Remembering

As a general rule, I find myself unaware of whatever the current date happens to be. Today is one of the exceptions. 

They say that 9/11 is one of those days where everyone remembers exactly what they were doing when they heard the news. At least in my case, they’re correct. I was on my way home from a morning class when I heard the news that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t give it a second thought. Sheltered child that I was, I had no idea what the twin towers even were. In my mind, some pilot had gone off course and accidentally hit some building somewhere. I got out of my car and went inside to take a nap. 

It wasn’t until a couple hours later that my husband (then boyfriend) came and knocked on my door to ask what I thought about everything going on. I had been sleeping through all of it- that was apparently what I thought about it. He explained the tragic events to me, and I sat in shock with him on the front porch. For most of the day, we remained glued in front of the news, waiting to hear every single piece of new information. We cried, became angry, and traversed the whole gamut of emotions together.

Over the next few weeks and months, most everyone in the good ole USofA did the same. Emotions ran high, though different folks came to different conclusions.

 

Most agreed that Americans needed to band together during this time of great loss, and patriotism swept the nation. Flags appeared everywhere- little ones secured to car antennas, newspaper printouts taped to front doors, and on all manner of merchandise as far as the eye could see. Even Congress united to sing God Bless America. We were proud to be Americans.

 Just as widespread as that patriotism was a shared grief over all who were lost. Strangers embraced and wept together as the gravity of the situation overwhelmed then. Eventually films explored the process of how life had to go on. So many precious lives lost. And why?

Many Americans considered the terrorist attacks to be a call to arms. Thousands of people died that day, right here on American soil. If the terrorists were intending to pick a fight, then they certainly succeeded. Songs were sung, speeches were given, and calls to action were proclaimed far and wide. Americans wanted blood!

Many saw the tragedy through the lenses of their faith, though even these interpretations varied widely. Some believed God was punishing a sinful nation. Some considered it a wake up call to draw our nation back to God. And still others saw the cross in the rubble as a sign that God was in the midst of our struggles, bringing us hope.



 

A smaller population came to the conclusion that faith had caused this whole mess to begin with. That religion was to blame for the choices of men.




 

And fortunately it was an even smaller population that chose to develop some conspiracy theories about the "truth" of 9/11. Google UFO 9/11 and see what you find. (One word: yikes.)




Still others focused on the heroism of those emergency personnel who rushed into the burning buildings as others were rushing out. They marveled at the bravery of Todd Beamer and the Flight 93 passengers, who refused to go without a fight. Some spoke of the brevity of life, researched the teachings of Islam, emphasized the need for airline security, debated the problems with border control, kept hope alive while searching for the missing, stressed the importance of making peace in the middle east, questioned the goodness of God, supported a search for weapons of mass destruction... The list goes on and on.

9/11 impacted our nation in a unique and terrible and wonderful way. It is a part of our history, and each year we remember the impact that it had on us as a person and a nation. The raw emotion of the moment may be gone, but I hope we've come through stronger as a result. As we see the images and maybe watch the videos today, let's not resort to feeling blind rage, despondent sorrow, or fruitless worry.

Whichever side you found yourself on all those many years ago, whatever feelings were evoked- none of that matters moving forward. There are so many directions of thought this tragedy could take us in, but I submit that the most important one is a question. 

What is the truth at the center of it all? 

We have to find it, and then we can work our way outward to deal with the entirety of what life throws at us. Then even when the worst happens, we need not fear.

Seek the truth. Find it, hidden among all the lies and foolishness and distraction this world has to offer. Test God. See if the promises he's made hold up. Look at them for yourself, and don't take anyone else's word for it. Then cling to the truth you find. Focus on it. Continue to learn about it day by day. Live for it.  

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Where faith and zombies collide

Any true Walking Dead fan can tell you the date of the upcoming season premiere. It’s October 12^th, in case you are not one such fan. That also happens to be my husband’s birthday, but I’m personally more excited about the premiere.

There’s so much to love about WD, as we refer to it in our household. The story line is captivating, the special effects are well done, no character is guaranteed another episode, and so much more. I don’t even typically like violent shows, or scary ones, yet somehow this is one of my all-time favorites. (Though I do close my eyes when they’re fighting walkers, which is, you know, somewhat frequently.) It took two and a half seasons for my husband to convince me to even watch it, and then I couldn’t stop watching. 

 

It. Is. Incredible.          

 

 

(Just as a side note: If you don’t think Daryl Dixon is the man, then we can’t be friends.)

We’ve been watching through the seasons again in preparation for the big day. (Thirty-eight days to go!) It’s been even better this second time around, especially to watch just how much the characters have grown. We’re pretty close to making it all the way through again. Rick has been reunited with his family, Sophia has been found (and lost), Shane is no longer stirring up trouble, Merle has committed one final, selfless act, and most recently, my least favorite character to ever walk on a set is no more. 

WD fans know which episode I’m referring to. And even though the governor’s death brought such vindication, the remainder of the 44 minutes left me dismayed. The prison has fallen, the group has been splintered apart, and their oldest comrade will share his wisdom no longer.

 And so, today, I am reflecting on the meaningful, albeit fictional, life of Hershel Greene. Hershel is the kind of man that everyone wants around. He was easygoing, but he knew when to put his foot down. He spoke words of wisdom, but he didn’t spout them arrogantly or harshly. He constantly had a positive attitude and a great sense of humor. 

He’s responsible for what I think is the funniest line ever spoken on the WD: “I can't profess to understand God's plan, Christ promised the resurrection of the dead. I just thought he had something a little different in mind.”

It’s hard to fit humor into a life such as the one portrayed here, but Hershel did it seamlessly. Thank God that people like that exist, making the world a better place just by lightening the mood. Reminding us that there is hope for something better beyond the moment. 

Even with so many positives about Hershel, we perhaps learn more from his brief downfall than anything else. After the infamous barn slaughter episode, Hershel falls off the wagon. His hopes that he might be able to bring his family and friends back to their former (well, alive) selves are crushed, and he turns to his old friend to drown out his problems. Twenty-two years of sobriety go down the drain, and he refuses to come back from the bar even to help his daughter recover from a medical emergency. He declares that there is no hope for any of them, and he insists that Rick feels the same way.

Down goes Hershel.

But then. Oh, then. He rises up stronger than ever.

I love the truth this story represents. Sometimes we learn that what we thought was truth was a lie. For Hershel it was that there is no return from the undead state, but hopefully our lesson will be a little different than that. But rest assured, everyone has to face this kind of reality at some point in their life. Maybe someone we trusted betrayed us, maybe the hypocrisy of someone in the church has shaken our faith, maybe life ended up in chaos even though we’ve followed “the rules.” It’s not the falling that defines us. It’s the standing back up, dusting ourselves off, maybe limping at first, but then returning to life with a renewed passion to fight.

This is what I love about Hershel. He was shaken, and he took a fall, but he got back up again and fought hard for the truth. He renewed his faith in God rather than dismissing it. It became stronger through the trials. His outlook changed, but it was for the better. His hope remained, and he was a better man for it. And everyone else around him became better as a result. 

Not only did Hershel change, but he helped Rick change as well. He lent his wisdom and humor and patience to walk Rick through overwhelmingly difficult circumstances, including the death of his wife. Though I must say, I thought Rick might not make it through his journey into crazy town. But he does, and he learns from the wisdom of his old one-legged friend.

It is Rick who gives what ends up being a beautiful tribute to what Hershel stood for just moments before his death. “Now you put down your weapons, walk through those gates... you're one of us. We let go of all of it, and nobody dies. Everyone who's alive right now. Everyone's who's made it this far. We've all done the worst kinds of things just to stay alive. But we can still come back. We're not too far gone. We get to come back. I know...we all…can change.”

 One last smile spreads across Hershel’s face in that moment. I imagine that he is reflecting on how those words ring true, and he glows with pride to know that Rick lived out that truth. And then, the governor wipes that smile from his face. Hershel will grace the screen no more.

But the great thing about real life is that the darkness can never overcome the light. When good men die, their legacy lives on forever. The truth they proclaimed cannot be erased, even though their body fades away. 

Even though our faith is sometimes shaken, we can come back. We can enjoy life again and live it to the fullest. We can hold on to hope and live each day with a positive outlook. We can keep our integrity even when the world around us falls to chaos. So fictional zombie show or not, we can still glean some wisdom-filled life lessons here. 

I know…we all…can change.

Leaving the Burg

Moving Day!

There was once a time in my life when I was certain that the job description of “wife” had somehow become intermingled with that of the Holy Spirit. That is to say that I felt it my obligation to inform my husband as to how God was leading him. Naturally I still occasionally hijack these duties, but I have at least come a little farther down the path toward letting God be God. 

When Isaiah and I moved back to the Lynchburg area six years ago, we were confident about the direction of our lives. He would complete seminary at LU to become a youth pastor, we would move out west in just a few years, and the Lord would use us to bring about a real and lasting change in the lives of hurting young people. It was God’s will for us, as revealed by yours truly, and we accepted it eagerly. (After all, I had already graciously enlightened my dear husband of his call to youth ministry.) 

Fast forward six full years and three more kids later, and we seem to have taken quite a few steps backwards from that plan. We stayed several years longer than we planned. There are no more west coast dreams on the horizon, though we did wind up on the southern coast. Isaiah just accepted a job with Sherwin Williams, the company he left to pursue his seminary degree in the first place. That seminary degree that he never did finish. That seminary degree that he never intends to finish.

I have a very different understanding of “God’s will” now than I had in my younger years. I still remember an evening when our youth pastor asked us to anonymously write down our worst fear on an index card. Mine was not finding the “right guy” that God had chosen for me and winding up with either the wrong person or no one. (Shut up- I was in high school.) It’s a very revealing example of the way my mind used to work, though. I thought God had this exact path laid out for us, and we had to constantly be worrying about which steps to take, or else we would screw up our lives and let God down.

Sigh. If only I could re-live my yesteryears. I would tell my young self to pay more attention to my Alvin and the Chipmunks cassette tape recording of Que Sera, Sera. (What’s New Pussycat? was also on that album, but it would still be perfectly acceptable for my younger self to gloss over that one.)

My point is that I no longer have grand dreams for my life anymore. Is this because the world has beaten me down? Am I now too cynical after my dealings in the real world? Have I given up all hope that I should shoot for the moon and thus land amongst the stars?

No. If anything, I’ve become more optimistic over the years. My pessimism has been slowly chipped away by the repeated and undeniable proof that there is always hope for something better. I guess what has changed is my definition of better. I don’t have to worry about “finding God’s will,” and I certainly don’t have to earn God’s approval. While I believe wholeheartedly that God leads us, I also believe that it’s usually one step at a time. And the destination of that path isn’t significance, it is intimacy. Better means closer to God. When He abides in me, I am able to serve out of love rather than duty. I see even the daily grind as an opportunity to share the love of Christ with those I encounter.

And so, my life is no longer led by a desire to figure out what God wants me to do. It is led by a desire to know God more and more. When I abide in Him, then I can trust that He is abiding in me. Then when I get an idea in my mind to, oh, move twelve hours away for instance, I can trust that it’s perfectly acceptable to do so. 

I wanted to move first, but I didn’t tell Isaiah, because I didn’t want to influence his decision. I needed to know that this wasn’t a result of my immature desire to run off and save the world again to satisfy my own feelings of self-worth. But when he revealed that he felt a strong desire to move away about a year ago, I rejoiced that God was leading us in the same direction. We prayed for that entire year about our potential move. We prayed that God would take us wherever would grow us and enable us to serve Him however He desired. We even prayed continuously that God would take away our desire to move if we were better off staying put.

Isaiah’s first idea (quickly shot down when I briefly usurped the role of Holy Spirit again) was to move to North Dakota. Over the next several months we prayed and researched areas in California, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Oregon, Ohio, Nebraska, Illinois, and more. We finally settled on New Hampshire and prayed fervently about a move there. We laid out a fleece (the sale of our house by the end of 2013), and began planning our move to the city of Nashua. 

Not one single person looked at our house during that time. We were even rejected by the people who buy houses that no one wants. Burn. 

We started to wonder if it was just immaturity driving our desires again. And yet, God never took away that desire to go. It was only getting stronger.

So here’s the part that’s the hardest for me to say, and it’s probably the reason I’ve deliberated over what to write for so very long. I’ll say it really fast.

 IsaiahandIdon’twanttoliveinLynchburg. 

Whew! Got it out. Given that most of the people who asked us why we were moving were from Lynchburg, it was really awkward to admit that. Because even still, there are sure a lot of people there that we love.

Honestly, we had never planned to stay. I guess I would say it’s the culture of the Burg that isn't for us. Lynchburg is a very comfortable place to live. Sometimes it felt like we were literally in a bubble. It’s safe. It’s clean. You could live there your whole life and never see a prostitute or a homeless person. (Not that they’re completely absent, just rare to see.) People are friendly. Complete strangers have helped me on more occasions than I can remember, even on two separate occasions simply to help me push my cart to the van with my kids. There is a church every half mile. The crime rates are low. Even the people who aren’t religious are still moral. I could go on.

I don't mean to say that there's something wrong with all these things. They're ideal in a perfect world. It's just that we don't live in a perfect world. And they were great for my comfort level, but they can be dangerous in many more significant ways. It’s easy to breed legalism in such environments, and it was certainly there. (Though I don’t mean in everyone.) It’s also much too easy to forget what’s going on outside of Lynchburg. Or at the least, too easy to neglect involving ourselves in it. And it's easy to forget that we shouldn’t compartmentalize our ministry from the rest of our lives, if that makes sense. Life is ministry, and I just struggled to remember that in the Burg.

I’m not looking to live a life of ease, and I found it too easy to get sucked into the next Bible study or MOPS meeting or playdate and stay right inside my comfort zone at all times. I needed to challenge myself to grow. I needed a reminder that the world is a messy, oftentimes violent, and needy place. And I want my family to be right in the heart of the mess, not safely watching it from the outside. I want us to get our hands dirty and help. And I don’t want our lives to be segregated into Christian and secular compartments, because that’s not how Jesus lived out his life here. He was the friend of the “worst” sinners, and He was always looking for those with the greatest needs.

I really felt as if there were more than enough people to handle the needs of the Lynchburg population living there already. (Not that they’re always willing- just ask your nursery director!) Sometimes the great commission involves staying where you are for the long haul. I get that. It’s necessary. But sometimes it involves going, and God put that burden on our hearts. We sing songs about taking our candle and lighting our world, but Lynchburg is a pretty bright place already. We felt compelled to take our candles somewhere that might need a little more light.

This is not to say that all of this is impossible in Lynchburg, but it was a struggle for both of us. Surrounded by this comfort, including most of our family and friends, we found it difficult. And that, in a nutshell, is why I think God put it on our hearts to go.

We still love the people of Lynchburg. I am overwhelmed when I think about everyone there who encouraged me, supported me, loved me, invested in me, listened to me, and was everything that the body of Christ should be to this fellow believer. (And not just me, but my entire family as well.) We were challenged by you to grow and to think and to pursue a deeper walk with the God of the universe. You helped give us the courage we needed to step out on faith. 

We’ve been down here about seven weeks now, and the loneliness of being away from so many we love is at times overwhelming. But we knew it would be that way. It’s just not possible to not feel the loss of so many who are dear to our hearts. You are in fact what kept us in Lynchburg when we had planned on moving much sooner. We still love you, and we are so grateful to each of you who played a role in our lives. Truly, we are.

But here we are in Tallahassee, twelve hours away from the Burg. (I don’t know how many miles that is because I only count down road trips by the amount of time left in the car with whining children.) So how did we end up here, specifically?

After our New Hampshire prayers were answered in the negative, we set our sights on Florida. Tampa, specifically, though Isaiah also applied in other areas. This time our fleece was simply a job offer. We were sure it was going to work out. All of the pieces seemed to fall right into place. Isaiah had a successful phone interview with the University of Tampa and was asked to come down in person. That interview was also fantastic, and they practically hired him on the spot. Practically, but not literally.

When the Tampa job officially became a no-go, I just didn’t even know what to think. Even though I know that God uses anything our life throws at us for his good, I still wondered if I wasn’t hearing His voice like I thought I did. Like maybe we weren’t as close as I thought we were. 

And then the next day happened.

In the morning, Isaiah emailed his résumé to multiple Sherwin Williams district offices across the southeast. (He had only sent one to the Tampa district thus far.) Within a couple hours, he had a phone interview with the Tallahassee district manager. Shortly after that, he had another phone interview with the manager of the store. By the end of the day, he had a job offer. It “just so happened” that the district had just purchased a Color Wheel paint store and needed to staff it quickly when their previous management all walked out. The district manager saw Isaiah’s email just as she sat down to review résumés for the position. 

It was enough for us. We had prayed that God would only open a door that we should walk through, and He opened the door. It was a different door than we had planned to walk through, but really that’s what makes it so great. God gets the credit for this provision, not us. All those hours Isaiah spent applying for jobs in Tampa, and my hours of research for housing and schooling and churches meant nothing. (Tallahassee is four hours north of Tampa.) And yet, we never would have gotten all of our things packed and still gotten to say our goodbyes if God hadn’t led us to believe we would already be moving. More than half of our things were already in boxes when we got the word. Everything fell into place just at the right time. God led, we prayed for a very long time, and God opened the door. 

Looking for gators

Checking out the gulf coast on Daddy's day off

There wasn’t anything significant about the city of Tallahassee for us, though we do love the area. It’s been an adventure, and the whole family has enjoyed the new sights and experiences. There has been opportunity for a great deal of uninterrupted family time since the move. I don’t think we even realized just how much we needed that. We’ve been able to focus on getting to know each other, since we don’t really know too many other people at the moment. And we’ve been able to refocus our priorities, since our schedules were virtually wiped clean. It’s been a tremendous and unexpected part of our move, and I can’t wait to see what else God has in store for us next.

For now, we’re just taking things one step at a time. Making connections (slowly), trying to get plugged into a local church body, and just trusting that God will continue to lead us as we abide in Him.

And in the words of that old sage Alvin the Chipmunk, “Whatever will be, will be.”