Infinitely Distractible

My parents own a small law firm in Bangor. It is family-owned and family-run. Every one of my siblings has worked there, at least in high school if not longer. Although I do not work there full-time, I am number one on the fill-in list. With the snow storm keeping one employee away and the rest scheduled to be moving my grandfather to a nicer apartment, the office fell to me today.

So what is it about a blank legal pad and a gel pen that seems to invite adventure? Oh how much more I would rather be writing a short-story on that pad then doing homework or Rebirth-work! I guess I am strange that way. Certain inanimate objects juts seem to cry out with their mystical properties. The other day it was my brother and sister-in-law’s new apartment (still empty and just rented) that seemed to sing to me with its magic. Seeing wonder in the normal is what makes me a writer, I guess, but it is also what makes me so infinitely distractible!

The uncertain, certain future

I often get frusterated that I never know what’s coming. Columbia International University one semester, Husson the next, a semester off, and then Nyack–only to find I’m graduating early (hallejuiah). So despite all the disaster that has pretty much changed every plan I ever made, I’m ahead of schedule. That’s God.

I can’t always understand my God or His plans, and yet through every doubting season of my life, things have come out better His way. My God is the God who when man wrecked the life He wanted us to live in Eden, He promised a Savior. My God is the God who gave His life to offer us everything. My God is the God that moves seas and persevered the Dead Sea Scrolls. That’s my God. And if my future is uncertain to me, I know I can trust it to the God Who did all that.

I wondered sometimes if it was just that I was young that kept God from making the next few months, let alone a few years, clear to me. After all, most college students change their majors several times before they graduate, so maybe that was it. Or maybe I just didn’t have the kind of faith that would allow me to keep going if I knew the future. My mom often says that no one would start a business if they knew how hard it was going to be. After starting one, I agree. But as I’m reading through 1st Timothy, I see a different story emerge. Chapter 3,verses 14-15, tells a different story, “Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ough to conduct themsevles in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”

Paul was planning and hoping to come to Timothy, but he recognized that he did not know what was going to happen. Even Paul faced immense uncertainty. The guy who wrote so much of the New Testament. The guy who was called by Christ personally. The guy who planted churches and preached the saving message to souls. That guy, didn’t know what was coming.

So what did he do? He planned, he acted on those plans, but he also made a back-up plan that would carry on his responsibilities if those plans changed. That wasn’t a lack of faith. He did his duty and trusted God with the rest. I guess I keep coming back to that charge from the missionary: do what you can and let God take care of the rest. However many times I bang my forehead into walls I want to smash through, whatever my future holds, and as immensly uncertain as the next day may seem, I’m going to live honoring my responsibilites, making plans, and trusting God to work everything out.

Super-hearing

I have the pleasure of sitting with my nephews at the moment. The little one has been so cuddly today and the big one is full of “I love you”s. Since my doctor’s appointment was canceled, I got to wake up with coffee and sleepy morning talk with my sister-in-law. Her family spent the night since they were going to spend the day anyway.

Strange dreams come out of having little people in the house. I haven’t quite figured how to turn off my super-hearing when the kids I love are around (which I’m sure will come in handy if I’m ever a mother). This allows for a lot of noises to become part of my dreams. I wish you could have seen the architecture I created last night, or experienced the strangeness of the conspiracy I still wish I could understand!

Good things are beginning to come out of the calls we have made to Virginia. Two schools are booked and a third is close. We have some other leads too. It will make a good, if shorter than anticipated, test run for book touring. I love speaking so I am so excited to get these opportunities, and, of course, get to see my friends in VA. If you have any school or church contacts in Virginia, let me know!

She does what she can and lets God do the rest

My new method of Scripture reading forces me to slow down, which is not something I am gifted at. It is helping me to really understand the Bible in a new way. If only a temporary solution to train my mind to focus better, it is a good thing for me to do right now.

Yesterday as I was reading, I was having trouble really getting into the first ten verses and I began wondering if my method was faulty somehow. But by the time I got to the later part of the chapter, the base God had revealed to me made the second half become so much more alive! It’s also very helpful to be able to review my key notes from previous readings and see where my mind has developed in only a week.

So what am I learning? Well, Sunday at a church in New York I heard a young missionary say that she was learning to do what she could and let God do the rest. Like her, I am an over-achiever who thinks that if I’m not accomplishing something I just need to try harder–even if I’ve already pounded my head against the wall a few dozen times. This comes in real handy sometimes and at other times can become destructive as I focus on my strength and not so much on God’s. So my new reminder to myself is to do everything I can in His strength, but then rest and let God work. What beautiful grace we have to live that way!

New York City. Round 2.

This weekend I got invited to accompany my sister Kate and my mom to New York to spend some quality time with my sister Julie and, oh yeah, see the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yippee! I worked like a mad-woman until 2 on Thursday when I jumped in the car. Then I had about four hours of homework to do on the way down. Once I got to Julie’s house at 10:45, I had to search for a citation and load it to my school website. Of course, I couldn’t connect to the internet where I was because my computer didn’t like their router. Julie lent me her laptop. I rapidly got my homework done and submitted it a half an hour before the deadline. Yes, I did.

School was pretty much just a back drop after that and the girl weekend took over. I inflated my air mattress in my usual spot and desperately searched for shoes at the Palisades Mall. See, a fracture-where my fracture is-makes certain shoes (all of mine) hard to get on my foot. With hours of walking in the city ahead of me I figured I could make out with my flats. And then the snow came. At 8:30 at night, Kate got it into her head that we should do round 2 of shoe shopping so we hit Target and Payless and struck out. I managed my boots quite well in snowy NY City and my fracture is only slightly more swollen. Well worth it for what I got to see!

We almost didn’t make it to the city. The snow was so bad and several cars were off the road. Julie had studded snow tires and prayerfully, we made it into the city just as the snow stopped. From there, we went straight to the Discovery Museum where the scrolls were hosted in a dynamic presentation. All those years of studying Scripture and the half a year at Bible college I used to connect the dots the secular museum left out. The scrolls were so beautiful, so intricately written.

There were some elements of a video presentation they had that just made my eyes widen. The original team working on the scrolls had used Scotch Tape to put the many pieces together and had smoked while doing it. There were some facts that made me shiver too. Well worth the $30 we paid. After that, we got a great burger at a busy place and shopped around Times Square. It was good to be with family!

Jeremiah… the follow-up

The other day’s post was about my article and Jeremiah’s fire, as described by Sarah Groves. I could not help but comment further. I’ve included the lyrics at the bottom of this posting.

“The burning of ambition and desire, it never could come close, to that fire…” Seriously, these lines rock. We focus so much in our culture on achieving our dreams, on falling in love, on our desires and ambitions. For an entrepreneur like me, ambition is a big deal. Yet the focus of Jeremiah 20:9 and the song is on the fire God placed in Jeremiah’s heart, a fire God can place in each of us. And nothing comes close to it. My fire has made me different, changed my life and goals significantly, but it is like nothing else!

“I was looking to myself, and I forgot the power of God…” There have been times when ‘my success’ made me forget the might of God. Oh the tragedy of this! No more, no more!

“I was caught up in this vice, and its power to entice…” Vices. We all have them. They captivate, but they can cost us that fire and they pale in comparison to it.

“I was dwelling on my hopelessness and doubt…” Oh how often I have missed out, or crouched in fear because I refused the hope of God and focused on my doubts. 1st Timothy 1:1 (the Scripture I studied so intensely on that first night) says, “Christ Jesus our hope.” So there is no reason to be hopeless, for Christ is our hope. Hallelujah!

The bridge really sticks the points. How many of us live with ‘little light of mine’ instead of letting God blow our flicker into flame? No more! No more! I want to stop being the embers of what God has for me and be the fire. Oh God, do this in me!

Chorus: “Jeremiah tell me about the fire. That burns up in your bones. I want to know. I want to know more now. The burning of ambition and desire. It never could come close. To that fire. To that fire.”

Verse 1: “I was looking to myself. And I forgot the power of God. I was standing with a sparkler in my hand. While I stood so proud and profound. You went and burned the whole place down. Now that’s a fire.”

Verse 2: “I was caught up in this vice. And it’s power to entice. I was dwelling on my hopelessness and doubt. With the slightest invitation. You came with total detonation. Now that’s a fire.”

Bridge: “I was warming my hands by this little light of mine. “But now I know it’s time. Time to come in from the cold. Fight fire with fire. Come fan the flame. Come stir up these coals in my soul. In my soul. ‘Till it burns out of control.”

Cold-calling and almost-siblings

I spent Wednesday morning cold-calling schools in Virginia, attempting to set up speaking engagements while I’m there in February. There is little that scares me more than putting myself forward like that. But without effort the books’ booming success in Maine will never reach beyond. And I have messages that I must share!

So I called school after school, sometimes getting nice people willing to listen, sometimes getting busy people just trying to get me off the phone. At the end of the day I had left a whole lot of messages and had instructions to email more people. My energy was gone. But I had the pleasure of my almost-siblings’ company that very night when our parents went out to dinner. We watched Tangled, ’cause we’re all so grown up… The great thing about siblings is that you don’t have to see them very often to know how to hang out, and that’s how it was as we munched on our stuffed-crust-pizza…

My article

Over the years since God began to call me to Rebirth Publishing, and speaking, and writing (an ever-developing call), I have had times when the point of my fight seemed hazy. Right before I got diagnosed with chosto chondrites last year was one of the worst. I didn’t know why my drive was gone, for I didn’t recognize that it was pain. Yet God held on to me and walked me–carried me–through my desire to quit. I’m so glad He did!

At a later point, I was recommitted, but maybe not as passionate as I once had been. I wanted that crazy passion from the beginning back. There is this Sarah Groves song where she sings, “Jeremiah tell me ’bout the fire that burns up in your bones”. This derives from Jeremiah 20:9 which says, “But if I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in His name,’ His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” I asked God to put a fire like that in my heart for purity, for youth, for whatever He wanted to have a fire for. I was the type of kid that started teaching Sunday School when I was in first grade because even then I was incredibly passionate and wanted to fight with God for His infinitely superior will. I missed that child-like faith and I asked God to grant me that fire again.

Well, He responded during the time I was taking this amazing English class. What came out of the class and the fire was a well-backed up and researched, six page evaluation of why God calls all of us–especially writers–to purity. It is certainly fiery, not holding anything back and with everything followed or prefaced by Scripture. It speaks and challenges the truth, a truth that I can not hold in. I let it rest for a few months, then pick it back up, because I know the backlash my feisty article will receive. I know that it needs to be at the professional level. I know that God is developing my concepts. But is near completion now. Yesterday, for the first time, I shared it with my mother. I got a “Preach it!” reaction and she’s ready to begin the final editing process, sure that it needs to be out there.

Well, my own article inspired me, and reminded me, and encouraged me to hold to my value of purity and my sincere love of God. I haven’t had this full-bodied passion for a long time. Out of that passion came a desire to understand Scripture better, so I tried a more intense devotional method last night–one recommended to me before but rarely used. I read a passage, then read the verses again individually, then wrote out my verse by verse learnings, then my total learnings, then my main points. It took a long time to get through eleven verses, but I learned so much! So if my article doesn’t inspire anyone else, at least it inspired me!

Here’s what Sarah has to say about Jeremiah (it’s only two minutes, so you can handle the research): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5y9OeYrusI

A lovely shade of purple

I’ve picked two people up on as many days from as many airports. It’s good for the local college friends to be back. Yesterday I got to go to the sports arena with them. I didn’t bowl but I had a great time socializing!

Friday night my phone-in the kitchen-rang and I leapt to answer it. I rounded a corner too quickly and rammed my frozen foot into the doorpost. The pain was crazy because, as we all know, frozen parts always hurt way worse. I thought I was just being a wimp until I showed my foot to my mother Sunday night. It was fractured. Yep, that’s right, I managed to fracture my foot. It doesn’t hurt as long as I stay off of it, and only a little when I use it. By far not my worst injury, but my foot is a lovely shade of purple!

I am the grandpa oger…

There’s a grate on the far side of my room that carries the sounds of the dining room directly to my ears. Sitting at my desk, I can hear as well as if I was actually below in the dining room. So as I’m trying to do homework yesterday I hear three loud stomps and a deep, grumbly voice crying, “I am the Grandpa Oger and I need two little boys with swords to come and beat me.” Um, my family rocks.

My father told my brother stories of Prince Valiant–the most brave and heroic knight in the land. And those stories still hold my brother to a code of honor and a love of knighthood. My nephews know exactly what to do with their foam swords if their father calls out “Chop” or “Stab” or “Defend”. And now (thanks to a Christmas gift), he can share the stories of Prince Val with his sons, who were all to glad to lunge at my father crying “Attack!”

Stories have a powerful effect on people–more than you might imagine. Prince Valiant inspired my brother. My elder nephew’s favorite story is of David and Goliath. I dare not begin a list of books that have become a part of me. For even fictional tales become a part of who we are and who we strive to be. So what stories have affected you?