A New Life

I forgot I even had a blog until I came to blogger to search for blogs about women married to hunters.

I read the post just before this one, and it is absolutely shocking to me how much my life has changed since then. For one, I am now married! And I do run my own house, although I still never wake up in time to fix anyone breakfast, much less myself. (This is partly due to the limited counter space I have in the kitchen, and how we don't have a dishwasher yet, so I usually wake up to dity dishes and I can't cook in a messy kitchen!)

We live just outside the city limits of a town near Nashville. I came here for graduate school, and I'm in my second year of that. But I also met my husband. I have a mother-in-law, two fathers-in-law, a sister- and brother-in-law, and a niece on the way. I even have a whole new group of girlfriends in my graduate program, as well as a community of church friends. Lots of things!

I came to blog today about how my lovely sweet husband, to whom I have been wed just over 4 months, is also a dedicated hunter and how hard it is for me. He has spent the last month talking about deer, gathering his gear, shooting arrows at a target, buying woodsy things, and unable to focus on anything but TV and food.

I guess I grew up in the city and I have no context for this hunting thing. You see, it's not just a cute little hobby. It takes him away from me for more than 4 months out of the year during the busiest season at his job. That's a double whammy to my quality time-loving heart.

Anyway, besides his hunting distraction and a strongly independent personality that matches mine to a degree, we are happy. We butt heads a lot, but he has a magnificently precious heart that is really beyond compare. I love him for that genuine and passionate heart.

Well, I'm off to write about dental implants for money, and search for other hunter's wives for free.

A heavy heart

It's easy to thrust one's ideas into social media highways when one is closeted safe and sound in the bosom of one's family.

Try tossing your deepest passions onto white screens without a support system or people to remind you of how valuable you are. Try flying in the face of a giant who refuses to fall when even your own family mocks you. That--is courage.

Tonight I am not splattering my life's blood onto the world information database; I am simply feeling the first throes of separation from my childhood and the ones who I am closest to, the first bite of loss I shall experience when I choose leaving in favor of the warmth of their presence in my life.

But I feel what it must feel to face the world alone. I've never been alone, you know. I've never knocked on the doors of the powerful without an interwoven system of support practically standing behind me and holding me so I didn't fall from trembling.

I'm about to set out on my life's journey...alone. Not utterly alone, of course, for I have my friends and I have Jesus Who always walks by my side. But it is into a strange new land I go, and I go where my parents and sisters can't follow.

And after I go on the first round of this journey, I can't come home again. I'm off to face the world on my own terms--without a full time job, without access to a lot of money to cushion a potentially hazardous transition, heck, I don't even know where I'll be living! Or with whom! I have no husband to sweeten the sorrow of losing my family, no man to soften the blow of facing the world without a lot of clout. I'll have courage to speak for me, and a track record of facing hard things and getting things done, perhaps of changing the world a little bit, even;

but I'm scared, world. I'm scared to wake up without my mom there to make me scrambled eggs and naan toast with tahini and date syrup. I'm scared to drive a used car without my dad there to fix all the strange things that fall apart. I'm scared to live without three other people there to make sure I clean the kitchen, or to cook and clean for. I don't want to live alone, and I shan't, but it just won't ever be the same. I'll be a legit adult, even if I marry, and I'll be the one who gets up in time to make scrambled eggs and naan toast.

Right now I feel a hole in my heart. I feel emptiness and loss. And these feelings are legitimate, although perhaps a bit ridiculous for a 25-year-old. It's true that I have left before, but I've always come back. I've lived in a foreign country; I've smuggled medical supplies into a communist nation; I've flown to Israel with a girl I'd never before met; I've worked as a lifegaurd, a nanny, a house cleaner, and an editor. I've been a dedicated member of 4 different churches; I've lead a small group, ridden my bike to work, and jumped off a 25-foot cliff into a bottomless cinote in the Yucatan Peninsula. I've done things.

And I'll do things yet. Lots of things. I hope against hope that wifing and mothering are some of them. Ha, and as I think about, those two are some of the MOST courageous positions a woman can undertake. It's like, if I don't get free of living thus with my family, I won't be able to face life on the terms of a woman head of household. I feel like I need to learn that lesson before I can fully embrace that part of life, fearlessly and full of trust in my Father.

I'll be ok. I know--in a few months, this will seem silly and I will be just fine. But today, I need to feel this, and I needed to get it out there.

Moments

There comes a moment in every life, perhaps unless one's life ends too soon, when one realizes one cannot go on the way one has gone on thus far.

This is not a superficial adjustment to circumstances. This is not a changed mindset resulting from a harrowing experience. This is more of a gut-level inner-reworking of one's lifestyle, mannerisms, personality even. And it's gradual, not sudden.

I'm not discounting those former situations as life-changing by any means; I only mean that my latter assertion is different than other types of life change.

Obviously I am writing this because I am currently experiencing a gradual inner-reworking. In my 25 years, I have most certainly undergone adjustment to circumstance and a changed mindset from harrowing experience. Today, I am honoring the change occurring inside of me as a new kind of change.

My dad put it thus today: "You lived your life a certain way up until now, and now you are making changes for the rest of your life." Changes that will prevent physical injury...

Maybe it's part of the "whole body" experience that the YMCA purportedly encourages: spirit, soul, body. (or maybe they say "spirit, mind, body"...?) At any rate, I am on the body right now.

I have to change the way I hold myself every second of the day. Change the way I sit, stand, bend, twist, turn, get in and out of bed, brush my teeth...pain teaches me where to move. I have to start strength training for the muscles I have never used as an average sedentary American. I have to pay attention to my posture; be aware of how I am standing; thoughtlessness will not be supported by my muscles anymore.

I am only 25, and it feels unfair. But what if my body is warning me against the future? Preparing me, if you will? Shielding itself against pregnancy, menopause, raising children, car wrecks, hiking accidents, a desk job...My muscles won't make it if they are atrophied or in crisis from the last 25 years of bad posture and lifting techniques.

This leads me into the vast amount of preparation that must take place in my life in the next 4 months before I move on to the next chapter. My mind, my soul, is undergoing a lot of steeling itself against major change. I wonder...I wonder if the unwinding of my spine coincides with the winding up of my soul.

All I know is that being aware of my body has never pressed itself so firmly into my consciousness. And my moment today is one in which I cannot go on with bad posture or carefree invincibility. I must plan my way...and trust Heaven to guide my steps.

Nashville Flood is worse than it looks

A. W. Tozer has helped me see that Nashville was already a “national disaster” before the floods hit us last weekend. There was already an emergency situation, and one worse than the flood! I think I have sensed this fact my whole life—growing up next door to a drug dealer can tend to put it in perspective—but I finally want to do something about it. More than just praying…which I don’t really do anyway.

Just like when I went to the Gulf after Hurricane Katrina to help rip out flooded interiors and distribute food: beneath the labor, which put my sympathy and subsequent agitation to redeeming use, I was interceding for souls and seeing the hardness in their eyes soften as we helped with no strings attached.

Except now, it’s my own town. I am living daily and working, even going to coffee with friends, just as if nothing has changed. But I think that deep down, I knew that spiritually, it was already worse than this. And remains thus.


I have felt broken over the city since I saw the real state of affairs in the newspaper. Last night I drove home by way of James Robertson Parkway, which passes at the head of Rosa Parks Blvd. I looked down the road where normally I could turn left to visit the Farmer’s Market, and saw only water. Water for miles. Lights blinked on and off to alert passersby of its existence. A strange, sewer-like reek rose from the street’s pond like a heavy mist, choking out all life around it. That’s the closest I’ve gotten to a real flood in my whole life…

This means that 1st and 2nd Ave., the Farmer’s Market, Opry Mills Mall, The Opryland Hotel, The Grand Ole Opry, my Shelby biking trails, entire neighborhoods…are destroyed. Millions of dollars worth of merchandise has been obliterated. The movie theaters are ruined. The fish at the aquarium restraint are killed (except for the two missing piranhas…). I wonder if the General Jackson floated glibly away?

At least there has been little death. As of yesterday morning, the death toll was at 17 and the missing toll at 1. I saw a picture of two teenagers in a roaring, brown rapid; when I read the caption, I realized they were clinging for dear life to the top of their Jeep! The waters swelled around them as waves breaking on a rock. That means the waters, at Station Camp in Gallatin, in the middle of the road, were at least 10 feet deep. The two were smart and released a backpack to determine the flow of the current, and rather than drown, followed their backpack to safety on the shore. If flood waters rushing down residential streets have shores. The girl in the interview kept asking, “Why did we survive when others didn’t?”


Tozer says, “Men are caught in a disaster worse than earthquake or flood, and the redeemed of the Lord are to work for their rescue.” (That Incredible Christian, p. 106) Exactly! As I go, perhaps to help drag away debris on Saturday, I can know that what I am doing physically is what I do spiritually every day—or at least, could be doing and wouldn’t-it-be-nice-if-I-was doing.

I actually burn to help in some physical manner, yet am afraid lest I get in over my head or something. Mingling of burning passion and fear here. Sigh. I need someone to go out there with me! I don’t want to go alone. I will…but I don’t want to. I can't just live my normal life and sit by doing nothing! I just can't! It's not right. I need to be doing something. Lord, guide me to where You would have me be on Saturday! Open my eyes to see where is best. And bring me someone to push me, please, I need that. Amen.

What Faith looks like without the Law

The Centurion and the mother pleading for her daughter were the only two people Jesus said had the greatest faith he had seen in all Israel.
What did they have in common?

They were both Gentiles—meaning they had not grown up under the law.

Paul’s mission to the Gentiles makes a whole lot more sense.
It makes missions make a whole lot of sense too. When we encounter people who have never heard of the law out there, they jump far more quickly into faith than those who grew up in America in church, yet don’t know Jesus as Savior—because they grew up under the law.

Jesus came to fulfill the law for us so that we don’t have to, and we, being Christians, have put the law back in its place! We rebuilt the temple—but not the temple Jesus meant for us to have (Him); we rebuilt the stone temple with the holy of holies and the curtain separating us from God, demanding acts of righteousness to atone for our sin. We reinstituted the law, when Jesus came to remove it from us for all eternity.

We have thrown His blood back in His face.

I was thinking about it yesterday, how Mary Magdalene (or whoever the woman was Jesus saved from being stoned as an adulterer) was able to go and sin no more after Jesus forgave her. I mean, she was at the Cross when He died and at His tomb 3 days later. She knew the meaning of grace. She did not walk in condemnation. I think that’s why that, aside from the obvious impactfulness of the beatings and cross and blood and holes-in-His-hands-resurrection, the scene where Mary looks up at Jesus after He rescues her is my favorite scene in “The Passion.” If Mary could walk around Jerusalem following Jesus and feeling accepted by Him and free from her sin even before the cross, can I, one born after the Cross, not walk in her same freedom to an ever greater degree?

I can just imagine her after Jesus went back to Heaven working with the suddenly bold and fiery disciple-apostles. She was surely part of the glory days of the early church, you know? She was probably just as on fire as the other guys. I wonder if one of them married her? Or if she just hung out with Mary mother of Jesus the rest of her life? Man, I want to be like her…so confident in her righteousness and full of love that she can be a part of the intensely loving community of Believers at the very start of it all, probably even discipling women like herself, telling them the Good News and freeing them from prostitution. All because she knew she was forgiven, and that because she believed, she would never have to walk in shame or go back to her old life.

I want to be like that…I want to be as one who never knew the law, allowing my faith to rise and be known as one of the greatest faiths in all Israel.

Eden.

Night before last, I stumbled upon a clue, a piece, that I have been blindly yearning for, for possibly my whole life.

I wept.

My heart touched God's heart--Papa God--because I understood Him. I understood us. I understood our relationship. When you combine a thinking writer's revelation of humanity's position with the intimate relationship with God my church has been teaching us to foster, you have dynamite ready to blast the canvas of lies that humans believe into oblivion!

It's something I was waiting to discover by soaking; by listening to teachings; by Call hopping; by attending YWAM; by traveling. And it's something I know God has always been communicating to me; what the whole Bible is showing and telling us--

I see Him in my mind walking down the paths, calling to the couple, meeting their eyes for the first time, and Adam and Eve shaking in absolute terror, wondering what had happened, confused at the broken promise of a snake, feeling at once the trustworthiness of their first love and wondering if God would ever love them again, feeling the hot breath of His anger and emotion, hearing Him speak for the first time, not as a friend, but as One who had been betrayed. "Who told you you were naked?" (Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What)

Here I wept, and wept and wept, because I heard Him, too. I heard Him ask, "Who told you you aren't lovely? Who told you men would always betray you? Who told you you were on your own, that you would always have to take care of yourself?" And He went on and direct-bombed many more lies.

I didn't take the fruit and eat it, but I have definitely betrayed God before, wanted to be equal with Him. And now I saw God walking into my soul as One betrayed, and asking me about those lies in the kindest, most concerned manner--without condemnation or anger--that all I could do was weep because I knew; I knew who had lied to me.

Our position to God changed in that moment, and lies came in with the thirst for knowledge. For after all, it was the knowledge of good and evil. The fallout of this, the reason I have been in a surreal daze for two days? Again Miller articulates the birth of my thoughts:

...you and I need for God to be perfectly good, we need for Him to be the voice that did one day, and will in the future, speak pure glory into our lives. But for now, because of this act of war, relations have been strained. And we are feeling it in our souls.

I wept after this statement too--this time, more because I tasted God's heart for us, for the suffering we must endure until the end of time. We feel in our souls the rift, and it burdens us. We try to feed it, to medicate it, to escape it. But only God can aid us.

"Relations are strained." That's what grabbed my heart and shed more light on my heartache and longings: we are trying to get back to Him in all these little dumb ways (religion and formula), or we have given up altogether and joined the world's pursuit of pleasure until it ends, or we search for beauty in the mess and make a god out of it to avoid serving the real One, because we are hurt and mad at Him, like it's all His fault it turned out this way.

He made the sacrifice so that we could come back. He made a way. So few, so few find it. "Relations have been strained." Just like Jews today who live in an empty covenant, waiting for a Messiah who already came, so many humans don’t know that Jesus came to give us Eden back. We are living like He didn’t come, just like the Jews…we keep searching for Eden, mechanically, not knowing why we are urged to discover and create and long for beauty, just as the Jews await a Messiah on every horizon; both are disappointed—when it cannot be recreated (when it is just a fleeting moment), or when He does not come.

And about how God felt being betrayed...I felt His sorrow as I read the words:

All this makes me wonder what God must have felt, arriving on the scene just after the Fall, knowing all He had made was ruined, and understanding at once the sacrifice that would be required to win the hearts of His children from the grasp of their seducer.

How His heart must have raged in grief within Him over the debauchery of Sodom and Gomorrah, over the Amalekites, over the Egyptians--even over the Israelites. How they medicated and found other gods easier to worship, all to find their own way to cope until it was over. Raged over the Greeks, the Romans, the Native Americans, Africans, over the Goths and Mongols and Muslims. And Hindus and and Buddhists and Druids and Celts.

And now, over Americans and Europeans and Japanese, content with our things. How little we all think Him and of Him.

And here He is, big and ancient, weeping over us on the one hand, extending the other hand out in reconciliation through Jesus. Yeshua.

I got it that night, that piece of the puzzle that explains my plight--that when Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation, to deception, decided they wanted equality with God even though God did not make them capable of it, I lost something I was created to have and to be.

I was made to walk in a perfect land, full of the delights of my Maker's creation, in perfect, whole oneness with Him. It's not simply that I was made for a Creator to tell me who I am, which I certainly was. But it's more. I was made to walk with Him in Eden, and I got outside of Eden--I got earth.

We are all sick with the bite of the knowledge of good and evil.

The whole infinite universe changed course when humans wanted equality with their authority. Can't you see it? Can't you see it in the infinity of the stars surrounding Earth? It was all made for eternity in Eden. We were never meant for clothes and wooden houses and rectangle beds and processed food. We were never meant for small, green rectangles of paper, or metal boxes on wheels, or concrete or blacktops or machines. We were not meant for guns, germs, or steel. Not institutes or organizations or buildings or offices. It is the thirst for knowledge Adam got us that has brought us this far.

Oh, man can do great things for himself. But the hubris of thinking it's all so great and grand when--he was never made to do it at all! We are so tiny, so minuscule in the greatness of the universe. We want to know it all--I want to know, am driven to find out--but it's the knowledge bug Adam and Eve incepted for us.

They traded Heaven and a complete oneness for knowledge. That's why we usually "don't know what we got till it's gone." We are plagued by the first shadow.

I've been crying out for Eden since I was born. I never knew it until this moment.

That's all. That's the bottom line.

All of it--the search for identity, the overwhelming longing for a mate, the need for beauty and romance and acceptance and a place to fit--all originates there. It's my design. The thirst for adventure, for the woods, for the epic story--I've been running back to Eden in everything!

But...now that Eden is gone, and I know what I have lost, I understand that I was also always running to my Creator. He has worked with us, with our decision, and created a whole new story. It's still wonderful. It's big, and He's the center. We are still the crown of creation. Everything I've learned about Him is still true.

But the bottom line? We weren't made for this.

More on this dream, and why my heart is captivated

I am indebted to Donald Miller--well, really John Sailhamer, but Donald wrote it down--for the following interpretation to my dream, from his book Searching for God Knows What in the chapter "Naked":

That dream was a garden of Eden dream--"flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone," and "nakedness without shame." Eve felt safe and secure. Like I want to feel. Like every human person wants to feel. Like we were, as Eve, created to feel.

And you know what that dream showed me? How much I don't want an earthly man, or at least one who hasn't known depth and ancient timelessness. That man in my dream implicitly and easily knew and understood me. He knew I'd been hurt by earthly men, and he knew how to be the antithesis of their destruction.

But isn't that the female's ideal? Superman? Gilbert Blythe and Darcy and Thornton? ...Jesus?

It's funny, but I can't think of any very heroically romantic Bible men except the lover in Song of Songs, and he doesn't even have a name. I suppose that says something, doesn't it? All of God's heroes were broken and messed up...were unfaithful to Him (ok, not all of them, but quite a few!) and to their families. Most Bible men had plural wives and concubines and seemed to care little of the ways of a woman's heart.

But perhaps this is because of the focus on action and the sin nature all of God's unlikely heroes suffered from....I can never forget the oracle's word in Proverbs 30: "...the way of a man with a maid."

There were honorable men whose marriages we never see, perhaps because they were in fact successful (lack of drama!): Adam, Moses, Samuel, Jesse, Peter, John...perhaps all of these wives felt safe and loved and known and listened to. I'd like to know all of their names and stories.

Back to my dream. I want to marry the man in that dream! He would never leave me...he knew me without having to explain. He protected, covered, and even made my dreams come true. We had the bond of humanity's dream--complete oneness. I don't think I'll find that perfection here.

Which is precisely the point. I'll find it above the earth. I'll find it in Heaven. My heart fairly bursts that the One in my dream is real! Oh! I can hardly breathe!

Last night I chatted with one of the Mexian mamas I met when living in Guadalajara, and she spoke (or typed) a mother's blessings over me in Spanish. She said I am always in her prayers. I wept. The seeds I have scattered abroad do bear fruit--there is Papa's love where I have been, in Albania, Mexico, and Israel. That's where my heart yearns and burns sometimes--out there. Where the adventure lies. Where my Lover meets me in special and lonely yet exhilerating ways.

In conclusion, I am falling for my perfect Lover for forreally really, and kind of the first time in my life.

It hurts, too! My heart aches with lovesickness. My pride and judgement melt. Fear...is deeper seated, but trembles in this place. It has to go. Because my Lover's love hates fear.

Maybe when I can truly receive it is when I can see that fear of man and rejection and discomfort crumble.

Maybe I can love other people better?

I look forward to this transformation of love.