Skip the Light Fantastic

Skip the light fantastic.

That’s what Tennessee Williams wrote to describe the actions of the family’s vagrant father in the play “The Glass Menagerie.”

I don’t know why it has stuck with me. I like the odd arrangement of noun and adjective, reversing it so it has the romantic Spanish ring so familiar to every Spanish clause. Not “fantastic light,” like we would do in English; however, in Spanish, the fantastic would still be describing light. This new 1920s-bopper phrase makes fantastic a noun, and light its adjective!

Sometimes I want to skip the light fantastic, too.

I want to jet out of here on the jet I bought and learned how to fly on. I want to fly up to the stars at night when I have nothing else to do. I want to fly across the ocean and be the next female Charles Lindberg to land in Yei, Sudan instead of Berlin, Germany. I want to deliver food to starving enclaves and villages inhabited by missionaries able to fairly dole out the resources. I want to supply all the malnourished regions of the world with food. I want to re-network the food supply system so that all the food produced each year—statistically proven to be enough to feed every person on earth—reaches every city, town, village, and belly. I want to free all the child soldiers. I want to educate all the ignorant contractors of HIV. I want to raise all the AIDS orphans. I want to free and un-brainwash all sex slaves. I want to see everyone who crosses my path given the opportunity to understand emotional healing and experience God’s rest and see who they were always meant to be.

I want to go to Narnia and take all the ignorant, shallow-minded people I know with me so they can meet Aslan.

I want to dress up like a man and fight alongside Eowyn, slicing off the head of the ringwraith next to the “foul dwimmerlake.”

I want to return to Cuba and see the church explode all over that island.

I want to see disgusting strongholds of witchcraft and tribal mentalities blown to smithereens by the power of God and His angels.

I want to dance every moment for the rest of my life, and I want to see that dance bring freedom to every life who witnesses the powerful movements.

I want to be healed in the deepest, innermost parts of my being.

I want to be free of all baggage.

I want to raise whole, secure children who know who they are.

I want to be clean so that I walk in utter humility in every relationship and human interaction.

I want to understand my personality so that I know where my best fit is.

I want to prophesy over every life that I touch.

I want to preach and teach and live and breathe ministry to young people.

I want to visit all the friends I have ever made all over the world for at least a month each.

I want to marry a good and humble and self-aware man who takes his place with me so that I do not feel the need to take control.

I want to have an epic wedding that draws people into the mystery and goodness of God like nothing they have before experienced.

I want to raise boys in the forest in a log cabin next to a creek without a TV or videogames and close to the mountains so they can go hiking and canoeing and kayaking and rock climbing and camping forever.

I want everyone in my life to live in utter freedom.

I want to live on a self-sustaining organic farm.

I want to lead people down the ancient paths.

Starting Again

Even though I still live in the same house, with the same people, with the same car and job and church that I have for the last few years, I feel like I am starting over. Nothing has changed except that my father has returned home from a close shave with death after emergency gall bladder surgery, and I finished a new members class at church and I feel settled-in and welcome there. That's all.

And my 24th birthday is on Wednesday.

Maybe that has something to do with it?

I feel the lack of activism in my life thus far. I feel like I have dabbled in lots of areas, giving my self to many causes but my never my full self to one cause... except to that of finding Jesus. That cause is all I have cared about since I was 17. It's the only cause I saw as fruitful and worthy. I have stumbled and fumbled my way around this walk--much differently than I expected myself to walk--but He is truly the one I have been, often selfishly and sometimes grudgingly, giving myself to.

The only problem is with hearing His voice! The Word writes that Jesus said, "My sheep know my voice." Yes, I've known His voice. I certainly have known His voice or I would NOT be where I am today. But this self-will I have. It...it overpowers my will to obey His voice, or even look for the voice when I want to do what I want to do. So often I find myself afraid that He will tell me to do the opposite of what I want to do. I still fear this, even whilst I learn that He is good.

I'm pretty sure He is proud of me in the midst of my struggle. In the midst of my often overwhelming, wearying, heavy desire for marriage to a man that is utterly and obviously my life partner. In the midst of selfishness and pride. In the midst of wishing I didn't want the things I do! My desires are precious to Him. I am learning that.

Once, in high school youth group, I shared a prayer request. I phrased it thus: "This may be frivolous, but I want a pretty dress for prom." My best friend's now husband Michael immediately sat up straight, leveled me with a stern gaze, and retorted: "That's not frivolous at all," and proceeded to beseech God for the perfect prom dress for me. Outwardly I was grateful, but inwardly I was stunned. Not frivolous? You mean... God thinks my desire for a pretty dress is worth paying attention to?

That reality made its way into my theology, my world view, and I now see that even the small yearnings of my heart, He pays attention to. Although to be honest, this is not where my heart is. My heart does not engage this aspect of the Father at all, really. I have been on a journey something like my whole life to "get" this. The false belief that God thought my tiny desires were frivolous fueled a hungry heart to rebel against parents and wisdom in high school, believing that if I wanted something, I would have to go out and get it myself.

Can you comprehend how ugly and treacherous is such a lie? It leaves you utterly alone in the world. It leaves you as an orphan, wholly reliant on yourself for every need and wish.

Can someone still living with good parents, raised in church and in a community constantly supporting one another, come out believing deep down that he is an orphan?

Yes.

Can that same person unlearn years of negative experience and wrong thinking, until they believe they are a Son loved by not only good earthly parents and pastors and community, but a good and loving Father? Can that person step over the lies and experiences to believing that they are worth providing for and fighting for and getting to know? To believe they do have a solid covering over them?

I am.

The Kilstras said that I am a son even though I'm a girl... from Romans 8. I am indeed learning about my sonship in a weak and lying world.

I am starting over in the world of young adulthood, even though everything still looks the same.

And by the way--my mother and I made my prom dress that year. I haven't sewed since. It was rather a magical, twilight gown. I think Papa helped us make because we messed up a lot and it came out perfectly. ;)

Almost 24

I'm almost 24, and I sleep in a castle bunk-bed my parents built when I was in high school.

I'm almost 24, and I make dinner on Tuesday nights for a voracious family of 5.

I'm almost 24, and I'm a proofreader for a curriculum company.

I'm almost 24, and I'm starting a blog as an expression of myself as a budding writer.

I'm almost 24, and I've visited 7 countries.

I'm almost 24, and I am bilingual.

I'm almost 24, and I dance during worship at church on Monday nights.

I'm almost 24, and I am a songwriter.

I am almost 24, and I am the best 23-year-old I can be!