Summer Stillness

For the hundredth time I had forgotten how much I love the quiet.

When the summer started, I made sure to think of all that I needed to accomplish and all the hurriedness already accumulating on the calendar. Prudently, I prepared myself for the summer to be busy. I omitted the possibility that it might also be peaceful.

But between graduations and car rides, mealtimes and weddings, yardwork and parties, the calm found me. As each day rolled into the following, peace slipped in beside me. And while one day to the next might have actually been equally busy, the difference came in me, in my learning to pause when a pause was there. The world never stopped, but I started to, each time more willingly than the last.

In the stillness God began to work, not with the brutal processes that restructure like clay being kneaded, but with the gentle molding and smoothing that follow afterwards. From the silence emerged an excitement that I had neglected, and everyday I felt more of a thrill at being alive. The lightness of morning sun streaming across my purple walls, the smooth sensation of ivory keys beneath my fingers, the deliciousness of warm, buttered waffles for breakfast, and the sweaty satisfaction of weeding flowerbeds outdoors on a humid day gave me a new exuberance to charge forward into the moment - without being swept away in the rush.

"Be still, be still," I now whisper more and more, consciously seeking these moments. Even while drawing me in, the interludes motivate me more than the busyness, and I am learning how activity and quiet complement rather than oppose each other. Balanced with stillness, the activity becomes less hectic, and suddenly I find the everyday chores and responsibilities peaceful as well as the true silence. Breaking from the relentless tedium, I remember how much I enjoy simple tasks, and how using my hands to create something, whether a dress or a tune or a snack, satisfies me in a unique way that radiates confidence and joy from its very simplicity.

With the beginning of a new school semester only a week away, I am noticing myself wondering and worrying whether the fall will steal this blissful tranquility. Unfortunately, I have seen how easily I wind and tangle myself into the very work I am trying to spin. Despite that, I can stop worrying. The year will get crazy and the days become packed, but there's a soul-quiet that can trump the schedule and make everything slow inside. I want to actively seek the calm until it becomes a habit and not a rarity.

Peace might be a priceless gift, but it is also free. And I am so ready to take it.

When You Know It's Spring

The landscape added a new layer of color last week.

Early whites and yellows, subsequent burgundies, and then peaches, oranges, and tans are now joined by bluebonnet blue, and each newly entering shade pushes winter a little farther away. Slowly, the cold is fading back into the recesses of time.

Every few days a new shade of color joins in transforming dull, dead colors to bright, vivid ones.  Everywhere, everywhere, it's there - you can feel life brimming full and fertile.

Crazy, isn't it? How life brings life. How flowers contain the seeds that continue their own existence. How the earth continues wandering through this cycle of seasons, and winter brings forth spring. How the dormant can wake.

Crazy how my life can line up with nature. How I go through seasons, and some part of me that fell asleep can wake up. I want to live, not just exist, but live fully, growing, spreading, reaching. Seasons happen; they'll happen again and again, spring leading to summer, then fall, then winter, till spring struggles its way through again. That's the way life is sustained.

And that is what makes it beautiful.

Here, the smallest things are what we notice the most, and we rejoice in them, delighting simply because they are, because we are, because all things - all things - work together for good. 

We might not have totally passed the recurring cold spells; regardless, we are now well into spring. Just this week, strong winds ushered in heavy thunderstorms and left windows rattling late at night - but sometimes drops running down tree trunks, drops running down human faces, reach the roots and begin to build from there.

All of creation knows and sees, and even the smallest among us are transforming, ready to take flight, ready to soar...

...ready to be fully alive.

Is Christianity a Crutch?

Some people think Christianity is a crutch.

They'd say it's a myth, a children's story accepted by ignorant people who have received a tradition handed down among generations.

They'd say it's a ploy for Christians to make themselves think they're better than other people.

They'd say it's only another religion, a sedative for people who are afraid to face reality.

I would disagree.

Christianity isn't a crutch; it's more like a heart-transplant. It's the only hope for a dying world, for people who know they have no qualifications that can justify them, and realize that in the face of reality they stand no chance. Maybe our issue isn't even so much our wickedness as it is our weakness. Sure, I love to think that I can do all sorts of things, but really? It can all be stripped away in a matter of moments, completely out of my control. In 1984, George Orwell comments that "to change one's mind... is a confession of weakness." Maybe the opposite also holds true, that to confess weakness is the way to change one's mind, actions, and heart. If I can admit my weakness, that might be my one hope for change and something better.

In the last few months, I have felt so utterly weak more times than I can count. Several times I felt like my body might just give out on me at any moment, like a clock that begins to tick so slowly that you know it will stop at any second. When I wanted to give up, I was held - both physically and through love and prayers - time and time again by my family and some of the sweetest friends I could ask for. After school, I would come home and almost daily listen to a few songs over and over again; one of them was "To the Cross I Cling" by The Village Church. I love this song, and the more I listened to it, the more I began to see its truth, even in the title. This idea of clinging connotes weakness, a desperate need to hold on, and I can't help thinking that this is where we're supposed to be all the time - wholly and desperately dependent on God's strength. No, it's not a crutch; it's infinitely more than that.

"My grace is sufficient for you," Jesus said, "for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV). The only way to unbind myself from weakness is to bind myself with grace. I need strength to get through the day, but I don't have it in myself. Today, and hopefully tomorrow and the rest of this new semester, I have enough physical strength to do more than drag through the day, but I never want to forget Who gives me strength every moment of my life, however strong or weak I feel. His grace is sufficient, abundantly so, and moment by moment that grace can make even the weakest weakness into something beautiful.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Wherever you are, wherever you've been, on this day may you live fully like the One Who lived the fullest life... and have a very merry Christmas.


Lots of love,
Abi

Happy Birthday, Austen!

I love the way you...

care about other people,

work so hard,

know how to play as hard as you work,

live what you believe,

and, most importantly, the way you're you.

I love being your little sister. Happy Birthday!

A Welcome Sight

Last Sunday, we experienced an incredible phenomenon called rain. For this girl who loves rain even when the grass is not so dry that it looks like it is about to crack and pulverize into nothingness, the weather seemed heavenly. Maybe it will rain again this weekend.... I can dream, right?

Time for God?

She sits on the couch across from me, her silhouette outlined by the rising sun's light streaming through the windows, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

"I just feel so tired. I didn't have time to read my Bible this week, which is so dumb."


 A little sob climbs into her throat before she continues.

"My week would have been so much better if I had taken the time to read the Bible, why didn't I just take the time to read my Bible?"

At that, this beloved sister of mine morphs into a mirror, and I see my own reflection all too clearly in her frustrated cry. I claim the Bible is divinely inspired, that its wisdom is the Water of Life - yet I do not even take the time to read in it, to rest in it, to revive in it. When I refuse the Word, I find myself parched as a result. It's a simple cause and effect situation. I need quiet time; I need prayer; I need the Word. I know that, but having to face my own inadequacy head-on frightens me, and so I continue to avoid what I most thirst for.

Some days when life weighs down hard, I feel like my own heaviest weight. Aching self-distrust forms from my repeatedly neglecting to do what I know is right, with missed Bible reading as the first of a long list of offenses.  The awfulness of self - the disappointment in watching my own endless weaknesses thrust in front of me - drags dreadfully.

Really, God, maybe this whole live for Jesus thing seemed like a good idea when I signed up for it, but apparently it's not working. I keep failing, and I'm not getting any better. I don't even trust myself to do what I know is right. I haven't touched my Bible once this week, so I guess it won't even make a difference if I skip it again today. Why keep trying if I still mess up on all this stuff I should've been doing right since a long time ago? 

I have been a hypocrite and a fool. So what can I do now? With all of my failures and hypocrisy, is all I trust in - the grace, the forgiveness, the peace - void?

Finite against infinite, I set my will against my Creator.

Did You really think I would be able to get this right, God? Did You know I would be looking like THIS right now?

"And Jesus said to him, 'Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.' " (Mark 14:30 ESV).

He knew.

The night before Jesus died to bring forgiveness, He foretold Peter's betrayal. He knew and He knows. Right now, He sees not only my present faithlessness, but also the faithlessness of my entire life.

Hypocrisy is as much a sin as lying, thieving, and murdering, and as such, it is just as forgiven.

"And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue His work until is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns" (Philippians 1:6 NLT).

However many times we fail and however many times we want to give up, He never does.

And sometimes, when all feels dry and withered and any hope of change seems nearly impossible, the cobwebs in our life catch the water droplets the best.

I pick up a Bible.