Every so often, I get an itch to take the kids out to Fairview, NC, one of my favorite areas around Asheville. There are some wonderful farms out that way, and it makes for a fun day trip. We went last week to enjoy a couple of our favorite farms and go berry picking. We first stopped at Flying Cloud Farm to explore their fields of wildflowers and their self-serve road stand.
We love their little road stand. For all organic farm-fresh produce, the prices are excellent and the quality is great!
Those flowers truly took my breath away and so, of course, I had to bring some home with me. A little taste of summer’s glory! More farm pics to come soon. Happy Summer-ing!
So last weekend was the big 3-0 for me. Kind of crazy, kind of ordinary. It definitely feels like the end of a season, a long, tumultuous season of being in my twenties. But with that end also comes a fresh beginning. I am excited about being thirty, even though the usual things kind of freak me out too (ie: aging, wrinkles, aging). I’ve never felt more secure in who I am and settled in that, as opposed to the grasping and groping and uncertainty of my twenties. Of course, I am FAR from being done in that arena, but it’s the most free I’ve ever been in Christ and in understanding who He made me to be. And that is certainly cause for rejoicing!
We had a simple day of enjoying family (my mom and I share the same birthday), and my one request was an early morning breakfast date with my very favorites to an awesome breakfast spot in Biltmore Village, the Corner Kitchen. I had been salivating for their Hickory Nut Gap Chorizo + Eggs for a solid week. I like going out for dinner as much as any girl, but I think breakfast dates are still my very favorite. There’s just something magical about being starving and rested and getting hot, fresh coffee, eggs + bacon. It was perfect.
I didn’t get enough pictures from the day *at all* but here are a few:
This man and these two precious kiddos (plus #3 on the way) are the very best and sweetest treasures! I love our little family so much and am so very thankful for them.
The flickering silent dance of a hundred fireflies over the dusky field. It drew me from the porch out into the night. Away from the constant hum of fans and air conditioning inside our home. The drum of the dryer, the occasional babble of the baby who is still not asleep.
Just to be quiet here for a moment. Just to be. To listen, to participate by bringing full awareness to the night song that goes on every night, that is missed and droned out by loud flashy tv shows and chatter. Just to be fully awake to this moment.
To hear the playful trickling of water, my husband silently watering the garden behind me after weeding it for the past hour, stealing the very last of daylight.
The far-off cry of the whippoorwill that sings to us every summer.
The cadence of the frogs in the new pond dug into the valley below our house.
And the dance of the fireflies, like sparks flying upward from the earth.
Nothing else can fill this place in my soul. No amount of human interaction, social media, mindless entertainment–all the things I turn to in loneliness. Only this: me alone before God. Waking up to Him here, in this place, the always-with-me Presence. Simply savoring and enjoying Him.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
“The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”
{John Keith, 1787}
“The daily practice of incarnation–of being in the body with full confidence that God speaks the language of the flesh–is to discover a pedagogy that is as old as the gospels. Why else did Jesus spend his last night on earth teaching His disciples to wash feet and share supper? With all the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, he did not give them something to think about together when he was gone. Instead, he gave them concrete things to do–specific ways of being together in their bodies–that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself.
After he was gone, they would still have God’s Word, but that Word was going to need some new flesh. The disciples were going to need something warm and near that they could bump into on a regular basis, something so real that they would not be able to intellectualize it and so essentially untidy that there was no way they could ever gain control over it. So Jesus gave them things they could get their hands on, things that would require them to get close enough to touch one another. In the case of the meal, he gave them things they could smell and taste and swallow. In the case of the feet, he gave them things to wash that were attached to real human beings, so that they could not bend over them without being drawn into one another’s lives.
Wow. How did you get that scar? Does it hurt when I touch it? No, really, they’re not ugly. You should see mine. Yours just have a few more miles on them. Do you ever feel like you can’t go any further? Like you just want to stop right here and let this be it? I know, I can’t stop either. It’s weird, isn’t it? You follow him and you follow him, thinking that any minute now the sky is going to crack open, and you’re going to see the face of God. Then he hands you his basin and his towel, and it turns out that it’s all about feet, you know? Yours, mine, his. Feet, for God’s sake.
I am making this up, of course. Read the Bible commentaries and they will tell you that the foot washing in John’s gospel is an eschatological sign of Jesus’ descent into flesh before his exaltation to God’s right hand, or a symbolic representation of first-century baptismal theology. But I will tell you this. After years of watching bodies being dug out of craters in Manhattan and caves in Afghanistan, after the body counts coming from Southeast Asia, Gaza, and Iraq, most of us could use a reminder that God does not come to us beyond the flesh but in the flesh, at the hands of a teacher who will not be spiritualized but who goes on trusting the embodied sacraments of bread, wine, water, and feet.
‘Do this,’ he said–not believe this, but do this–‘in remembrance of me.'”
It was some time ago that I heard an interview with Ann Voskamp in which she talked about how she usually reads a few books at a time, and lets the books “have a conversation with each other.”
I know exactly what she means. How God, sovereign over the most minute details of our lives, can weave together concepts in the books we’re reading, sermons we’re listening to, conversations we are having, our daily experiences, and so forth. I know many of you also know what I’m talking about here. When it happens, our hearts skip a beat. These sorts of things cannot be coincidences.
Lately I’ve been struggling with a particular battle with sin. I’ve been crying out for the Lord’s grace, His strength and help. I’ve been trying so hard to change, yet knowing if He does not change me, it is impossible.
Ever been there? Ever been so fed up with something, with yourself, and seeing no progress, despite doing what you only know best to do: crying out to the Lord, finding and clinging to promises in His word, accountability, prayer, trusting?
Yep. That’s where I’ve been for quite some time.
What’s become hardest about it has been “doing all the right things” within my power to do, yet not seeing victory. Knowing and believing with all my heart that God wants my victory too, that God hates my sin too, that God is able to do what is impossible for frail flesh, and yet not experiencing that “sufficient grace” in my weakness that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 12:9.
This is what has been most painful. Where are You, God, in this? Why does it feel like You not helping me? Am I not Yours?
Those questions were largely met with silence for some time. And I agonized. Sleepless, restless nights were had. Hot, ugly cries to my husband were had. More prayer, more scripture. More silence.
THEN.
These words from Jerry Bridges in his incredible book, Transforming Grace:
“Often God’s word is not made effective immediately. In fact, there are many times when I struggle over an issue for a period of days, mulling over several pertinent passages of Scripture and crying out for grace, before the Holy Spirit finally makes them effective and gives His grace, helping in time of need. The Spirit of God is sovereign in His working, and we cannot squeeze Him into the mold of our spiritual formulas–for example, pray for grace, quote some verses, and receive a guaranteed answer.
God not only has His own ways of working, but also His own timetable. Sometime He grants grace to help almost immediately as He did in my most recent experience [shared in the book] with 1 Peter 5:7. At other times, He allows us to struggle for days, perhaps even weeks or months, before we receive the grace to help. But regardless of the delays He may impose on us, we must continue to come to the throne of grace believing His promise to grant grace to help, and we must continue to resort to appropriate Scripture until He makes it effective in our hearts. It is our responsibility to take up the sword of the Spirit; it is His prerogative to make it effective.”
Those words were balm to my soul. It felt like the first hint of an answer in a very very long, silent, lonely struggle.
Encouragement. Comfort. Companionship of others who have gone before.
But still this niggling question: why would God do this? Yes, to teach me to wait on Him. To persevere in the asking. To test my trust when my feelings and experience don’t match up with His Word. But it didn’t seem to get to the root of it. I know He is good and “in Him is no darkness whatsoever” but still, why leave me hanging in sin for so long? When He could immediately deliver?
{Sidenote: Keep in mind that I am currently studying Exodus and the wilderness wanderings of God’s people after His deliverance from Egypt in my time in the Word.}
I have finished Bridges book and now am reading “Extravagant Grace” by Barbara Duguid. {Whoever you are: you. MUST. read.} The concept of her book, which is basically a summary of the teachings of John Newton, is that God has great purpose in allowing us to continue to battle and struggle sin and our sin-nature as Christians. He is able to set us free from sin totally and perfect us completely at the point of salvation, and yet He doesn’t. Her book is a study of how God is more glorified in our continual battle with sin than He would be were He to perfect us on earth. Mind-blowing and ground-shaking.
Anyway, (I hope you are still following me here! Bear with me!) tonight I read these words from Duguid’s book:
“When a Christian struggles with a besetting sin in the form of an addiction…God may change their will long before He actually gives them the spiritual fruit of self-control in that area, and Newton tells us that God has as a profound purpose in this. When God changes the will and gives someone a great desire for obedience but not the strength to withstand temptation, He is putting His child in a painful and difficult position. Yet He does this in love and not with judgment or punishment in mind. He is humbling this child in a powerful way and crushing the child’s self-reliance. This can feel like a curse, when it is actually a great gift.”
My heart nearly stopped. Yes. That’s it.
Self-reliance.
And immediately the Spirit reminded me of a passage back in Bridges book about the wilderness and self-reliance. Since I’m an outdoor enthusiast and studied Outdoor Education in college, it leapt off the page to me when I read it previously:
“The wilderness makes or breaks a man; it provides strength of will and character. The strength provided by the wilderness, however, was not the strength of self-sufficiency, but the strength that comes from a knowledge of the living God.”
See, I know a lot of outdoor enthusiasts. People who live to test themselves against the elements of the wild, to prove their self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, more often than not, the wilderness wins even over those most experienced and prepared.
When God drives us into the wilderness where we are tempted and accosted by our sin nature, we are never more aware of our desperate need for Him, for the Gospel, for the grace found in Jesus. Similarly when you are in a physical wilderness, you are quickly reminded of how small you are when one simple thing goes wrong. When God drove the Israelites into the wilderness after their (read: His) tremendous victory in Egypt, He knew there was a faster/easier route to the Promised Land. But He also knew their hearts were not ready. They needed to know just how dependent they actually were on Him. For everything. And so He led them into the wilderness.
As an act of mercy, He led them to a place where the failure, rebellion, grumbling that had always lived in their hearts would be exposed. He knew their hearts, He would never be surprised by their behavior. But they needed to see their hearts. And they needed to see Him stay with them, abide with them, even at their very worst and least deserving.
This is the gift God gives us when we cannot seem to experience victory over sin.
And this grace-starved girl has never loved Him more than when He abides ever with me, even when I make my bed in hell. He is not surprised by my continual failure, like I am. He sees me in Christ: Perfect. Clean. Righteous. Redeemed.
Unfathomable grace.
If to heavens heights I fly, You are still beside me Or in death’s dark shadows lie, You will stay close by me If I flee on morning wings far across the gray sea: Even there Your hand will lead Your right hand will guide me.
(see Psa. 139:7-12)
This year, the year of 2014, I have been calling the “feast of grace” year. For a number of years now I spend New Years reflecting over the past year and looking prayerfully toward the year ahead, asking the Lord what He wants to be teaching me or working on in me. So clearly, so profoundly He spoke “Gospel” and “Grace” over the year 2014.
I haven’t written at all about this on the blog yet {yes, and it is now June!} because honestly what He has been speaking and doing in my heart is so immense and overwhelming {and so deeply personal!} I don’t even know where to begin.
I am a legalist by nature, a performance-addict. Even though I first experienced God’s grace for myself as a young child when I received Christ, it is still utter mystery to me. And in His glorious grace, I am still experiencing His grace afresh day by day all these years later.
What kind of God is this, who gives grace upon grace to the likes of us who cannot ever comprehend or fully appreciate the fullness of His grace to us in Jesus Christ?!
What kind of God is this who gives the fullness of His grace to a child who has no idea the riches she has in Christ Jesus, nor the immensity that it cost Him to grace her so richly?
God has me, a grace-spurning, Gospel-underfoot-trampling legalist, feasting on the riches of His grace found in the Gospel all year long. In the profound beauty and richness of His grace, He always aims to set us free. His kindness leads to repentance.
I just finished Jerry Bridges book “Transforming Grace,” what I would call the Christian’s Primer on grace. I cannot express adequately how helpful it has been to me, nor how often it has kept me up at night because my mind and heart could nearly burst from what God has as been teaching me through it. It is a grace feast that I will be rereading all throughout this year. Years of legalistic, merit-based thinking are not helped by a cursory reading. A thorough mind-washing in the Truth is what’s in order!
This sweet poem has become a treasure to me in the hard and ordinary trenches of parenting, which daily, {no, momentarily!} drives me to the throne of grace:
“He Giveth More Grace”
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater; He sendeth more grace when the labours increase; To added afflictions He addeth His mercy To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere the day is half done; When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
His love has no limits, His grace has no measure, His power has no boundary known unto men; For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.” – Annie Johnson Flint
Oh, to be this kind of parent to my own children! The only way possible is for me to believe and experience such radical grace, grace in the face of my continued daily battle with sin. Only those who have received such grace know how to give it.
“For from His fulness we have all received, grace upon grace.” {John 1:16}
one of the things i love the most about living in these blue North Carolina mountains are the spring/summer storms. even though i have been struck by lightning before once while on a backpacking trip (yes, for real) i still L O V E a good thunderstorm. and i love the way these late-May days start gorgeous and calm and sunny, and build to a fierce afternoon thunderstorm. one of those storms is descending on us right now, as i type. yesterday was the same, and we had significant rainfall and hail. here’s a picture of our garden & driveway as the storm was petering out yesterday:
and yet, a few minutes after the storm moved on, the glorious sun came out and the water soaked into the earth, and we ran out in rain boots to play in the puddles (and check our garden for any damage). the kids loved it and the light was great for pictures, so i snapped away.
this girl and her love for dresses lately.. she is so adorable in this one
Sometimes I really underestimate the power of a few days away. It seems like all the hassle that goes into packing up two kids and a pregnant momma for a mini-getaway just isn’t worth it, until you are sitting on the beach in the sun listening to the surf. A family friend had offered us his home in Charleston, SC for a long weekend, so we went with my parents and had such a fun weekend! We all got a bit too much sun and too little sleep and had a blast. We came home so refreshed and thankful!
^ That moment when you first hear and see the ocean after a long time away ^
^ Me and my love enjoying the beach (and I was roasting to a crisp, unbeknownst to me) ^
One of our favorite times to be on the beach is at sunrise or sunset, when the lighting is just gorgeous.
^ They’ve started holding hands a lot lately {it kills me!} ^
The next day, since we had all gotten a bit too much sun the day before, we decided to head into Charleston for the day instead of being out on the beach. We ended up happening upon some really fun, cool things like the bustling Charleston farmer’s market (and we regretted that we had already eaten breakfast) and a wonderful lunch spot with live music under white tents by the wharf. It was an absolutely gorgeous, perfect day to be out and we just lingered and enjoyed it.
See that sign that says “Beignets?” That was our next stop. 🙂
Dad waiting in line for the beignets. And they were incredible! We wandered on and found pony rides for kids for $3.00. Our little girl had her first ride on a pony and loved it so much.
^ Daddy & his girl ^
Then we headed down King Street all the way to Battery Park. Here’s my girl with my parents. It was so fun to do this trip with them and make these memories together. It was our first time doing a “beach trip” together and we had so much fun and just were so thankful for their help, too. They did lots of carrying kiddos on these walks. 🙂
Then we hit Battery Park and I snapped a billion pictures because it was gorgeous and so full of childhood memories for me.
Then we were headed out of Charleston back to the house when we passed this cute little restaurant with white tents and BBQ smoking and we just had to stop. I’m so glad we did! It was the best BBQ I’ve ever tasted.
Our last day, we enjoyed time on Sullivan’s Island and being back out on the beach. My parents also watched the kids while Brandon and I stole away on bikes and had a lovely little outing on trails around the house we were staying in.
We’re so thankful for any time we get to steal away as a family and I hope you have some time away with your family and loved ones this summer as well!
It was the way he looked at me that night, eyes shimmering wild across the gazebo from me, shimmering like the quiet lake backlit behind him with moon and stars. We had worked together all summer leading backpacking trips and other outdoor adventures. He had trained me and some other new staff, and our relationship had been strictly professional and platonic. We had never broached the subject of feelings. He had a heart deeply wounded from a broken engagement. I was convinced God was calling me to potentially life-long singleness. Neither of us had any desire or intention to fall in love. Privately, we each fought it all summer long. But the heart has it’s reasons that reason knows not of.
He had been away on a week-long trip and I had been busy with other programming. It was nearly the end of the summer. He came in that day from the trip and I saw him biking down the road from his 14-mi trek down Mt. Mitchell. His grin was a mile wide and he was filthy and handsome. I was taking some letters to the post office on campus and while I was gone, he must have run to my dorm room and taped a bunch of wild flowers to my door. He drew the big dipper constellation on my white message board on the door and asked if I we could talk. When I came back and saw it, my heart started pounding. Suddenly I was terrified and exhilerated at the same time. Something in me knew life was about to change forever. We had gear to clean up and put away, final debriefings and a staff meeting that night to attend to, and this quiet secret between the two of us, still unspoken and hanging in the air, that we would meet up and “talk” after the day’s work was done. He came to my room and asked if I wanted to walk to the lake with him. We walked in silence, all nerves and sweaty palms.
I can’t remember exactly how he started off, only that he said he believed it was time for him to have this conversation with me. And then he said these words that nearly knocked me off my seat, and certainly left me speechless:
“I want to see about marrying you.”
What kind of guy starts “the talk” like that? He said it and his eyes were alive and wild and smiling so big. Like he already knew something I didn’t know. I hadn’t anticipated this in the slightest so I just sat there and let him talk and talk about how he had come to this conclusion, until finally he said something like, “Well, so, what do you think? You’re kind of leaving me hanging here.”
I think I just said, “Okay.” And told him I had feelings for him as well.
It began such a fun and happy courtship. We had the chance in that kind of work environment to really become good friends and to see one another in all sorts of circumstances. We were invested in a Christian outdoor program, and so we spent time developing bible study material together and praying together as a staff over every trip and during trips. We saw each other filthy and stinky and sweaty. You get through a lot of the superficial quickly working in an environment like that.
Six months later he proposed. He had taken me hiking up the backside of Looking Glass Rock, one of my favorite hikes. At the top he pulled out bread and grape juice and led communion with me and proposed. It was so wonderful and so surreal! And then about five months later, we were married.
What a whirlwind romance it was, and with that came some hardships we couldn’t have foreseen. He came into marriage haunted by mistakes in his past and deeply broken by his failures. I came into marriage proud and with expectations a mile high. It was a recipe for disaster in so many ways. But God knew what He was doing, weaving together this story from two broken souls.
I don’t know what most people’s marriage stories are like. If their early years are relatively easy and smooth and then their middle years are more difficult? I have no idea what is normal. But for us, as sweet and fun as that first year was (in hindsight), it was a shock in so many ways. It is so hard to join two lives together by people who have never done something like that before. We soon hit some bumps that rocked us deeply and left us bewildered and desperate. Thankfully, God provided good, solid, biblical counseling for us. We’ve probably spent more years in counseling in our marriage than out of counseling, but I’m not ashamed in the slightest. We recognized early on that we needed support and help, and we weren’t afraid that it was a sign of defeat. We knew that those who care for their marriage will fight for it, and that’s what we were doing. Plus I kind of love counseling. It’s always wonderful to have someone be a listening ear and to come alongside and support, challenge, and mentor you.
God has provided just what we needed along the way. And though I know there will be other seasons to come that will rock us unexpectedly, I am so grateful for those hard years now. There was a time when I wasn’t sure we would make it through. But in that time we saw that when we fail to keep our vows, our God does not fail us. He is faithful. So unbelievably faithful. As the scriptures say, “In Him all things are held together” (Col.1:17), and He held us together. In finding we were not able to keep our own vows to one another, we found that He alone is able to keep us in our vows.
I don’t know where your marriage finds you today. But I can promise you this, as someone who has lived through it: there is ALWAYS hope, if you are in Christ. There is always a possibility for healing the unhealable, for repairing the ruins, for building from ashes something beautiful. Sometimes it takes a fire that burns it all to the ground for us to see how marvelous His work is instead of trying to construct something on our own. For us to see it isn’t in us to make something beautiful. We can’t do that on our own. And I’m so thankful that we learned that lesson. Because in so many ways now, the pressure is off of us to “stay married” and to “hold it together.” We lean all of that on Jesus. And in every way that we are broken, sinful and selfish, He is STILL strong enough to hold us together. There is no failure so great that He cannot forgive, that He cannot heal, that He cannot repair. Sometimes I think He just wants to show off the greatness of His power in our shocking weakness.
So, now I’m hoping a lot of fun years are ahead of us. They’ve already begun but I’m hoping for so many more. The ugly-beautiful of marriage is that it’s not all pretty, and if it were, I think I’d be dead bored. As much as we hate the suffering when it comes, and the seasons when we just don’t like each other much, when we break through to a whole new level of love and companionship, it makes it worthwhile.
If you find yourself in this hopeless place in your own marriage, please know, I understand. It is the loneliest and deepest heartbreak I have ever experienced. But hang on. Just hang on. Just don’t give up and throw in the towel. If you can just do that for one more day, then another, then another, submitting yourself to Jesus every day and asking for His enabling, the days will turn into weeks and months, and sometimes it takes God a lot of time to mend a broken marriage. Find good support, don’t be afraid. It’s worth the fight. And wait for your healing to come. He IS faithful and He will NEVER leave you nor forsake you.
And in the end? You will love your Redeemer more than you ever thought possible.
“The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
The crawling locust,
The consuming locust,
And the chewing locust,
My great army which I sent among you.
You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
And praise the name of the Lord your God,
Who has dealt wondrously with you;
And My people shall never be put to shame.”
{Joel 2: 24-26}
everything He gives 