Make it Rain
My jeans are smoked. Not smokin’. Smoked. They hung on the line as ash fell like snow and billows of grey rolled through in post-apocalyptic waves. It’s not from wild fires or a volcano; it’s from people burning their fields. On purpose. Some of the fires are started by mischievous boys, but many of them are set by people who believe that smoke causes rain to come. And we need rain badly. People’s sweet potato crops are starting to fail, and the ground is too hard and dry to plant anything new. Rain tanks are going empty. Even the rivers are running low. And the days roll on, sunny and smoky and snowing ash, and we know there’s nothing to do but wait. I don’t know about you, but waiting is not my favorite, especially when the need feels great and God’s response...
Read MoreHere and There
There’s something about the way this afternoon is spread out all grey and misty over the valley that makes me homesick. Maybe it’s the mountains sitting silent behind the fog, so different than the rolling plains of the central Carolinas. Or maybe it’s just that we’ve been in Papua New Guinea for four months now, the longest I’ve been outside the States since I was fourteen. Whatever the reason, I’ve felt all day like I can’t take a full breath past the lump in my throat. And it’s not a day I could hide away from people. First a worship service, then a birthday party for a good friend’s son. Smile. Small talk. Try to will the eyes to stay dry. And then the moment when someone asks if I’m glad to be here. Yes, friend, yes I am. There’s not a shred of me that...
Read MoreHe Leads
He had a bush knife in one hand and a soda bottle full of water in the other. His flip flop clad, calloused brown feet never slipped once on the steep jungle path as he ambled along waiting for us to catch up. And there we were, a sunscreen-drenched, sweaty mess of a clumsy line, trudging along behind with our backpacks and hats and hiking shoes. We felt pretty good about ourselves, like a victorious herd of turtles, when we arrived weary and breathless back at our dorm. The reality is that our guide was easy on us. He grew up on the trails around here, and without him we would have been hopelessly lost. Jungle trails were part of my childhood, too, but my 38-year-old body has grown accustomed to cars and sofas and television. That hike was hard. And it was the...
Read MoreThe Business of Rescue
The thing about packing up a house is that all kinds of stuff surfaces. Long-neglected dust bunnies, dried bits of food on couch cushions, old letters and hard memories. I have to be honest here. I’m all for a good soul cleansing, but when it comes in the middle of trying to get rid of most of our belongings (an incredibly emotional process on its own, by the way), it leaves me feeling a little overwhelmed. Ok, a lot overwhelmed. The other day I was driving to my sister’s house to spend time with her before my family heads to Papua New Guinea and hers moves to Thailand, and I was feeling the weight of “too much”. Too much to do. Too much to remember. Too many decisions. Too many goodbyes. Too many painful memories of bad choices and broken, tender places. I...
Read MoreOpen Handed
Receive all God has. This is the scariest phrase I’ve ever heard. Receive ALL God has. Opening up to all God has for us is hugely risky. God has good things for us. Big things. But to receive big things, our hands have to be open, fingers uncurled. And I am a grasper. I want to cling to what I love – the people in my life, my plans, my comfort. It feels more secure to close my fist and squeeze tight so that none of it can slip away. I hold on to the things I’ve been given like my daughter clutches her security blanket. She loves that thing, but there are times I ask her to put her blankie down so I can hold her hand. And she does, because she trusts me, and because I’m a bigger comfort to her than her blankie is. She puts down something she can’t imagine life...
Read MoreThis Kind of Faith
This week I’ve talked with two friends whose stories rock me to the core. These friends of mine, Amber and Lyn, have not had an easy road. Lyn’s beautiful fifteen-year-old, Bethany, died two years ago of an aggressive brain cancer, and Amber’s sweet Sadie was just seventeen months old when leukemia ended her life last December. The thought of losing one of my children, just brushing the bare edge of the thought, leaves me weak-kneed. How do you keep doing life after watching your child lose the ability to walk and talk and even eat? How do you push past the nightmare that continues when you open your eyes in the morning and realize that your baby really is gone? I would be destroyed. And both of my friends have been. But in their destruction, something...
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