Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Sunflowers and Friends (the radio show)


Bek bought me a sunflower, just because (4/13/18)


Bek and Lydi after building their bunnies (4/7/18)


Sunflower blooms I’m growing from a kit Jo gave me (3/23/18)


Emmie, Jo, and I at Pewaukee Lake (3/17/18)


Joanna and I standing on Pewaukee Lake (2/10/18)

Sunrises


Sunrise over Lake Michigan (4/8/18)


Sunrise over Holy Hill (3/29/18)


Sunrise over campus (2/17/18)

Comforting?

What does it mean to be holy in a sinful body? What does it mean to be truly humble in our relationships? How do you reach the ones who are so far retreated inside themselves, even they have forgotten the way out?  In lieu of answers (which I’m working on), I want to share a sort of poem almost directly lifted from one of my recent conversations with a twelve-year-old girl.

I say, what’s your favorite part about school?
Leaving.
I say, okay, so what’s your least favorite part?
Coming.

The teachers, she says, spend all their time
yelling.
The teachers, she says, spend no time 
listening.

They say, she’ll make it through just fine 
complying.
They say, she just needs to stop all her 
fighting.

Really? That’s what they say to be
comforting?
Really?

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Thirty-five Days

Four years ago, I never imagined I’d be finishing up my first semester of Bible school in thirty-five days.  For all intents and purposes, my life was void of direction and I was struggling to put the pieces of life back together after college.  I knew what I believed in...but how was a girl supposed to live that kind of thing out?  At any rate, the last thing I was going to do was waste money to learn things I already knew to postpone the process of figuring it out.

But here I am. For better or worse, here I am.

My first semester at EBI is drawing to an end and, as always, I’m feeling reflective.  At first, I thought my experience here would be just like everyone else’s: class would rock my world, my theology would shift radically, neurons in my brain would fire off into unexplored territory. And while classes are good and the community is healthy and encouraging, that isn’t what my semester looked like.  So does that mean there’s something wrong with me?

A friend of mine used to compare life to seasons.  She said that our lives experience the long sleep of winter and the rapid growth of spring, the vibrant joy of summer and the bittersweet autumn.  I’m no expert, Johnny, but this feels like winter.  The things we go over in class are things I know, and while that’s okay, it concerns me.  God has to have more to show me; He is an infinite discovery that I shall never reach the end of. So why, at Bible school of all places, does He feel so far away?  Does He even want me to be here?  Am I even in His will wanting to be a missionary?

For better or worse, here I am. At least for thirty-five more days, and three more semesters. But then what?

Here I am, Lord. 

Here I am.