Remember finals week?

...where all genuine worship starts, and where it often returns for a dark season, is the barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing, and yet is still granted the grace of repentant sorrow for having so little love: "When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you" (Psalm 73:21-22)...He is also glorified by the spark of anticipated gladness that gives rise to the sorrow we feel when our hearts are lukewarm. Even in the miserable guilt we feel over our beastlike insensitivity, the glory of God shines. If God were not gloriously desirable, why would we feel sorrowful for not feasting fully on His beauty? Even though this falls short of the ideal of vigorous, heartfelt adoration and hope, yet it is a great honor to God. We honor the water from a mountain spring not only by the satisfied "ahhh" after drinking our fill, but also by the unquenched longing to be satisfied while still climbing to it.

~ Worship, Desiring God, John Piper


My eyes burn, my thoughts spark sluggishly from one topic to the next. Ahhhh, finals week. All my synapses are consumed with the intellectual tasks at hand, with nary a spare moment to think of anything else. Even writing these few paragraphs feels like trying to squeeze water from a rock! I have been blessed this week with help with childcare (thanks, Mom & Heather!). And I've gotten a lot done. Today a paper is just about ready for submission to an international journal, imagine that! Would be wonderful to see some success in the publication department.

Consequently, I feel my spiritual life is a bit limp this week. I appreciated this quote for Piper, which reassures me that longing is worship as much as feasting. This is a week of fatigued dragging myself into God's presence with little energy for joy or service. So I lay that at God's feet, too. Along with simple praise for strength and brain-power for a busy week of schoolwork.

Oh, say can you see?

I will walk about in freedom,
for I have sought out your precepts.
I will speak of your statutes before kings
and will not be put to shame...
Psalm 119:45-46

I really considered posting something political. It's not that I lack the guts - although there is a time and place for political rants, and that's outside the purpose of my writing here - it's that I don't really know how to frame my thoughts in coherent, readable words. I have a rather amorphous desire to pass on a fierce patriotism, an elemental belief in certain inalienable rights, the drive to pursue a culture and a government that embraces independence, personal fortitude and excellence, and joy in living...the hallmarks of this nation from it's inception in a time when nations were looking for something to hope in. Being nannied by my government does not fit well with those ideologies.

Instead of a laundry list of my concerns for my nation, I am compelled to think about the substance of the legacy I want to leave for my children in this area, as in others. Love. Yes, love. I think that encapsulates my current cognitive meanderings on the state of affairs we find ourselves in today. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you: say, for instance, it was your team that won the election - would you want to hear a bunch of sour grapes from the other side? Love one another: in hard times especially, it is our love for others, our service of others, that will show our true inner colors. In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God: when the political climate favors Christians, and when it persecutes them, give thanks. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God: freedom is relatively illusory here on earth. While we pray for our leaders and pray for the situations that concern our daily lives, we must remember always that worry accomplishes nothing. It won't change the eventual outcome, nor will the outcome change eternity. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself: political pundits decrying incrementalism and relativism would do well to heed this basic truth. For, as Christ said, who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

I pray for this country every day, my children with me. I wonder where the next fifty years will find us. I still think it's incredible that we've come this far past the 200 year mark that has heralded the downfall of many great civilizations of history. Most of all, I believe that the truth this nation was founded upon is never changing. And that is what has me looking up and singing while so many others hang their heads and cry.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
~ 4th stanza, our national anthem, penned hopefully by Francis Scott Key in 1814

When dreams creep in

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
~ I Chronicles 29:11 ~

Alaska was the long-awaited dream, a travel nursing assignment in Seattle but a brief career bridge to the vast unknown. Aaron grew his hair out for a year before going. Put on the mountain man exterior, brown curls, overgrown beard, purchase after purchase of wool clothing. I remember snowboarding with him the very first time we did something together outside of work: he wore thick green wool army pants, hunting boots, red suspenders, a blue plaid wool shirt, and a dark wool watch cap with rolled brim. He looked for all the world as though he had descended on Hennepin County from the backwoods somewhere...well, very much north of Minneapolis!

I presented what was supposed to be a short detour in the plans to move - probably forever - to the wilds of our furthest state. We laid grand plans to move together shortly after our wedding. Eight weeks later, we were faced with an unexpected blip: baby on the way, and the consequent decision that we should stay closer to home until we got a handle on this parenthood thing.

I finally realized sometime this spring that he was probably waiting until we could afford for both of us to go there. He had turned down a few offers of a short trip from his dad, who frequently works there, Aaron's hallowed ground. Once I told him he should go without me this first time, plans were in motion quickly. Four days, a lodge on the Kenai peninsula, and some halibut fishing on the open sea rounded out the docket.

How do I speak love into the life of a man made for wilderness, who lives in a busy home filled with busy, noisy, and inquisitive offspring? How do I maximize this time we have together, instead of succumbing to the longing and dreaming for a different time or season that may or may not ever come? I struggle with this frequently, more so tonight as I look over the photos of this man I love beaming as he bounces along on the sunny ocean hundreds of miles from the nearest metropolis. I need to figure out how to reach him here, in this time and place. I long to see that same smile light up semi-rural Wisconsin. I don't want to wait for the day when we can finally get to the wilderness together again. I trust God is watering his soul here, too. And pray for ingenuity in serving the lumberjack man God gave me while deep in the trenches of living a busier existence.

The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. ~ Isaiah 32:17

I think I'll go up to Alaska, I think I'll be on that train tonight
Heard that there's work there, heard that there's six months of daylight
Heard that the train stops in Seattle, where you can get your feet back on the ground
I think I'll go up to Alaska where the heat of the summer's comin' down

Woke up this mornin' with some heavy troubles on my brain
Gotta hold your head up when every one in town knows your name
But I've got some money in my back pocket from some steady job that I been holdin' down
I think I'll go up to Alaska where the heat of the summer's comin' down

I've got a suitcase made of alligator skin
Hope that it makes it through whatever situation I get in
Boots made of leather, my coat's for the weather, and you won't find me hangin' 'round
I think I'll go up to Alaska where the heat of the summer's comin' down
I think I'll go up to Alaska where the heat of the summer's comin' down
~ Alaska, Kate McLeod

Who is steering?

...take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ~ James 3:4-5

Cancer reared it's ugly head at the dentist, of all places. I had an appointment with an endodontist about a tooth that has been bothering me. Turns out it was damaged irreparably by bacteria that were able to take over when my salivary glands dried up after my radioactive iodine treatment in November. I have quite a few teeth suffering the effects of cancer treatment, and received the very unwelcome news that implants or dentures are almost certainly in my future, at a relatively young age. My bone has also been damaged by the radiation and loss of calcium after my parathyroid glands were removed, so implants may not be an option for me at all.

Call me vain, but I'm not exactly a fan of dentures. In fact, dentures have been a phobia of mine since I was a small child. Now it looks as though that might be my reality. Not something I faced with aplomb on Thursday, let me tell you! It is difficult to face these incremental losses. Teeth are such a little thing, but so big! Without them, for instance, what would my smile look like? How will I chew well to avoid choking due to my persistent vocal cord paresis? Will I have to give up a host of foods I enjoy?

I am reminded that I have choices to make. I can be undone by a waterfall of little things: news about my teeth, pain in my jaw, children sick, husband gone, animals misbehaving, inability to drive out to get groceries, milk, or take my sick kid to the doctor. Or I can bring glory to God by enduring these little things - either by succeeding in surviving and thriving through these small difficulties, or by repenting and allowing myself to be changed when I fail in them.

These pictures may seem totally unrelated to my words, at first glance. Looking carefully, note the frustration on Amelia's face as she tries to push Caleb in the first photo. An inexperienced driver at the helm, the task is almost impossible. Yet, when Amelia takes the handles and steers, and Caleb puts his head down and does the unskilled labor - pushing the trike - everyone is all smiles. So is life, and difficulty, with God: put Him at the wheel, let Him make the decisions and steer the rudder, and yours cares will be few and your joy great. Pray only for strength, using your own three pound brain to guide your course, and you will find a hard row to hoe in front of you. It is the symbiosis of both supernatural strength and guidance that will best lighten the load of the little things that are threatening to undo me today.

Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. ~ Psalm 25:4-6, 8-10