This weekend, I decided to try ice climbing. I love the idea of trying new things.   I am a Tomboy at heart. Never minded dirt, exhilarated by challenge, and incessantly curious.  I feel a heightened sense of well being when a new experience whispers my name. I come alive, get giddy with excitement, and weep with joy all at the same time. To me, this is life in Technicolor. That’s not to say that I see the rest of my days in grey scale. I feel contentment in the daily flow of life in all its highs and lows.  It is the brick and mortar of my days; the sweat equity of building my legacy. But if daily living shapes the story of my life, then adventures are the punctuation marks that give the sentences of my days more clarity.

They bring a greater connectedness to something deep inside me. It’s as if I hold the hand of the little girl that was fearless and simple; had dirty knees and day dreamed. To some it seems crazy, to some foolish, and to some unrelate-able.   But for me, it makes perfect sense. I’m really enjoying the freedom of giving this girl permission to dream, explore and experience. I feel like I was built for it, and as I honor that, I feel the pleasure of God – can almost see him throw His head back in laughter and sheer delight as I hold her hand once again and unwrap the gift of a new experience.

 This place of permission is new to me. Permission to just be me. To not stuff it, hide it, shrink it, or sequester it in order to appease someone else’s green-eyed monster, expectation, or standard. Flaws and all, I get to be me.  For years, it was important that life’s focus be about the people I loved – their needs, desires and well… their becoming. I know I am better for it. But while I wouldn’t trade love’s expression, that season did create a dichotomy between shaping and eclipsing who I was.  One day I listened to a talk about dreaming. On the drive home I tried to think of dreams I had. I rummaged through memories, and emptiness echoed back. In a hollow moment I realized I had forgotten how to dream. I couldn’t think of one. My dreams were for and about everyone else.   While life hummed along, and was full of rich relationships and activity, a deep part of who I was had become an apparition.

I’m enjoying getting to know me – my heart, my desires, how I’m made and what I’m made of.  Where are my walls, and my limits? Which of those are self made, which are mirages imposed by others. Can I oppose those, push to redefine, and dare I say take up more space.

Yes.

I’m discovering more and more of what God intended when He thought me up.  I am learning to value my uniqueness.  And on top of a 120 foot frozen waterfall high up in a mountain, legs on fire, and no strength left to kick my foot into the ice one more time, I pushed through the limitations in my body and mind and felt life expand just a bit more.

There is a mystery hidden inside value and honor. Not just for things around us, but in us. It carries a law of attraction or a magnetic pull of some kind. It’s as if the hand that penned the universe, the center of all things conspires with our cooperation to bring things in our world together in uncanny ways. It creates a force that brings inexplicable ease and harmony. As we expand, the people around us live in the pull of that, and expand as well. Relationships and attitudes shift. As I walk closer to the center of intention, I feel my husband’s resistance to my ideas being replaced with support and wise counsel.   I now feel championed by him. Our differences compliment one another, and we walk in harmony while still desiring very different experiences. That is a mystery. And the life script played out surpasses anything we could ever have imagined for ourselves. On this trip I saw this mysterious conspiracy unfold in a poignant moment between my children.

As I was planning the trip, my 11-year-old daughter Faith begged to come. After much research, we decided to let her. My husband didn’t want to join, but quickly and resolutely offered to pay for our son Noah to join us. I shot him a wary look as those two have the least compatible relationship and I didn’t want to play referee on my adventure. Yet the part of me that just spoke with his voice knew that it was right.

While climbing the 700-foot ascent to the frozen waterfall, I anticipated an 11-year-old meltdown at some point. After all, it was 3 hours of hard work on steep inclines. Then it happened.  Just before the most difficult leg, at around 650 feet when a small falling rock hit her gloved hand and fear slipped in, along with tears and a strong desire to go home. We rested in a tiny outcropping, and talked about fear. He is the playground bully that wants to rob us and we all have to learn how to stand up to him in life. I could see the emotional baby steps toward courage.  Then her big brother Noah (the antagonist of her life story) sat down beside her.  I cringed inwardly as I thought the situation was about to get worse. Instead something I never would have anticipated happening, happened. Noah put his arm around her, was tender with her heart, and made her smile.  He gave her advice and filled her small efforts with fist bumps and encouragement. I was in awe, and happily moved to the background as he became the hero of her story. I have never been more proud of who he was.  Now, like Hannah Hurnard’s character Much Afraid, Faith has a figurative (and actual) stone of remembrance of the place where she conquered fear. And Noah carries a new awareness of the capacity of his leadership and influence.  As he walked with her across the traverse, with each step I could see them both expanding in size.  Four steps in, the bully was laying in a deep chasm with a bloody nose while the space between their hearts filled.

They say the universe is always expanding.  It makes sense to me that we should be too.  Value is its soil.  I no longer want to hold back. I feel this urge to squeeze in as much of life as possible. I want to stand in the center of intention, take ahold of that little girls hand in one, and His in the other, and explore all the gifts waiting for me in this world, in life experiences and in the people He has for me.  We have somewhere around 28,000 days to live, give or take.  These are the commas of pause and wonder, the exclamation points of awe, and the question marks of mystery that I want to fill my days.

Lisa, John our guide, Faith, me and Noah

A steep ascent, including bouldering around a 12″ ledge, traversing across steep pitches and running waterfall beds up 700 ft to that tiny bit of frozen waterfall at the top center of the picture. Then we ice climbed 130 feet up the frozen waterfall.

The organizer of the festival took this shot from the road. Those tiny specs toward the bottom are 2 belayers and one of us beginning a climb.

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“Thank you”.  I’ve said those words often through the years.  But the very last time I spoke them to you, we were sitting alone in a room and you had since taken your last breath.  As I gazed at your sweet tired face and slowly said ‘thank you’, something in the deepest most central place in my heart completely filled those two simple words.  The moment caught my attention.  I’ve always been sincere when I’ve said thank you, but this time felt different.  It was as if every fiber of my heart agreed and in chorus shouted what my lips quietly whispered through tears.    I am here because of you.  Thank you.

As a very young man of 24 with a conviction in his heart, you grew a family of eight children.  As the last child of eight  I’m glad you didn’t change your theology until after I was born.  That choice demanded great sacrifice in how you lived, what you did, and what you had.  Sometimes I can’t even imagine the cost to you and mom, financially, physically and emotionally.                Thank you.

There is something so surreal and final about your passing.  I think it is the reality that the book of your life has been written, and with your last breath the final chapter was finished. Nothing can be changed, added or taken away.  It is the final draft and the forever account of your days.  As a writer who was always revising and tinkering, a ‘final draft’ never seemed to be a word in your vocabulary.

In this process of losing you, I realized that life is fluid all the way until the last breath.  God made us free to be the author of our lives.  What an incredible honor, and responsibility.   As long as we are still breathing, we get to choose.  Not the circumstances always, but certainly how we will respond.  Those choices shape our relationships, our days, who we become, what we are known for, and yes, eternity.  Then one day it becomes the sum of our life.  What we leave behind.  Our legacy.  Our novel.

One of your favorite things you liked to say was, “God writes straight with crooked lines. “   I am discovering the truth of your revelation.  Infinite possibilities exist from our first breath to the last.  And all the choices that exist in the millions of breaths in between determine what our life will look like.  As long as we are breathing, we always have another shot, another chance to get it right rather than be right, to revise a chapter and with God’s help rewrite our days in a way that the crooked becomes straight. He can use it all, our great contributions as well as our mistakes to make something beautiful out of the story of our lives all the way up until the day we die.

While I can feel sad for some of the in between years where choices led you away and created distance, I can clearly see how God made those crooked lines straight in these last years.  As part of you diminished and slipped away, something else beautiful emerged as I saw relationships richly restored, treasured and enjoyed.  Before my very eyes, I saw lines straighten with every act of sacrificial love as we cared for so many of your needs the way you once did ours.

Your life is now a finished work for all to examine, admire, celebrate, and learn from.  Even after your last breath you continue to teach me.  I feel the clarion call to choose well in life, to be intentional about what my story will tell.  To partner with God in such a way that He can make my crooked lines straight.  To value what is sacred and holy in each of us, and to laugh until the end.

Dad, thank you.

With all my love

Our friends have a wall in their kitchen that archives the names and heights of loved ones.  If you spend any amount of time at their home you end up with your own pencil mark line etched on this wall.  It’s not about our height really, it’s a way of telling the people they love, ‘you belong; you are family’.   Last week we stopped in and my daughter Faith wanted to show her friend her marks on the wall.  It had been a while.   Moments later she ran to find me, eyes big and bright with excitement.  “Mom! Wow, look how much I’ve grown!  I’m getting so big!”  I’m certain she knows she’s growing, but there is just something about marks on a wall; something about actually looking down over where we previously stood and seeing how far we’ve come.  The evidence of growth seems to bring growth.

I recently had a similar moment.  I am currently participating in a Negativity Fast over this lent season.  It seemed like a natural progression of the journey I have been on of recognizing the power of words; one’s spoken over me and ones that I’ve spoken over myself, my circumstances, and others.  I was enjoying the readings each day, and nibbling on tidbits of Truth about the power of our Words.  Yet a few days in, I had this vague sense I was missing something.  Ah yes, my negative thoughts.  I’m supposed to be policing the tapes playing in my head.  Wait a minute.  Where are they?   I didn’t seem to be bumping into them as if navigating through a crowded subway car.  I started to take a closer look and mentally review my days, skimming through the catalog of encounters, conversations and circumstances of the past few days.    Then my thoughts turned to a very difficult situation I found myself in the midst of and I recalled how I handled a similar situation about 3 years before (not one of my finer moments).   I stopped when I wasn’t finding my old reactions.  The thoughts that used to drive me did not exist as companions.   Really?  Had my thought life changed that much?  As I was pondering this new discovery I felt the presence of God quietly enter the moment.   Then with a smile, He pointed to a pencil line on the wall of my heart and showed me how far I had come.  It stopped me.  I felt His pleasure as He watched me slowly embrace the reality.    Wow.  There’s nothing like a kiss on the cheek saying well done, from a loving Dad.

I know I am a work in progress and am not deluding myself to think that I’ve arrived.  It’s just that we live in these bodies of thoughts every day. We are very familiar with them, sometimes so much so that we don’t recognize the ones we wear daily.  The thoughts that bring life as well as the little buggers that produce fear, self-protection and destruction. Hopefully we all outgrow some thoughts we’ve worn for years;  Lies about others, ourselves, who we are, our ability, value, purpose, size, personality, you name it.  It is a good day when some old thoughts just don’t fit anymore, and an even better day when your Dad smiles and shows you the pencil mark on the wall.

Now, for the sake of authenticity (and so you don’t have the mistaken idea that I consistently rest beside the still waters of Psalms 23), I want to share an entirely antithetical experience.  I know.  We thought I graduated, right?  I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but sometimes more than others it’s as if my to do list, my responsibilities and circumstances all sit together on my bed post in a conspiratorial way tapping their fingers just waiting for me to show signs of life so they can pounce for my attention at the first sign of consciousness.   This.  This was one of those mornings.  It was just an ever so slight shift under my covers that gave me away, and the quietness of the room was quickly accosted by their pleas.  Like desperate needy children hanging on my legs, they all competed for my attention.

I am usually pretty intentional about filtering my thoughts and jettisoning the ones that don’t produce life.  Not this day.  No.  They raced around my head like wild Banshee’s.  “Don’t forget about that appointment, make that call, finish that quote, when are you gonna get this right, what are you going to do about that situation, don’t forget the laundry, send that email, make sure you get Faith’s jeans in the dryer first thing, your just not good at this, don’t forget to order that equipment for the new site, you need to finish your homework, you forgot to clean mom’s apartment again, is Faith ready for the English test, you’re not a good mom, did I turn in the permission slip, you need to see your dad, your not a good daughter, what’s for dinner, your out of milk.  On and on it went.  The floodgate was open.  I couldn’t even stay in bed.  I naively thought to myself, maybe if I get up my thoughts will stay in my room.  Nope.  They followed me – the audacity.

I came downstairs knowing that I really needed to hear from God.  Yet when I began to pray, I didn’t get further than mild wallowing.   I heard Him say, I am bigger.  Worship and rise above.  No, really God, I want to talk.  I need to sort this out, think it through.  You know, understand.   At this point I was listening to some humdingers but they were only bouncing around my mind.  My day was not affected.  My relationships were not affected.  I was standing at the point of decision.  Will I agree with all of this, or get Truths perspective?   Well, before I could get there, my husband woke up.  Poor man.

“Good morning Hun.  What’s up?”  (I know.  You’re cringing right now, aren’t you?)   I said to myself, Maggie, do not verbally throw up all over this man.  You will only have a bigger mess to clean up.   Well, I didn’t listen to God a few minutes earlier, so why would I listen to the smarter version of me?   I started off slow, just sharing the concerns over situations and the to do list, but as it started to come out of me, it gained momentum and also somehow became partly his fault!   I wasn’t thinking that before.  Where did that come from?   Oh my gosh, It’s alive!  As my gentle jabs continued, his eyebrows raised, then he had this enlightened look come over his face.   He said, “Oh, I think I know what’s going on.”  He knew enough not to actually offer his assessment of why I was acting this way.  After all, this was not his first rodeo.

He was gentle and cautious through the morning, offering me lots of space.  He didn’t try to defend himself against my unfair barbs so nothing really escalated beyond my early morning diatribe.  But I felt horrible.  Not just because I wasn’t being a nice person, but I could feel that when I spoke it out something internal happened.  I created something.  Those negative words had life now.  I joined with things that were once just thoughts.  I agreed with things that now fought to be my companions, things about me, my circumstances, and about my husband.  Great.  Now I had self-image issues, a leaky roof in my relational house, a mess to clean up, and a battle with these new companions I really didn’t like.  All before 8am. 

It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up – Jesus

Words.  Man those buggers are powerful.  If only we realized we have either a beautiful vial of Human Growth Hormone, or a deadly bazooka at our disposal, we might be more responsible.  Why couldn’t I just keep my mouth shut?  Ah, the sour taste of regret (soon to be followed with a slice of humble pie).  I am still learning how to sequester lifeless thoughts before they become feelings, then words, then actions, then habits, then me!  At those times, I look up from the mark on the wall and see how small I still am.  But I know how to build.  And rebuild (she said sheepishly), because I have a plumb line in my heart and I know a carpenter (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Just as an earthly plumb line knows true and straight according to the natural laws of gravity and the earths pull, so the heavenly plumb line has spiritual laws that reveal true and straight.  We can disagree with gravity, but we’ll still hurt ourselves if we step off a cliff to test it.   As with spiritual laws, if we think we can do and say what we want, then not take responsibility or clean up our mess, we will be a city with broken down walls that few will take refuge in.

The veneer of life will always rob the authentic.

I have no desire to be a flimsy wooden Hollywood prop that only looks good if you don’t get too close.  I want to be a strong tower that people can take refuge in from this crazy world.  I want people to feel safe inside my heart.  I so desire this plumb line to replace crooked with straight and lies with truth. I want solid walls and strong gates with wise sentry’s standing guard.  I have set my heart to feast on Life, and to have an abundance to offer all those near by.   Thank you Jesus for trusted friends who will speak life over me as well as challenge the crooked and broken down walls in my heart.  Thank you for the wrecking ball and times of courage, and thank you for holding me in the vulnerable times when the old is gone and I’m not quite sure how to walk out the new.  And thank you that in the midst of all of this,  you come unexpectedly with a smile and show me those marks on the wall of my heart.

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. – Psalms 139:8

Some days.  Some early morning days just start in the basement of restless thoughts before I find my way to you.

I just lift my hands to you.  Sometimes I don’t know how to do this.  All that rests on my shoulders, the flurry of thoughts, to do’s, responsibilities, all the mountains of un-done and in process.  Nothing ever feels like it’s at the finish line.  Some days God.  I’m not discouraged; just feel rather small for the task.  I let go of it all and sit at your feet.  I curl up in you, focusing on who you are and feel myself grow, and grow and rise up and become higher and bigger than all the responsibilities, the things pulling on me, the desires of life, and for the people I carry in my heart.   From here I smile, even laugh at the joy of you in my life: the creator of all things.  I love you so much.  You are beautiful, and you make all things beautiful.  I didn’t even know I was burdened; life has such a ‘normal’ yoke to all that I carry.  Yet you you YOU come and I feel so light, high and easy.  It’s just not fair that some have never felt this love flow through them, and lift them above all the mire of this crazy world.  Yet here you are so freely pouring out beauty and love and hope on us all.  Lies, only lies hold us back from the greatest love, the greatest source of strength and refreshment and plain ol’ hilarity.  We were made for you.  The deepest part of each of us is hungry for you; we just don’t know it.  You are so good.  Yet, that is truly an understatement.  You are in a good mood.  You are for us and not against us.   You smile over us.  You long to hold each one of us in a never-ending embrace, you dream great dreams and purposes for our lives, you put a unique piece of yourself in each one of us that is so beautiful and is so hungry to know its maker, its home.  My heart aches for people to know this love, to live in the very thing that is at the center of desire in every human heart.  All that we hunger for, yet misplace with temporary affections.

Ding.  Ah, this is my floor.  Thank you.

God, I’m learning that it just doesn’t matter where we start, but rather that we find You where ever we are.

Let me run loose and free, celebrating God’s great work, every bone in my body laughing, singing, “God, there’s no one like you. – Psalm 35:9