this world. Train them to turn from the accusations and dreams unfulfilled. Bind them to you. That I might see through the filter of your gracious hand at work in my life. That furthering your kingdom would propel me heavenward with unshifting joy.

We shouldn't ever doubt right? We should hear and respond to God's voice pouring out of a burning bush with far greater faithfulness then to that of an embittered granny living miles away. And yet, it's hard. But Jesus told us not to be surprised if the world hates us. Because it first hated Him. We have to remember it's the gospel we share that is offensive.

Brothers and sisters, how do we live in this world and yet not of it? Better yet how do we align our thoughts and deeds with scripture but avoid extremes in our witness while maintaining our convictions?  What do you hear God calling you to this week?

In Which I am Not a Victim of My Dad's Sin

Over the weekend I saw the latest Christian movie "Home Run" which details the story of an infamous baseball player with an alcohol addiction--and the mess that trails him as he clashes with grace.

At one point in the movie he has screwed up for the upteenth time, but this time it effects his very own son. He is sitting in a barn after drinking too much and he calls his Celebrate Recovery leader. He looks up at him with a face painted in shame and breath tinged with liquor, "I have an alcohol problem and I just don't know how to stop."

"I know" his friend replies, nodding his head, "I know."

Dad, I needed space this year and it was right and it has freed me up. You needed to sober up too, because let's face it, I can't make you stop--and I accept it now. I needed the space to learn it, and to wrestle some too. But I'm sorry for the way I have set up these unspoken requirements for you, completely conditional and biased in my offerings.

As though you should be punished. Held to a higher standard because you've messed up too much. Because your mess-ups have seeped over into my life too. 

If he finishes a year in that program, then you can call him. I remember thinking. He has to make it at least a year. Don't waste your time on him--or your thoughts. He won't make it a year. Once an alcoholic, always one. How many times have we been here, anyhow? He is never going to change.

Dad, I don't know why I have so selfishly decided you weren't worthy of my time until you earned it. 

Perhaps it happens as I remember what you stole from me, how you crushed my innocence and my dream, and I just hate you. I want to make you suffer. But the truth is, it's me drinking the suffrage overflowing with a heaping spoon of unforgiveness on top, whether you're lifting the glass or not.

As the pedestal bearing the gravity of my daddy issues continues to sink, I am finding myself so acutely aware of my own sinful heart, the sin that so far exceeds the label of abused. 

Your know, I have been hiding under the victim shell and pelting rocks your way every painful thought that crosses my mind. And a few years later, well those rocks have piled up into a flat out wall. Even when it is my sin. Like the night I gave myself permission to throw up a lot of food that I ate because you chose to leave rehab prematurely and it was my heart you left out in the dust of once again. Thinking of yourself before your family, again. Nothing has changed, I remember thinking. Or the way a few nightmares landed me in a heap on the floor when they ended with you and your sin against me. The way I spent the next week depressed and alone. Rightfully so, I rationalized. I am the victim here. 

That was my choice and it's time I own up. I have been labeled my whole life and now I do it to myself? Maybe it feels safe. Maybe it makes everyone else feel for me, justifies the darkness somehow. Maybe it puts makeup on the sin as it suddenly dwells in disguise. 

So I recall the countless times I have said those exact same words--I just don't know how to stop. 

I didn't know how to stop throwing up or cutting my skin. How to stop wanting to be loved. I had no idea what to do with the thoughts that reminded me of the used rag I measured up to be after I lost something most pure. I didn't know how to press through the darkness. Heck, I couldn't even stand up more or less run with perseverance.

Two bombs went off and it could have been anywhere, anyone. Sin is becoming a church word that no one really has time to think about, even down here in the bible belt, because it makes us feel uncomfortable. Best not step on any toes yells the postmods. I go to bed some days expecting to see Jesus before the alarm. And I weep because I'm not ready, yet my worship extends such bold words that echo come Lord Jesus, come. I know I mean it, it's just my heart is so ugly and dark.

Dad, you screwed up. But just because you hurt me does not validate my sin, it doesn't justify it. Nor does it justify the deep down conditional love I've mustered up towards you in my heart.

I am tired of living enslaved to this once-abused-girl mindset. 

No poor creature stands in need of divine grace more then I do, and yet none abuses it more then I have done, and still do. And it is all beyond me. 

So dad, I guess we have more in common then I'd like to admit. At the end of the day, sin is sin. There is no ranking. This truth defines us both, you know? It is setting us free when we choose.

Lately, my lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel, and my ways recluctant to amend. I bring my soul to thee; break it, bend it, wound it, mould it. Unmask to me sin's deformity, that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.

I hate the way I hate you. The way I hold the grudge. The way I still want you to love me the most.

I have been reluctant to amend, slow to acknowledge the breaking and bending. The mask always feels better, doesn't it? It's coming off now and hating it isn't enough. Dad, I just don't know how to stop blaming you for my dark days, how to stop seeing you only in light of your sin. 

I longed for a love you just don't have to give. God used an incredible fatherly figure to step in and guard me and guide me into more intimate understanding of His own love for me. As I see even that fatherly figure let me down, I realize all the more God is the only perfect one, the only one who offers me something unconditional and everlasting and redeems through it. The one who give us a new name.

Ya'll, I am not a victim or a bulimic. Dad, you're not an abuser or an addict. We are children of God. And He commands us to forgive, just as He has done for us. There is nothing radical about it.

Lord, help me to unmask my sin and flee to obedience that your glory might be magnified in my brokenness. 

Dad, I don't need anything from you. But, I still want it.

And I believe God is opening the door after just over a year of Him locking it shut. For now, I will write you a letter.

I look forward to seeing His glory on display in whatever way He would [or wouldn't] allow us to pursue relationship in the months & years to come. 

In Which I Tell You I Am India Bound

It's been nearly a year now. A year since I've traveled the world and seen God sweep through the mountains of Orissa as His Holy Spirit moves in the hearts and lives of these natives. I can so vividly remember walking through the security gate at the airport in the big city after a five hour drive out of the mountains, all our gear piled high atop the cars as we Americans don't know how to leave the bathroom sink behind. I had several bags across my shoulder and full waterworks streaming down my face, passport in hand. I turned around one last time as I was next to walk through security. I smiled big and motioned one final goodbye.

I remember walking forward, passing through the metal detector and putting my shoes back on. The same ones that were still raw with that glorious red dirt that held my frame those weeks, sweat seeping between my toes. I heard the holy spirit in those moments, as He simply told me This is is just see you later. Trust me now. The plane ride back and months to follow were full of wrestling with much fear and trembling. Wrestling with trust and patience and submission, wrestling with the abundance of stuff invading my life and this American culture luring me away from the gospel, with white picket fence and all. Wrestling with waiting, the feeling stuck, with the culture shock and my salvation too.

Then Pastor Sam came to visit a while back, and I wrestled some more.

These past months have led me into living away from these eleven, learning how to walk confidently in the sufficiency of Christ at work in my life. It's been ups and downs, but the ground is looking more level then ever before and I know the Spirit is at work. Meanwhile, a season of studying my nights and weekends away as the paychecks continue to sustain through the five o' clock hour is coming to a much anticipated close. I have two more classes to go and that is a miracle far beyond my capacity or ability--and yet, here we are!

I was accepted to Thomas Edison University last week where I will transfer all my credit and complete my final two classes to come out with my Bachelors in Social Sciences in June.

In fact, that's only one of the incredible prayers answered in my life through these recent weeks. That final night of these forty days where my friend Sydney and I prayed into the desert instead of fasting, we asked God to provide the money for my tuition, to make India come up unexpectedly through the week if we were supposed to go, and for a job in Arkansas so I didn't have to move to St. Louis. We prayed a lot of other stuff too.

The next day, I witnessed God's miraculous provision of the missing $800 needed to complete my tuition costs, just taped to my car literally the week it was due and after praying it would appear in that exact location the night before. By lunchtime that day, the phone rang from an odd number. I thought it might be a potential job interview, so I picked up. An hour long phone conversation would follow with an American currently living in India, whom I had met there last year, anxious to serve this Pastor and his ministry in greater depth. I hung up the phone completely in awe of how boldly God chose to answer our prayer. Beyond, that He also confirmed India that same afternoon in a clear way to Sydney through a conversation with her dad. Later that week, God also provided a job in Arkansas. 

We met later that night and looked at each other laughing, quite histarically actually, at the unreal realization that God was indeed calling us to India! I know when I pray, I must believe it, but so many of those weeks of prayer had been spent begging Him to help my unbelief. He didn't have to reveal Himself in such tangible ways, and yet in His grace He chose to and I am so thankful and in continual awe. The next step was asking God to provide the right group to send us. There were several options presented to us, and within a week God very clearly confirmed our home church, University Baptist Church, would be sending us.

We will be heading to India for the month of July to teach English to children at this school. Beyond humbling is the fact that simply our American bodies standing in that schoolhouse will bring much creditability and provision to the school, the ministry, and these kiddos futures. We also hope to offer several outreaches to women there, possibly through bible studies, medical clinics and sex-trafficking prevention courses.

For me personally, this month will be spent seeking God and specifically asking Him to show me whether or not I am to return long term to teach and serve within this ministry. Either way, I will be coming back for a year to pay off the remainder of my school debt and continue in international ministry before I can return long term.

We will also have the opportunity to write while in India, sharing stories of what God is doing and will continue to do through our time there, allowing you to see glimpses of our journey and continue praying specifically while we are there and giving to this incredible ministry as you are led.

You know, God's provision these past weeks has been overwhelming. It's like in Hebrews 6 when God promised Abraham blessing and descendants. Abraham waited patiently and then received what God had promised. I have been waiting (though not so patiently) for these requests. And now God provided a new job, the money needed to complete college just in time to go to India, and the path clear for India with a friend to join me.

But God didn't stop there. He continues in Hebrews to explain that He wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose so clear--so He gave an oath, a promise for His heirs to hope in. That's us, ya'll!!

He said we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. 

Do you ever feel as though you need an anchor for your soul? I sure do. Even now as kiddos don't obey and the dishes are piled high and the laundry sits in the washer still. I have a big test this week and am fighting a cold and I just feel like it's all out of my control--I need to be anchored in something! So what are we to anchor our souls in, beyond His immediate provision of things in this world?

Hebrews goes on to tell us that this promise enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our fore rummer Jesus had entered on our behalf. We are to be anchored in the promise of Jesus, the fore runner gone ahead and coming back still.

So as incredibly humbled as I am in God's provision of so much this week, I am realizing I can't hope only in this temporal provision He offers. We rejoice, yes!! But what if God chose to use me in St. Louis rather then Arkansas? What if God did not provide the money for school the next day, but it took several months? He doesn't always answer us the way we choose or expect. So we can't only place our hope in these answered prayers, even when He does chose to answer them in a big way for His glory.

But we CAN hope in the unshifting promise, the provision, still coming--JESUS. And it is with that desire we fly across the world to bring the good news. The news that Jesus is the one to fulfill, the one who allows us to hope in the inner sanctuary. That Christ is anchoring us in Himself until He comes.

In His grace He offers us glimpses--like making a way for us to go to India. But ultimately we hope in the promise that He is coming!!

You can catch up on clips of my India journey last year through this South Asia link. There will be support letters coming soon and we are are so grateful for the way the body of Christ continues to surround us, pray with us, and confirm what God is doing.

              My sister, friend, and the one crazy enough to join me on this journey to India!! 

In Which I Have a New Job

The past six weeks of unemployment have challenged me in ways unending.

Just two weeks ago, in fact, I began packing up my life here in Arkansas to head northbound to St. Louis where I was offered a place to stay with my best friend and her new twin boys (and the Mr. of course). St. Louis made a lot of sense as I will graduate in June and just need a filler job until then, at which point I can attain the "dream job" whatever the heck that means! 

Plus, I was relieved to have a back up plan after the 30+ jobs I'd applied for ignored my emails and calls. I didn't see then what God was requiring. And I can see now how miserably I failed that test. How often I forget He is trustworthy and fully in control [especially when I'm not, amen?]

Yesterday I started my new job as "nanny" and then some to three boys. 

Just two days before I was to depart for St. Louis, I was offered an interview for a nanny position in Arkansas. I interviewed the following night and was offered the job the day after. In the meantime, I still kept my plans to go to St. Louis and interview there as well, though I knew on the drive up it would be a short trip as I was pulling away from my "home" in the rolling hills (that I once called mountains) of the natural state.

See that was much of the wrestling and not trusting--this place has become my home these past three years and I couldn't imagine calling it quits quite yet. [Despite desperately missing my family in St. Louis.]

God used the trip to confirm the door He'd opened back South was indeed the one I should walk on through. So barely a day into my trip, I accepted the position. The reactions of those close to me were a little bitter mixed with a lot a sweet, as most I trust knew it was the answered prayer we'd been believing for.

Tonight, as I sit here physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained, covered in spit up and various combinations of peas and carrots with a couple layers of paint, chalk, and dog hair to top it off---well let's just say I can't do much but laugh at the reality that this is what many prayers answered looks like in all it's glory. I am reminded God's "working all things together for our good" takes on odd shapes and sizes at times, yet He is working indeed.

As much as I need a shower right now, I am equally confident of His provision of this position for my good. 

I always thought these concepts of God "equipping us for the calling" and "training us in death to self" were ones I would wrestle through prior to moving across the world for the sake of the gospel. Instead I'm seeing it as I re-define the word "time-out" for boys quite fluent in disobedience [and absolute melt downs]. In the way eating my lunch around three this afternoon was a victory celebrated. I'm seeing it in the way my "Tot School" qualifications can be found on my Pinterst wall. How I yelled when my perfectly clean kitchen took a thick layer of red play-dough to the rug this afternoon [and fought to hold back the tears while I scrubbed]. And I see it in the way that the lady at the bookstore today asked me if they were twins and bent down to help as I juggled the baby and his buggy of gear too. She smiled and told me they were precious--and I gritted my teeth and replied yes ma'am, they are.

And you know what? They really are. It's a part of the dying that God is teaching me at the close of this day two. A little spit up and few melt downs doesn't change that. Nor does the suffering I feel when six o' clock feels centuries away. Neither does the fact that they are just my job. They are gifts from the Lord and for this season of time, they are my gifts for these fifty hours of the week. God has entrusted me with them--so have their unbelieving parents. And He commands me to be faithful.

Yesterday I connected with the mom of these boys over her previous hurts from the Catholic church. She explained to me she is excited for the twins to be in school in the fall--school in a church because they need something spiritual, even she can't give it to them. And God reminds me--Courtney, I have chosen this family to employ you for reasons far exceeding your need for a check at the end of the week. This morning I met another mom at story time and she just moved here from India. What a blessing my time with her was. Another reminder the Word is living and active here too.

Today, God didn't need me preaching in India. He needed me at Barnes and Noble for story time in Rogers, Arkansas with two boys attached to my legs and another slobbering in my arms. He needed me to sit cross-legged on the floor of this bookstore feeding the baby a bottle beside a mom from India while the boys shared a bench up front.

I wasn't ever quite convinced changing diapers and teaching the alphabet was a worthy calling until they were my own one day. Today, God ever so gently reminded me that taking up my cross to follow Him is the only worthy calling. 

So tomorrow, picking up my cross is asking these boys to forgive me for yelling over spilled play-dough. It's singing of Christ's love while I change the baby's diaper. It's speaking life over these boys when even their parents tell me they're a handful. It's disciplining when they don't obey the first time, even if letting it go would prevent a melt down. It's praying for patience and joy and India while I wash dishes and fold laundry. It's remembering just how unworthy I am, how selfish, and repenting.

Picking up my cross is resting in His grace all-sufficent when they all three have pressing needs and there is just one exhausted me. It's the deep breath and the peace that transcends it all. It's the fact that He died so I could live. So these boys could live--and one day know the peace too.

And then I realize just how worthy this calling is--and how it being  entrusted to me is grace alone. 

In Which Babies Remind Me

I've spent the past few days with this new little family of four. I am so madly in love with these boys sometimes I can't even stand it.

I think this weekend has kept me locked up behind the gates of solitude as I find myself staring off into the distance and craving time in the quiet more then normal. This year, I just can't quite seem to wrap my little mind around Easter, around this thing called the resurrection.

My ears flood with sounds of my uselessness, my lack of belonging here. I feel something ugly when menial tasks are tossed my way, as if I am entitled to something greater then unpacking the car or manning the washing machine in the basement. I love to serve and I miss my friend even while she is sitting right net to me, two boys feeding off of her, and I just can't control my thoughts these days.

And as crazy as my brain as been as of late, I have never in my life heard grace sung so sweet as these past weeks. You know, it just keeps getting louder. 

I think the message I hear is such:  without the ressuresction, there would be no Christianity. No grace. No Truth to replace the lies. No after the before. No hope in the pain. No sacrifice in the death. It all hinges on the rock removed giving way to emptiness. It all comes back to the risen Son.

The one that dwells deep and hums to words otherwise mostly forgotten in the noise.

I watch this new Mamma and Daddy love bigger then I ever knew possible and it leaves me hungrier. Give me some a that, I think to myself. While I reflect on how things have changed and how I miss something that isn't even lost, just different.

I've seen God's provision lately in such unreal ways. And what I deserve is death.

There is something to be reconciled this year, some understanding I simply don't understand.

Understanding aside, I know it to be true so why do I still search here, within the constraints of clothes that hide shame and walls that conceal sin? What is it about saftey and belonging that is so appealing in our nakedness?

It's in us from birth, I'm learning. Something programmed deep, something beyond the passing the of genes. The kicking and flailing of complete unrestraint seen against the comfort of a tight swaddling blanket or two. The way their little muscles relax when they are scrunched up tight chest to chest. The unrest that comes in diaper changes contrasted with the peace of nakedness undone. The glory of a mamma nursing that makes every tear trickle away.

We all want to loved, protected, important-we all want to feel safe. 

When I watch this new daddy lock eyes with his boys, I feel goose bumps chase up my arms. I hear him whisper to his son and I remember this glimpse of right relationship, of justice. It leaves me teary-eyed and hungrier. When mamma nurses, her love made flesh really does quiet them. I continually think of the way God rejoices over them with singing, the way watching her calm her little sweet peas reminds me He thinks of me like that too?

Even though my mom is still learning how to love me. In spite of my dad robbing me of safety.

He still quiets me with His love. He calls me beloved. No matter how tight my pants feel today or how I just barely swung a passing grade on that last test or how my bible was altogether forgotten on this little trip or how I have spent a few weeks engulfed in a thick fog, it seems.

I still long to hear Him singing, you know. I need it.

They cry for no reason sometimes. These two precious boys. Completely senseless and sleep-robbing tears, and yet her love waivers not, of course. I hear her voice--Oh my lil sweet pea. You know your mamma loves you? As she quiets them. And I know she would give herself for these little guys because I watch it happening, the way her life is belonging less and less to her.

Lord, is that not what you desire for me too? That as a new mamma of two is somewhat supernaturally empowered to function on far less sleep then should be humanly possible, I also should also feel the sting of something lost so that something else might be gained?

There is something powerful about these early days, something I hope to remember. The way the womb contracts and boys burst forth and there is much rejoicing and much sacrifice.

For me or you, it might not be sleep or a daily shower He is requiring for the taking. Perhaps it is shame. Or fear. Maybe failure. Or hurt of not being protected. Maybe even your love of other things.

Like these precious babies scream over a bit of nakedness, we too must remember that is us. We are completely deserving, you know? We are the naked and guilty, apart from the One who chose in His grace to clothe us--with the righteousness of a risen Savior!

Death that we might have life. Risen that He might live in us. Nakedness undone. Quieting us with His love. Do you hear the song yet?

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.  [Zephaniah 3:17]

In Which I Wrestle & Wait

A week ago life started singing outside my window so I slept with it open all night. I don't think I've slept quite like that in months. The sun kissed my face red after a day outside in the country with my adopted fam finishing my little [turned big] chicken house project from last year. It's almost done now and it was a project far to large for my own undertaking, joke's on me evidently!

Today rain and gloom linger and I feel a chill in the air. It's my dad's birthday and I don't quite know what to do with that. Oddly, all I can think about is wanting to hug him tight and for him to tell me it's all gunna be okay. I took a three hour nap and have no motivation to leave this bed. Nonetheless, the grass is gaining color and I am thankful for a resurrection glimpse.

Isn't it good news that the story doesn't end with the crucifixion?

We sang in church today and I wept like a baby. I tried to fight it, but by the time the offering song launched I was a goner. I think it was deep rooted in this weariness I've felt and the way I've depended on the idol too much in this trial. And then there is the trial itself. My applied for job count has topped out in the late twenties this week and my interviews thus far cap out at a whopping zero. It hasn't been the darkness of before, but it's lingered and weeks later I still haven't run the other way.

Why is that sometimes our wounds feel better oozing then they do all stitched up?

These days I look in the mirror and find disappointment in the faded blonde staring back at me. I haven't felt it in months and months but it feeds something of old. I find myself reaching into the back of the closet for the hoodies that cover up a few times too many and I wake up to the hum of relentless failure flowing ear to ear. There is something to be said for getting dressed up for work each day and with that gone--maybe I just need to pretend I have somewhere important to be?

I find myself making excuses to be places and moving my life to the week after next because I am just a little fragile right now and, well I don't even know why. Maybe something will click by then, though. I hope so. Surely I am not bound to a life of sweatpants just yet.

I hear the enemy loud. I open my Bible and the words just look a little blurry. I think it's a season we all know and the timing of it makes sense--tomorrow sums up my forty days of prayer and this last week I've felt the resistance.

But, God is speaking and I am dependent on hearing His voice.

Community around here really has sustained me. From random (rather large) checks taped to my windshield to people meeting me for the fist time only to discover I'm that one their whole family has been praying for these past weeks (which has happened more times then I can count on these fingers). All of my "adopted parents" both local and back home have been a constant flood of grace and wisdom in my life. My bible study friends have loved me well. Sweet ladies from church far more aged and faithful then I have come in close and looked me in the eyes while His words sunk deep. This is the testimony of His bride who have relentlessly pointed me back to He who is able.

And I think I forget it, when I don't see Him doing the abundantly more. I forget He is able. I forget faith is not seeing. I forget His ways are better too. Because let's face it, I have it all figured out stored away, just in case anyhow. 

"...the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." [Phil. 3:10-11]

I think He is letting some parts of me crumble off. Hammering away.

The fire is thick and blazing these days, and this whole dying thing is a dreadful process. But as I watch this tulip fan open into yellow budded bliss, I remember abundant life such as this requires a cost so great as death itself.

In this case, undeserved death on a cross which burst forth an impossible stone that He who is able might attain resurrection. And here He dwells in the fire with you and me, His spirit sustaining.

I'm not sure what this season is to result in, what He is trying to carve outa me.

So all I can say is such--by any means possible, Lord, by any means possible. 

On My Dad Coming Home & Learning to See Eternal

My dad is in the same town as me. It's been years since I've found myself here and I thought I was ready. I thought wrong. 

He came back from rehab about four months too soon but it sounds like my brother knew it would happen about now. My sister calls to tell me he is back just a day into my trip back home. My best friend birthed two boys and this kind of love always leaves me speechless. The week has been a blur of baby bliss and gazing starry eyed into these itty bitty faces, so perhaps that's why it's taken so long to get here--to begin wrestling with this odd reality. 

My hometown is big, a cluster of dots packed tight on the map. My whole life, he has lived an episode of my favorite sitcom away--at least. This time, he decides to live a stone's throw from my mom's house. With a buddy of his. Who also happens to be an alcoholic. In good company, why not have a sip--or two?

They tell me he's changed. That he is not the same man we grew up with. That it is for real this time. 

I feel my heart grow harder with each roll of these eyes as these words callouss my ears.

I've heard it all before. I really have. Even a couple years ago he "got saved" and sobered up for nearly a year. I remember he would call me almost daily that year. One night he listened to me rant about my roommates. And then he asked me how he could pray for them--and for me? I remember the silence that followed because I never thought I'd hear those words. I never thought he would care about much of anything beyond himself--especially me. Especially Jesus. 

He called every night that week just to tell me he had prayed. He told me to remember God was working and to be patient and trust Him. Trust is hard girl, I remember him explaining, you just have to remember it's more then what we see with our eyes. 

At twnety-two years old trust is the hardest. 

In life in general:  I have no idea where I will be living, what I will be doing, or where my provision will come from in the weeks and months to come. 

This man is minutes from my life here in this town. So I hold my breath walking into the local breakfast place with a friend because I just don't know what will happen if I see him. I don't know if I will run and hide or cuss him out and slap him across the cheek. And I sort of want to do both. 

Trust was annihilated over and over again and I'm cracked. 

A friend asks me why I'm stressed when I call her whining. Perhaps this job loss and financial burden with a side of no clue what is next, what city to live in, where to sign a lease for the fall, or what obedience even means at this point, I tell her. "Courtney, that shouldn't be stressful--it should be exciting!" she tells me, "Are you trusting the Lord?"

Well, no. No, I'm not. It's too hard. I can't. I already failed. 

I knew I would be a disappointment and sure enough both mom and granny have had a few things to say. And as these crazy women in my life make manipulative threats left and right, these wounds fester and inflame as my trust issues ooze to the cement surface.

I'm here seeping through these cracks and I blame you, dad. I still stinkin' blame you. 

I look at you and I see the sword that pierced deepest when you stripped off my covering of white. I see you giving up and not finishing something you started. I see you saying all of the right things to make up for the studpid ones that you have done. I see you living with an alcoholic because your son warned you he couldn't house you if you came home early. But you didn't think that through, did you? You just ran on back with the lust of your flesh a guide in the night. Maybe you're still sober. I hope you are. But as I listen to him telling me how you've changed--how you are not the man we grew up with, I just remember trust is hard. 

I want to shake you. I want to give you a piece of my mind. You think you can deceive him the way you have me? Those are my thoughts at the moment, dad.

It's more then what we see with our eyes, right? Trust is hard, man.

As I sit back in the shadow watching this new daddy gaze into his newborn sons' eyes, I just think you never looked at me like that. Not really. Your eyes never saw into eternity. You never offered your life for mine. You lived yours and let it suck up bits of mine along the way.

And it is hard. I still see you like that. And I don't trust you. 

See, the chasm you erected has made me hard and cracked. So when life thickens the cracks,  I want to crumble. And I don't trust you and it makes it so darn hard to trust the Lord. And I am blinded by these eyes of mine. These eyes that are so fixated on the seen and temporal ways of this world.

So dad, when the time comes and I see you around this town and I don't fall into your arms in rejoicing, well, you just have to know--

Trust is learning to see with eternal eyes and mine are focusing, but I might just need some time. 

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. 
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.    
                                                                   -2 Corinthians 4:18