red light redemption ...

I was selling “fabric.” That’s what they told me I'd be doing a few years prior when they brought me here. At the time, I had been looking for a way out of my current situation and met them and they seemed nice enough. And they were going to give me a job and a place to live. So that’s how I wound up on the corner that night, the night I met him. It was the kind of night that aches: lonely, rainy, and full of yearning.

The ground was wet and gleamed in shades of red and yellow where the lights glinted off the rain-soaked cement. I could tell he had been traveling for a while. His dark skin was wind burned and his black hair was long and clumped in dirty dreads. But his hands, though rough to the touch, were gentle as one of them brushed my cheek as he lifted it to sweep hair from my eyes. And his eyes, though heavy with sleep, were kind as they searched my face for something that I didn’t yet know was there. He was familiar and I swore I knew him from some other night or some other life.

I told him that if he was interested I had some fabric for sale but he had to come inside. He said, “The fabric that you’re selling is precious and priceless. It’s the most valuable fabric of all.” It was strange but I didn’t care. He seemed a willing customer and for some reason I knew he would give me more than I asked for. He got off his motorcycle, took off his rain gear, and followed me inside and up the narrow staircase. It always smelled, I thought, like fear in there, passion and violence, hate and brokenness. We reached the top of the stairs and I crossed the room to turn on the lamp. His words fell quiet and tender on my ears.

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Those days are over / You
don't have to sell your body to the night / Roxanne, you don't have to wear that
dress tonight / Walk the streets for money / You don't care if it's wrong or if
it's right

He told me again that the fabric I was selling was too costly to sell and that I should treasure it. “It’s the fabric of your very life; don’t sell it to the wolves.” I was flushed with anger and with embarrassment. Who was he? Who was he to tell me how to run my life? How was I supposed to escape this place? And how would I start over if I did? I was scared though too. I knew they would be watching for the red light through the window. And I reached out my hand again to turn the switch.

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to put
on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light / Put on the red
light, put on the red light / Put on the red light, oh

His voice was like a salve, healing old wounds and soothing the ache left by years of prayers uttered in dark rooms illumined by red lights. He drew me in close to him the way I’d dreamed of someone doing before this nightmare of my life began. His arms embracing me brought old feelings and memories back to me. Feelings of being a little girl being wrapped up tightly in her daddy’s arms; memories of feeling truly treasured and cherished. I felt all of the past escape me and with it all the shame associated with the kind of life I'd somehow found myself in. Outside the door my boss was storming up the stairs, yelling my name. Telling me I had a customer asking for me downstairs.

I loved you since I knew ya / I wouldn't talk down to ya / I have to tell you
just how I feel / I won't share you with another boy / I know my mind is made up
/ So put away your make up / Told you once I won't tell you again it's a bad way

This seemingly familiar stranger knew me, knew my name, and knew who I was and what I was about. All the same, he didn’t care where I’d been; only where I was going and that I was going there with him. We went out the back window. He made bending the iron bars that had kept me trapped inside so long look so easy. We scrambled down the fire escape and had disappeared around the corner across the street under the cover of the night. He was a jealous lover. He refused to share me with anyone or anything. He didn’t want leftovers but rather he wanted my everything. That was made clear to me. A few years have passed since he ripped me from the life I’d stumbled into and hemmed me up into a life much better, one he’d long been preparing for me. Every once in a while he catches me in affairs, pretending to be someone I'm not or forfeiting the distances I've come since that night and I hear him whisper to me:

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to
put on the red light / You don't have to put on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light.

(Roxanne lyrics by Sting)

that illuminating glory ...

It's been a while since I posted anything new here and today's not going to be much different. I apologize for that. But last Friday I received an email from someone in Canada who has a ministry there in Alberta called The Mustard Seed. It was a fairly short email asking my permission to use one of my stories for his ministry. I wrote back asking him to clarify how he wanted to use it, in what context, etc ... and told him that it wasn't my story but God's and who was I to prevent someone from using it for his glory. He responded that he wants to make my story the basis for his sermon to about 60-70 homeless people on Easter Sunday. I was so shocked! My first reaction was to puff up and be proud, like any human would. But it is my utmost desire to exhibit humility and not become arrogant or defined by what someone else thinks of my writing abilities.

That being said, however, I do want to re-post the original story here. I wrote it over a year ago before I switched my url to the current one. So here it is (I will be re-working the last couple paragraphs to flow more easily, but you'll get the idea):

I didn't understand it then, what I was saying, and maybe I still don't. Perhaps I never will fully comprehend the extent of the power of my words that day. I didn't know that they would change my life, or what little was left of it, and then the next life too. Let me start again...

The air was thick with death that day. You could feel it crawling on your skin and smell it in your nostrils and taste it even on your tongue, and perhaps most gauche of all, you could see it, witness it, with your eyes. Maybe it was the unusually balminess of the weather that day that played to my senses. But death, no doubt, permeated the air. As did the smell of jasmine. Looking back on it now, it was the smell of jasmine that seemed out of place to me. How was it that such a beautiful and pure aroma did not get drowned out or overpowerd by the depravity of the other?

I couldn't believe how they were treating him with such disdain and hate. Who were they that made them believe they could do that, anyway? Like Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." And I knew none of them were sinless. I had no actual evidence of them committing a crime except what was happening in front of me. They were doing it so willingly, and with such ease that I was repulsed with the sight of it. It reeked of old crimes committed in their pasts, and, truthfully, my own. I don't think they would have been able to do the things they did that day without having had shady pasts of some sort. To treat an innocent man like that... It's unspeakable.

I deserved everything I got that day and more. But not him. He was completely innocent, absolutely sinless. Why should he suffer for my sins? Or the sins of the world simply because his father loved us that much? I don't understand it, even now, 2000 years later. It seems so foreign to me, too surreal to comprehend. But I know it was real because I was there, I witnessed it all firsthand.

I didn't know 33 years prior to that day, before he was born, that I would one day meet him. I had met his mother and Joseph on the road. They were on their way to Egypt and I was part of a band of thieves. We were set to jump them and take everything they had, but I felt something, even then. It was something that I can't put words to, but I just remember this feeling of sacredness, like they were the work of a miracle somehow. I told the others with me not to do anything to them, not to harm them, and just to let them pass. The woman, Mary, looked at me with such gratefulness and I could have sworn that I saw the face of God in her. The glory of it was so heavy that it forced me to my knees.

I remember that I used to wish I was still kneeling there in that spot. In the remnants of that illuminating glory. It would mean that I would never have done all the stuff that I ended up doing, I would never have hurt anyone else, I would never have been the person that I became. But then I also know that I wouldn't be where I am today if I had stayed there.

Thirty-three years later I met him after having heard of him on countless occasions. The very moment I saw him I knew that he was the miracle I felt the presence of all those years prior. And then there we were, both being whipped and beaten and scourged and degraded and defiled. I deserved far more than I got but he deserved none of it and yet received at least 3 times what I did. I was so ashamed. I couldn't even look at him even though the one time I did I was met with a look of such deep, profound love. I could read in his face that he knew who I was. Maybe his mother had told him the story of the thief that let them pass all those years ago. Or maybe he just knew. Either way, it didn't matter. He knew me without ever having spoken to me. And I was utterly terrified because of it.

Pontius Pilate had him stand before the crowd with Barabbas, a murderer. Pilate then asked them, the crowd, which one to release: the known killer or the innocent, thinking that they would come to their senses about it. But all the rulers had whipped them into such a frenzy that they all cried out, "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!" until Pilate relented, released Barabbas into the streets, and set forth the events that changed history, surrendering Jesus to their will.

They nailed us to crosses, big beams of wood that were sorely unforgiving. And put us on display for others to mock and spit at. Most of them ignored my friend and I and instead threw words of hate and scorn at Jesus, laughing at him, saying that he saved others so if he really was the Messiah why didn't he call on God and his angels to save him. "If you save yourself and come down from there, we will believe in you," the chief priests and elders called out. All that he could say in response was, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." They divided up his clothes by casting lots. And my friend even called out to him, forgetting all too quickly that he was in no position to mock another, for he himself was the subject of others' mocking. But he called out, "If you are truly Christ, then save yourself, and us."

My embarassment for my friend didn't keep me quiet. Instead I said between agonizing breaths, "Do you not fear God? Are you not under the same sentence, fool? We deserve everything we've been given today. But not him, he has done no wrong." And turning to finally meet Jesus gaze, "Remember me when you enter your kingdom today." And it was those words that I didn't understand at the time, or even now, how they would change things so drastically for me. I had no idea what he would tell me, nor did I have any expectation of them being fulfilled once he uttered them into the air, thick with the stench of death and evil. "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." Once he said them, I felt a shift inside me. I didn't know then that it wasn't just death tightening its grip on me, or just Satan calling me a fool for putting hope in such things for who was I to even think that I might enter into the Kingdom of God? All of these things played in my head over and over again as the sky opened up and rained down a cleansing flood into the now dark landscape.

A while later he cried loudly, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Someone below ran to offer him a sponge dipped in vinegar. Jesus cried out again and then fell silent for the last time. It was the events immediately following his silence that shook me. The temple curtain tore in two. It was a large blue, purple, and scarlet curtain that separated the Holy Place from teh Most Holy Place, an inner room which symbolized God's presence; basically it separated people from God. When God tore the curtain he was dramatically showing that Jesus' death, the death of God's own son, had given people access to God. The earth shook and the rocks split and many who had died were brought back to life. This was a way of showing that death would not be the final victor and a foreshadowing of the time when all the faithful will be raised to life. When all this happened those who had been mocking him were terrified and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"

Shortly after all that had happened, I was surprised to find myself in Heaven looking down and watching people crucify him all over again, day after day, and rejoicing with the angels when they repented, as I did all those years ago, ensuring their entrance to a place far beyond their imaginations, where we will all forever be in the presence of that illuminating glory.

This is a story based on true events, as if told by Dismas, the thief that went with Jesus into Paradise that day.

a good spring thaw ...

Do you find yourself feeling a certain way and then you read something and realize that someone else, someone outside your story, has put perfect words to something that you thought was indescribable? My friend Jeff wrote this about 3 years ago. I printed it out and have kept it in my journal or my Bible since then. I re-read it again last night and it resonated deep within me. It just fits beautifully with how I feel right now.


With the gray of the morning, I am ashen too, and forever at odds, it seems, with who you are as if the breathing in of One who just is holds no bearing, no advantage, no explanation.

Yet I write, for this art must paint you. My design is known by you, as is my longing to contain you and bring form to the formless, to rip light and its shadows from voids, to color the dull.

Fall down upon me now and create the weight of something – anything – for me to bear a piece of you. Draw near in some fashion, beyond these whimsies and conjecture, for this appetite will not be satiated with trinkets or toys. Put skin upon your flock and multiply their numbers; time their rhythm with mine, for I crave some companionship, this day, of the supernatural sort.

Bring tension to this story, I beg; release some rising action that will at once invite resolution and a looming epilogue to cap this enduring, timeless struggle.

I am crushed into the realization that my humanity, more often that not, bears no resemblance to that which you intended. I should daily die but, instead, every other day perhaps, I grasp and claw and fight my way into my will of living, the very resolve that is manmade, centric focused, self-fulfilling.

Reveal yourself to me once more, for I’m thrashing about beneath these wanderings and taunted endlessly by one who hides you from me. Offer peace to these members and calm to this spirit; cocoon me away in your infinite reality, for musings of the human sort render no such comfort.

I am tired. I am beaten. My eyes grow weary and blurred; my breathing becomes labored at times. My legs are heavy as I climb the stairs toward something, anything, above and beyond this moment.

I watch as the chapters of this story reach their glorious heights only when I realize quite shockingly that I am not the Author. Yes, surprisingly, you do a much better job than someone such as me, with my feeble existence, my limited tolerance, my pathetic shell. Even as I write this, I plead for something, anything to help me describe you.

Help me depict you, because as it is, my mind bounces this way and that as I cower at the thought of you. My writing is sporadic, stunted, all over the place, yet nowhere as I try to capture you, as I search to contain you.

As I get out my bucket and shovel and begin to work on my sand castle, you form a mountain with your bare hands. While I retrieve my crayons and my construction paper, you sweep your fingers across the sky and make a prism of color unlike any other. While I blow hot air, you breathe into the wind and engulf me into your embrace. While I puff on my horn and beat my drums, you summon nature to cascade and ripple and resound with the harmony of the ages.

You shock me, beckon me, and pull me by the ear. You embrace me, tap me on the shoulder, smack me on the bottom to get in the game. You place your hand on the small of my back, or turn me to face you. You stand in front of me, beside me, shield me, and nurture me. You even get out of my way.

You give me a free will to sin and so I do. But as one sin falls on top of another and they multiply and grow arms and legs and tentacles you never stop taking me back. I am wounded, limping for a lifetime, in fact, but there you are, down the road, on one knee, weeping as I run toward you. You’re so happy that I’m back. I run so fast to you that I knock you over when I get there, and we laugh.

Your lap is imminently ready to be crawled into, your chest large and comfortable to lay my head. You sit at my table, occupy my grief, and circumvent my catastrophes.

But I can’t mistake you for any other. No, I dare not try because you will deafen with thunder and you will rebuild kingdoms and you will not trifle with sin. Yours is a mighty fist attached to a muscular arm that keeps this planet in motion. I shudder at the reality that you are.

I try to capture the beauty of you, but no frame can contain you.

Your love is overwhelming, nearly as vast as you are. You prepare and execute a cosmic change in plans and summon your own beautiful Son to walk this earth and ride through my imagination. To fix a horrible mess that in mankind; a horrific mess that is me.

Then you turn your back on him. You reject him, your first and only born; your beloved Son, yes, just for me.

So, as I write this, I am tired and I am beaten, but oh! how thankful, how awestruck I should be!

I was not meant to prop myself up, to cling to artificiality, to pigeonhole my way, I was not designed to muscle out of this box. I am fearfully and wonderfully made and I must – yes, today I must – find my weakness made strong in all that you are.

So throw back the curtains, let the light pierce the corners! Smack the space rugs and let me watch the dust cascade and tumble into the cleansing wind. Unshackle the back porch and invite in the subtle and benign breezes. Take off the storm door of this heart and soul and hang the wind chimes once again to perform their dance, to find their part in this great orchestra.

Unfold and unravel me! Search me deep within. Turn me upside down. Find me unholy, unworthy, unabashed; and take every square inch and reconfigure me.

Reshape and retool me. Sweep away the cobwebs of bitterness, indecision, judgment and pride. Forgive in me the dusty shadows of winter, the cold and frost-covered center of my being.

Transform me to your design so that I can join in the rapture of the season.


(All emphases are the original author's)

an attentive lover's gaze...

Aaahhh... autumn! It's like the world expands once a year, giving everyone a little more room to stretch out and become more themselves. I wear autumn like a favorite oversized sweatshirt; it wraps around me and it's comfortable and familiar, like coming home. I stretch out in it, lounge in it, grow into it. Or I wear it like the glow caused by an attentive lover's gaze, basking in it. It's like a lover's embrace; I abandon myself to it but yet find more of myself in it.

I read once that in autumn the trees blush in reaction to their Creator's adoration. And I would say I know how they feel. It's during this time of year when I feel most beautiful and most alive. When I'm out on a crisp sunny fall day and the sunlight hits me it's as if God himself, or the light of his love and pursuit of me, is shining down on me, illuminating only my very best and most beautiful parts - all my colored leaves. And then in a gesture of gratitude I offer all those parts back to him so he can make something even more extravagant out of them. I see myself the way God sees me and I know I am absolutely radiant.

I feel seen, truly noticed, in these months right before the coldest part of the year. I was out hiking a couple days ago and was wearing the glow on my cheeks when a handsome man passed me. He didn't just look at me; he saw me. And yes, there's a difference. He noticed my beauty. I could tell by the way he looked at me (and no, it wasn't a creepy guy leering at me either). It was affirmation. It was revealing something to me that I had been pondering on every autumn for years: What is it about this time of year that makes me feel so different? God spoke to me in that one look. I wasn't imagining it; even his daughter asked, "What was that look about?" I didn't hear his response partly because I didn't need to, partly because he passed me going the other direction, and partly because I was in conversation with God, thanking him for shedding light on me and teaching me something about myself that had long been a mystery. I notice you and, from where I sit and in this light, I cannot take my eyes away from you. The trees in their full autumn splendor do not compare to your glory.

I felt like Moses, I wanted to take off my shoes. But instead I took off my sweatshirt to let a little more of that light and truth get in.

shaking violently at the bars: part two

Again, I ask: Where would I start if I were to do so? Perhaps here: with the beauty and mystery of suffering.

I have come to realize through the many trials and sufferings that I have encountered that there, indeed, is a certain beauty and illuminating mystery to be appreciated. I have begun to learn to welcome suffering instead of fight it. The experience is richer that way for me, more vivid and full of wonder. More like teachable moments than like moments I want to push away from as though in a canoe pushing away from a predator on the banks and into the middle of a placid lake where life on shore can't reach me and, therefore, I sit unchanged and unaffected, unmoved. That's not the kind of journey I want.

I want the desert because I know that on the other side of this wandering is a promised land, something good and miraculous, abundantly flowing with proverbial milk and honey. The best part about this is that it's been promised to me. I want to be broken by God, as Israel was in the book of Hosea, so that only he can put me back together again. I want to be pruned so that I might bear much fruit. I want to be weak so that God's power might be made perfect in me. I want to live without pretense, and to live forward instead of backward; to have life more abundant.

For now, though, there's a certain sweet melancholy that gently holds my heart. Certain because it's one of the truest things I feel right now. Sweet the way watching a favorite sad movie over and over is sweet. And melancholy because that's the only way I know to describe it.

You see, I feel as though life for me right now is a bunch of paradoxes, a set of contradictions. I want to be known and seen but on the other hand I am still afraid to be known and seen. And I am also afraid to not be known and seen. I want to be as real to someone as the velveteen rabbit was to the boy, that real and yet not be a toy or a game. I want to build new relationships but a lot of the time I feel like being alone. And I want to let go of friendships that no longer are uplifting, but I'm afraid of not having new ones. I want to write because I feel there's something in me to be revealed, even if just for my benefit. But I'm afraid of my words. What will they reveal once they've been written? Will I want to take them all back? What will I come to understand about myself? About others? About God? What if there is something powerful in me waiting to be said? Will I be ready for that kind of responsibility, that kind of change? Mature enough to handle it? Or worse yet, what if I write and write and write and it reveals nothing new to me? There's nothing I have to say that hasn't already been said in a different way, perhaps using different words? What if I come to the end of it and I am unchanged? Will I be able to handle that far worse scenario? Would I be secure enough in my faith? What if I write and find I don't have much to say and that the feelings I have now were just wishful thinking and the result is nonsensical or incoherent? I want to write and I feel like a writer. But then other times I feel like a phony, like the words won't come out and I end up forcing them.

I want to love with reckless abandon but not lose myself. I want to give myself to my family - especially to those that I know won't be here much longer - but don't want to be hurt again. I long to go back to the places that meant so much to me in my childhood. It's as if there are secrets there that are whispering to me to come home, memories there to be unearthed. But how foolish might I feel if I go and find no secrets, unearth no memories? I want to set boundaries in my relationships but I look back and see that nearly all the boundaries I set in the past became walls that kept people people out or, at least, kept them from getting too close - close enough to hurt me. But they did anyway. I'm afraid of history repeating itself.

I need to trust myself with these things. More than that, I need to trust God with these things. I feel it is essential for my growth. What I somehow am capable of betraying myself? I knwo that can't stay where I am and also move forward. It has to be one or the other and I know that the one isn't getting me anywhere. I am tired but pushing off with my back foot in the starting block and waiting for the "On your mark! Get set!" and then the BANG of the gun. I am resting but persevering and enduring. I am a little melancholy but full of hope and wonder too.

Where is this narrow road leading me? Where will this desert take me, into what new promised land? What will these now blank pages reveal at the end? How will I have changed? Will I have fully and completely trusted God through the process? I am not strong enough to do this. No. But I do know that God is. And his power is made perfect in my weakness.

i am...

like the seasons, always changing;
a glance worth exchanging.
pieces left broken;
words left unspoken.
a dance left undanced;
captive of circumstance.
dreams left unrealized;
the one no one ever looks in the eyes.
i am hurt not grieved,
air not breathed.
an unsolved mystery,
a chapter in this history.
the lines in her face,
that time can't erase.
perfectly flawed,
a pursuer of the one true god.
the hand that no one ever holds;
i'm undiscovered gold.
as real as the rabbit was to the boy,
though i am no toy.
a friend you've never met;
so much more than my regrets.
a chance left untaken;
the heart that you're breaking.
a truth yet untold;
a beauty to unfold.
freedom undiscovered;
grace undercover.
courage not yet tested;
heart not fully vested.
life to inhale;
love to unveil.
the rhythm and the rhyme
if you can find the time.
the music that is played
and the prayer that is prayed
on a sunday morning
from the pew you're adorning.
a tapestry woven with colored threads;
the words my FATHER said.
hot as a burning flame;
the wild yet untamed.
but gentle as a flower;
patient as the seconds in an hour.
room enough to grow,
light enough to glow,
and smart enough to know:
that i'm not only what you want me to be,
i am... me!

becoming recklessly his...

I knew things would be vastly different from that point on. I didn’t know how much at the time but I felt a shift, even if it was only slight. My whole life had been building up to that moment and it was over and the decision was made just like that. I didn’t know why or how it would happen; I only knew that God wanted this for me and he had placed the desire in my heart for a reason. I was moving to Alaska to go to school.

Every summer growing up my family would head for the mountains of Colorado for a week or two of vacation. We never went to the ocean; I was 19 before I ever saw the ocean; but the trip to the mountains was always one last hoorah before my sisters and I would head back to school. I loved the mountains: those mighty, majestic peaks rising out of the ground in the way that I thought Neptune might rise out of the ocean, confident and bold holding his trident yet mysterious and magic at the same time; the pungent smell of pine, that I could almost taste, permeating the crisp, clean air. They always seemed to call to me, never audibly, of course, but spiritually and emotionally I was drawn to them. It didn’t matter how many times we went, every time we would go I would pass the time trying to be patient, trying not to ask, “Are we there yet?” too many times. And then about 9 hours after our departure I would be on the lookout for the peaks in the distance: purple, and sometimes white too, blips in the sky that might look like clouds if you didn’t know any better, but I always did.

We would hike and play, rest, feed the chipmunks, watch the eagles on the tops of mountains, watch the hummingbirds outside the A-frame cabin, pick wildflowers, have bonfires, shop, explore, go down the Alpine slide over and over again, eat lavish foods, talk, laugh, cry, and hug and love there. It was family in all the ways we weren’t when we were at home. Dad was never as angry and Mom was never as sick while we were there. Looking back, maybe that’s why I loved it so much, because it brought a little slice of heaven into our family even if it was just temporary. I always felt safe and peace; they provided a refuge for me.

School would be starting soon with its halls scented with scotch tape, old books, and lead pencils and subtle undertones of angst thrown in. If I thought knowledge could smell like something, it would be scotch tape and books and lead pencils: rich with possibilities and imagination. I loved school but never seemed to excel at it except in reading. By third grade I was reading at the 11th and 12th grade reading levels. I liked learning and took comfort in this idea that for those 8 hours a day I wasn’t getting beaten by a belt or whipped with words that ripped apart my very identity, like I did at home. When I was at school I could be anything I wanted to be and not be scared that I might get ridiculed for choosing wrong. And for a while, at least, it challenged my dad’s convictions that I was stupid and worthless and dumb. Before long though, I began to believe that what he said was true: I must be stupid and worthless and dumb since I am doing so poorly. It never occurred to me that I was doing poorly because of what he told me and he told me those things because I was doing poorly. It was a cycle, one I couldn’t seem to break.

Time went on and I graduated from high school finally making the honor roll the last semester of my senior year. I worked mostly and took classes here and there over the next few years accumulating 27 credit hours between community college and the University of Kansas. Then I quit school altogether and focused on work thinking I could save up money to eventually go back once I figured out what it was God wanted me to do. I would start a job and love it and then after a year or so, I would get bored and quit, start a new job and love it and then after a year or so, I would get bored and quit. I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with where I was and who I was becoming, or not becoming rather, and the way my life had worked out up to that point. I couldn’t help this feeling that there was something more out there for me. I was unfulfilled and hungry with desire for adventure that I denied because of fear of failure, my father’s rejection or disapproval, and in some ways my own fear of succeeding. I told myself “Once I get married I will move away to Colorado” and then “Once I get financially secure I will move away.” The ideas progressed into all-out unhappiness. Depression. Countless sleepless nights. Sporadic forays into superficial happiness permeated throughout with unhealthy relationships. Last summer while reading Seizing Your Divine Moment and Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Heart, something within me was stirred. Adventure was calling me and I could hear it loud and clear. I was suddenly aware that my life had become a downward spiral into a search for meaning and value that I knew I could only get in one place: immersing myself in an authentic environment where I could dive into God and submerge myself in his love and grace for me. I needed to learn, to study, to exercise my spirit and indulge my mind. I wanted a clean slate, a new start, to be where nobody knew my name or the history that came with it.

At that time I had been meeting regularly with a small group of girls that provided me with some honest feedback, some of it friendly and some of it not so much, but all of it needed. One Sunday afternoon last August we were gathered together and one of them said, “You really need to be actively pursuing this dream of yours to live in Colorado. What’s keeping you here? Nothing! So why are you still here?” I knew she was right and that it was out of love but I was offended. I went home and thought about what she said. I went to bed that night and, yet again, laid there wide awake wrestling with God and myself. And then at 2:15am, out of nowhere, I remembered going to Alaska to visit my dad a few years ago on this little college campus that barely had 20 students and no money at the time. I remembered the scenery taking my breath away. Alaska Christian College. Alaska Christian College. The thought wouldn’t leave me so I rose from my bed and went to the computer and half-heartedly pulled up their website thinking it was just a silly pipedream.

I thought about the idea of making Alaska my home. I knew I had loved Alaska while I was there, it was so beautiful – more so than Colorado – but so far away. The more I thought about it and prayed about it, the more at peace I was with the idea. I went to bed and slept soundly through the night for the first time in a long time. I woke the next morning feeling hope and promise that something might be waiting for me. I went to work and logged into the website again and sent a quick “request for information” on the electronic form explaining that I was the daughter of one of their staff members from a few years back, that I was interested in information about the school, any scholarships I could receive, etc… I had little hope of anything happening since it was already mid-August and school would be starting soon. Maybe Spring semester but more than likely it would be next Fall. Leaving so soon would be irresponsible and reckless. I didn’t have money. I didn’t have a job. How would I pay for school? What would I do for transportation? But it became obvious that God had a very different plan for me. By the end of the day I had received an email back from the admissions director at the school saying that he remembered my dad and that there was still space available and if I applied right away I could have my room and board covered with scholarships. I started crying there at my desk on the 5th floor of the office building in the pretentious part of downtown where I should have been earning my $40k/year by updating the database and making travel arrangements. Instead I sat there with a box of Kleenex in my hands and prayers of thanksgiving in my heart. They were tears of joy.

I emailed my friends, including the girls in the small group, and called my family telling them what had transpired overnight and of the adventure that could be waiting for me. I filled out the paperwork and faxed it back first thing the next morning. By Tuesday night I had received a phone call welcoming me to Alaska Christian College and that I had to be there in a week and 2 days. I called my family and told them first and it meant so much that they were all very supportive of me. Then I headed out to celebrate with friends. Change was underway; I already felt transformed somehow. We all shed some tears but mostly we laughed and reminisced about the memories we had made together over the last 13 years. Arrangements were made for going-away parties that Saturday night with friends and Sunday afternoon with family. I am still surprised at how calm I was, how much I felt at peace with the whole thing. It was almost like I was performing in a play about someone else’s life but yet I was conscious that this was happening to me, that this was my life. It was strange.

The next morning I had to tell my boss. I was nervous about it at first, like you might be nervous if you were afraid of telling your parents that you suddenly met someone, were getting married and moving to Africa or something. But I prayed and asked God to direct me and to open my boss’s heart. I went in to his office and told him I needed to talk to him and shut the door. He looked at me worriedly and said, “Okay, have a seat.” I sat and told him all about what had happened over the few days immediately prior to that and that I was leaving in a little over a week for Alaska and that I needed to give him only 2 days notice as opposed to the corporately preferred 2 weeks. He smiled as he looked at me and said, “You know, this reminds me of the time that God told Abram to leave Ur in Genesis.” My jaw dropped to the floor in shock. We had never really discussed Christianity or our individual beliefs during my tenure there but in the back of my mind I had somewhat of an inkling that he might be Christian. Then he told me that it’s obviously God’s call on my life to go to Alaska and that I certainly can’t ignore that. He was genuinely excited for me. Then he floored me again by working it out so that I got my 10 days of vacation and that I could get my check early in order to make preparations for the move. His support and encouragement was just another affirmation that this was from God.

The next week was a fury of chaos and making arrangements and packing. I had to be sure to see all the friends I needed to see, the ones that couldn’t make it to any of the going-away parties and the ones that have meant the most to me. But I pulled it off only with God’s strength and determination and help.

Thursday, August 26th my best friend took me to the airport and sat with me the 2 hours while I waited to board the plane. She cried and I told her how I excited I was and how at peace I was with the whole thing. I assured her that I knew God was in this and that it was something I had needed for so long – an adventure involving the mind, body, and heart. The announcement was made that they would start boarding for my flight. We embraced and 14 years of memories and love came rushing over me. I broke down; not because I was scared of going to Alaska, but because I was scared of leaving her behind. She had been a constant in a world of change and pain, she had been a rock for me. I told her how much I loved her and valued her friendship and that nothing, not even 4000 miles of distance between us, could change that. And I boarded the plane.

That night or the next morning rather, at about 12:35am, we were making our final descent into Anchorage. My heart smiled and my face reflected that with upturned lips, pearly whites, and hope. I was starting the rest of my life and I knew that this beautiful state, that three years ago I had spent a week in, would soon feel like home for me. I could see the Cook Inlet off to the West and the midnight city lights to the East. Then I saw the soft silhouette of the mountains off in the distance. Yes, it already did feel like home.

Now, more than a year and a half later, as I sit staring out the window at the heavy blanket of snow, I think about each individual snowflake that it took to create such a beautiful scene. And I think about the God who, with a breath brought the seasons into existence and told the snowflakes to fall here one upon the other, each adding to the beauty of the last in retrospect. And now I am thinking Isn’t that a lot like life? All the moments of the past, each uniquely breathtaking in their individual ways, add up to one amazing, resplendent picture of God’s awesome design and his love for me and the many ways he has blessed me since I have been here. Every moment of my past has been preparing me, leading me, drawing me closer to this present. Hosea 2:6-7 says, “Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’”

My days of being walled in are over, as are the days of being blocked by thorn bushes of fear and self-doubt. I had tried to find love and value in all the wrong things and therefore, had not found it. Until now. I have returned to my husband as at first. And as in Hosea 2:14, he has allured to me and has led me into the desert where he speaks tenderly and softly to my heart. In a recent phone conversation with my dad, with whom I have experienced a great deal of healing, he said, “Since you’ve been in Alaska you have become more yourself than you have ever been in your life. Your heart is alive and you are radiant.” Yes, it was reckless but then isn’t there something dangerously attractive about being reckless for God? After all, isn’t he a little dangerous himself? I have learned to become recklessly His. Yes. Things are indeed different now and I would not have it any other way.