From the Apple to the Tree

How fitting that Whitney Houston’s ‘I Believe In You And Me’ should be playing while I write this. My mom and I love The Preacher’s Wife (and Whitney Houston in general). In fact, my mom helped me “choreograph” some arm motions to Whitney’s The Bodyguard classic, ‘I Have Nothing’, when I chose to sing it in the fifth grade talent* show.

However, this is not a post about what my mom has done for me (such as choreographing arm motions). It’s not one because there simply isn’t enough time or words to aptly list it all. And I wasn’t very present-of-mind for all of those young-little-lass-Andrea years, and she probably did a lot for me then too. MAYBE. (#sarcasm.)

If any part of me is a good apple, it is because my mom is a mighty fine tree. She worked the night shift in the E.R. for so many years while my brothers and I were growing up because she was determined not to let someone else raise her kids. She and my dad made enormous sacrifices in order to make that life work.

She’s also my “Aaron” when I’m facing a battle and I need to be lifted up in prayer.  When I’m heading on a flight into turbulent winds, I know she’s on the ground already in contact with “air traffic control.” (Read: Jesus). She fasts and prays for me continually. She fasts from a meal each week and prays for my future husband, which she has for years now ( — and I’m all, “Mom! Eat a sandwich already!”)

She’s the hardest working mom I know. And she’s smart as a whip – but she’ll never make you feel dumb. I’ve never seen it happen once. I don’t know how many lives she’s actually saved over the years, but I’m overwhelmed by the thought of how many families’ lives are forever changed because of her intervention. She is equipped to do great things and has been doing those things her whole life.

My mom is a servant. She’s gone to the Dominican Republic and to Zambia (Africa) to minister to the physical and spiritual needs of people in dire poverty.

My mom is intrepid; strong and courageous. There’s really no succinct way to summarize the physical agony my mom has endured the past few years (after her mastectomy from breast cancer). There’s no way to describe it in any sort of “general” way that would do it any justice. Sometimes when I think of all she has gone through, I can hardly catch my breath.

What I can say is she continues to endure, by the grace of her even stronger God. And she’s been working all throughout it. While she was getting chemotherapy, she was also completing her masters online. Again, she is intrepid.

I know she longs to be released from this seemingly never-ending-story of pain, and we all want that for her. The fact that God allows some of his cherished and most obedient sons and daughters to experience the greatest suffering is a mystery I just don’t think we’ll understand this side of Heaven. And I will pause to remind her now that despairing isn’t just a sin but simply a mistake. Only God knows the end of our individual stories. We just need to keep holding on to Him. Our enemy never tires in offering us the lie of despair as the “death-thought du jour”.

And God still has good plans for her.

Though I’m much quirkier than she (I’ve watched a lot more TV over the years), my mom can be goofy too. She loves to dance – and of my parents, that’s definitely who I get it from! And we both love sparkly things – though I think she prefers gold and I still prefer silver.

The list goes on and on. But all I know is that my mom is a continual source of inspiration and strength for me. She’s managed to raise three God-fearing responsible adult children, most likely because she and my dad have been on their knees in prayer every single day. I don’t know how they did it. But someday I’ll want to know how to be half as good a mom as she.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I’m happy to be an apple from your tree.

– Andrea

*Unfortunately for you, dear reader, this footage does not yet reside on the YouTubes.

Beauty & Power

What’s the point of feminine beauty? Rather, what’s the point of a beauty that’s impotent (without strength)? If beauty does not move you to action, if it doesn’t make a wave, if it has no apparent effect, then what is the point?

I guess my real question is: what’s the point of embodying objective beauty if it does nothing to you? Beauty isn’t something to be acknowledged clinically and then casually passed by. If you say I’m captivating but you’re not captivated, your words are hollow and meaningless to me. Apart from evidences of that reality, the words make a mockery of the reality to which they point. So what are we left with? Living contradictory truths. It feels not quite like being cast into a cellar (though we all have those days) but moreso like being eclipsed in plain sight, like being stuck behind glass.

But then again, who am I to judge? If you go to an art gallery, you may view paintings whose objective beauty you can identify but whose power doesn’t touch you. We are not all moved by the same things. And I know that’s okay.

But if I’m honest – and I am – there are few things more keenly frustrating and confounding than having beauty but realizing it doesn’t matter. At least not in the way you want it to.

I saw Memoirs of a Geisha in the movie theater just once when it first came out. There’s a scene where they talk about how the true test of beauty – being truly captivating – is being able to cast down a man just with one look of your eyes. It’s phenomenal. They say, “The very word geisha means ‘artist*’, and to be a geisha means to be judged as a moving work of art.”

That’s what we want. So often I settle for being amusing when I really just want to be the muse. I want someone who can recognize the poetry of me.

And there’s really nothing to be done about it. As quoted in Desiring God’s Will by David Benner, psychoanalyst Leslie Farber notes, “I can will knowledge, but not wisdom: going to bed, but not sleeping: meekness, but not humility; scrupulosity, but not virtue; self-assertion or bravado, but not courage; lust, but not love; commiseration, but not sympathy; congratulations, but not admiration; religiosity, but not faith.” You can no more make someone recognize your beauty or fall in love with you than you can make them fall asleep^. You can only create the conditions for these things to take place.  Even at the end of what can only be accurately described as veiled manipulation and self-marketing, you live empty-handed of the perception and openness of others.

Perhaps that’s the crux of the issue: powerlessness. We find ourselves subjected daily not to the naming or unnaming of beauty (we are not waiting for it to be bestowed by others) but rather the perception and calling forth its pre-existing reality. That’s the dissonance. If we have gotten past the first hurdle of believing in its truth, we must round the bend and reclaim the truth even when it seems impotent.

It’s like being told you have a great voice but never being asked to sing. What’s the point of possessing the ability then never filling the room with your sound? Beauty is the same way. Beauty is resounding! It’s meant to make waves. It’s meant to awaken us. It’s meant to invite us deeper into life.

There’s something so soul-killing about living the mystery of a reality whose power is – as I can only guess – not ready to be made manifest.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it’s hard. It’s hard to live what can feel like a silent beauty. A beauty behind glass. I want to hear its sound. I would almost rather be passed entirely than to be looked in the face and acknowledged but not see a wake. I want to know that you hear the poetry, even if you don’t understand it yet. I want to know that it moves you… because until it does, beauty just somehow feels broken.

What do you think?

AKH

*(And no, geisha is not a synonym for prostitute.)

^Although, if they fall asleep with you there are only a few possible explanations: 1) they were very tired, 2) they feel really safe with you, 3) you’re really boring. One of those.

I Love You Like a Song

There’s this scene…

It’s in the 2001 movie “I Am Sam” starring Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Dakota Fanning. It’s a gem of a film, really. Basically it’s a story of a father with a mental disability (Penn) who’s fighting a custody battle for his bright-eyed young daughter (Fanning).  Oh and the entire soundtrack consists of updated Beatles covers.

Just go ahead and start crying now.

All to say, there are many forces at play- many valid questions to be considered as they try to determine the best course of action in this custody case. Can he properly care for the well-being of the young girl? Can he give her what she needs? etc.  And yet seeping into the consciousness of all the onlookers – the “powers that be” weighing all of these very-important factors – is the unmistakeable love of the father for his daughter.

I don’t remember what scene it was. I don’t remember the context. All I remember was the line flying off the movie screen and straight into the dark corners of my heart.

“I love you like a song,” he says.

I love you like a song… and God, I’m wrecked.

I know the verses. I know Ephesians 2:10 that says we are God’s workmanship (i.e. God’s poetry). We are God’s poetry? I pause… Yeah, I think that’s true. I can understand that.

I feel like I learn more about God the more I fall in love. I fall in love quickly and deeply. And not necessarily just in a romantic way. I fall in love with people the way some people fall in love with paintings. Or the way some women love diamonds. I love people like diamonds, like prisms; I like the way they catch the light. I just get so captivated by their uniqueness. It doesn’t necessarily mean I want to marry them (if you’re into Greek think more “agape” rather than “eros”) because it’s not a gender related thing.

I fall in love with the art of someone.

And it’s in that art-loving place that I learn more about God and this rumor of God’s love that I still have so much to encounter.

There’s this great quote by John Eldredge from his book Journey of Desire (a book which literally changed my life and understanding of God) that reads: “The heart cannot live on facts and principles alone; it speaks the language of story and we must rehearse the truths of our faith in a way that captures the heart and not just the mind.”

So you can stand on a street corner and tell someone God loves them… You can write it on a billboard if you want to… But maybe they need something more like a melody. Something they can hum.

Because God loves them like a song.

He loves you like a song.

There’s a difference between flat black and white words on a page “God loves you” and the whisper of a lover who looks you in the eyes and says, “I love you like a song…”

So go listen to a song that warms the blood in your veins. Watch a movie that sparks the fires in your mind. Walk around an art gallery or the gallery of creation. Go feel free. Fall in love. Be captivated. And maybe God will sneak in the back door and whisper to you, as he has with me, “Darling, I love you like a song.”

“Take Care of Yourself, You Belong to Me”

It’s a little bit ridiculous. Okay, a lot ridiculous. (Especially if you’ve read the rest of the lyrics to this song.) But I’d say it’s about par for the course.

Sometimes I feel like God “gives” me songs.

Not songs to write, mind you. (That would be fabulous.) Sometimes the holy spirit highlights a song in my spirit. Something will catch my ear — let’s pretend that’s a phrase — and something inside me will ping like, “There’s more here for you to pay attention to.”

In this instance the song is none other than a really obscure quirky Christmas song I’ve never heard before called, “Button Up Your Overcoat.” Oh yes. Have you heard it?

The instrumentation is adorned with sweeping big band symphonics and the lyrics are a string of highly practical (and strange^) advice for any number of life circumstances one could find oneself in. It’s an uptempo, feel-good ditty but it’s definitely unique*. And I had never heard it before, so I was paying attention.

The refrain of the song is as follows, “[insert funny/odd practical advice here...] take good care of yourself, you belong to me!“

Sigh. I finally take a moment to exhale. Here I am. I wouldn’t say I’ve been running from God but I have not been making quiet time processing and set apart with God a priority lately. The intention isn’t gone but the follow through is. And I’ve been feeling bad about it. I want my desire for God to really draw me to him in a way that other things just can’t compete (and win) but that hasn’t been the case as of late.

And then God speaks. He uses little love notes to remind me that while I am working so hard, trying to create something new, trying to build a life, trying to become a wise adult woman I can respect — trying (and failing) to love God even an ounce of the measure of what he is worthy to be loved, trying (and failing) to follow Jesus even a degree closer than a 100% me-driven life — God seeks me out quietly.

Not with judgment but with love.

“Take good care of yourself, you belong to me.”

God used a silly song to speak to me; and he wanted me to know that I’m not alone in the sea I swim in. His words weren’t, “Get your act together, why don’t you follow me better?” They were kind words. He was supporting me and drawing me with words of refuge.

And I needed that.

Thanks for the weird song, Jesus. I do love you. Thank you for loving me more, even though I never deserve it.

^ Most notably, “Wear your flannel underwear when you climb a tree” 

(*Actually, if you were to drop it into a dark suspenseful scene in a thriller movie, it’d be downright terrifying. But I digress…)

A change of name and heart.

I found myself at a church service tonight that I haven’t been to for months. I’ve been going to my church, which I absolutely love, but I haven’t been to this mid-week gathering likely since last winter. And true to form, the Holy Spirit has a way of intersecting with my story at unlikely but needful places. You see, Jesus… He knows. He knows what’s going on. Beneath the surface.

The crux of the message was this: You are chosen and precious.

Funny, Jesus.

You know what I need to hear. Because you and I both know there’s this ache that comes with being me, that comes with my story. Feeling chosen and precious rarely feels true. It’s not my family’s fault. They’re amazing. I couldn’t have a family who loves me more. I’m not referring to feeling unwanted as daughter, sister, general member of society.

I mean as a woman.

(Err, umm, what? I’m totally cool, confident, sexy, self-assured… right?)

Dan Allender offers this perspective: “On countless matters, the single woman bears the same pain as a widow, but with the additional heartache of not having been chosen.”

I don’t know what it’s like to be a girl who felt wanted. I more readily know what it feels like to be a girl for whom love seems impossible. Not that it is impossible. But it feels about on-par with running a marathon. I know it’s not impossible. People do it. Me? notsomuch.

To be really honest, I’m still getting used to men ever being attracted to me. It’s taken years for that not to be such a foreign concept. And I have had a few encouraging evidences in my twenties that the idea of someone wanting to be with me isn’t completely far fetched. (I’ll spare you the details. There aren’t that many.)

And yet… more often than not, there it is again.

The rejection. The apathy. The abandonment. The hopes dashed. And because it’s so rare in my life for something to come along, for something to work in this department, it’s all the more crushing when it unravels or when it doesn’t fully materialize.

Let’s just say- when people ask me if I’ve seen the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You” I hardly have the energy to answer them. WHY WOULD I SEE THAT MOVIE? I’ve lived it. Over and over. Why would ANYONE watch that movie? The words alone immediately sink me to a pit in my stomach where nothing good, true, or beautiful lives.

And with those reminders comes that name that feels so true: Unwanted. Unseen. Unsought.

And like The Ting Ting’s song I was listening to this morning, the gospel of Jesus says fervently, “That’s not my name!” His name for me is Beloved. Chosen. Precious.

Jacob wrestled with God one evening and in the morning God changed his name. God does that sometimes. But it may take more than one night of wrestling for me to allow that to be true. In fact, it may be more of a daily wrestling.

Some days it’s not really an issue. I’m content. I’m excited about life. (These are days when I have a lot of fulfilling work to do, friends to play with, and no boys to worry about…i.e. no guys I’m currently interested in.) Other days I’m pummeled by questions I can’t answer and forced to face disappointments I’d rather not look square in the eye. On those days it’s all I can do not to slip down a Plath-like spiral, spout Patty Griffin lyrics, and text my best out-of-state girlfriends to ask when we can realistically meet at an airport bar to venture on our next much-needed tropical vacation.

It’s on those days when I have to willfully remind myself about Hope. It’s on those days I have to reintroduce my heart to the Gospel. (And by Gospel, I don’t mean the hope that some man will come in and save me. Only Jesus gets Savior billing.) I’m either forgetful, slow in believing, or both. That’s namely why I have it tattooed on me. Because I forget my own name. If I could get the ink to sink deeper into my soul, I would have what I need.

My name… Beloved. Or as the speaker put it tonight: Chosen. Precious.

And yet I know two things: 1) No man can affirm me that deeply. I know a man’s pursuit, attention, and affection is only partial at best. 2) Sometimes life and relationships don’t always tell you the truth about yourself.

And it’s in those moments, which seem so constant in my life these days, in these years of maidenhood, that I am forced to choose; I’m forced to choose to believe what my rejections and losses tell me about myself or I can choose to believe (against feeling) what Christ says. My name is not unwanted, unseen, unsought. My name is chosen, beloved, redeemed. And in knowing this, I can lay my fears to rest. If God sees me, He sees all of me.

I think single girls are the ones who need wedding rings. Married girls already (should) have a live-in reminder of their value, their chosenness, their preciousness. Single girls are the ones who need a little extra reminder of this. I need this spiritual reality to be more true to my heart- on days when I have too many bags to carry, when friends don’t call, when nobody has asked about my day. I need the reminder that God has chosen me and calls me his own. I am precious to Him- regardless of what man has passed me over or who liked me, used me, and dropped me. I am precious to Christ regardless of any man’s apathy. It seems like such a simple truth to reclaim. It should be a lot easier.

But for some reason for me, it’s not.

It’s a curious theme, one I hope God will use for his glory in some beautiful way someday. How he’ll use it takes more creativity than my mind can muster at the moment.

So I may wear one of my diamond rings on my left hand, just for a while.

Just until I can more quickly remember the way Jesus has changed my name as any husband would… from forgettable to favored.

Hallelujah to the Lord who sees, knows, and calls us his own. Praise be to the God who picks up my pieces time and time again. Praise be to the patience of a Lover who knows my desirous and often disappointed heart. I always just want more. But that’s the way He wants us; He’s always the one who wants more and he’s the one that doesn’t leave. Thank you Jesus. Thank you that when I say I’m just a pebble in a shoe you tell me I’m a diamond. Maybe today I’ll believe you.

Recommended reading: “Life of the Beloved” (Henri Nouwen), “Captivating” (John & Stasi Eldredge), “To Be Told” (Dan Allender).

Henri Nouwen

We ignore what we already know with a deep-seated intuitive knowledge- that no love or friendship, no intimate embrace or tender kiss, no community, commune or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition. This truth is so disconcerting and painful that we are more prone to play games with our fantasies than to face the truth of our existence. Thus we keep hoping that one day we will find the man who really understands our experiences, the woman who will bring peace to our restless life, the job where we can fulfill our potentials, the book which will explain everything, and the place where we can feel at home. Such false hope leads us to make exhausting demands and prepares us for bitterness and dangerous hostility when we start discovering that nobody, and nothing, can live up to our absolutistic expectations.

From Wounded Prophet: A Portrait of Henri Nouwen [http://amzn.to/VldMxy]

I also wrote about Henri Nouwen a month or two ago here… “The Inner Voice of Love: Faith, Sexuality, Pain” http://wp.me/p2s2GO-1a

Like a Shy Bird With New Wings

Hope springs up like a shy bird with new wings. Faith awakens slowly as from a deep r.e.m sleep with the sand still dusting the corner of its eyes. You call me to believe against seeing.

If you ARE, you CAN. And leave the keys to you. Let you drive.

“Okay,” I say, handing them over so casually that it makes me pause to take my pulse.

(Am I really this tranquil? I think to myself, afraid to awaken the sleeping disquiet that has been living in my room. “Take my keys, take my trust,” I say. But please don’t take this peace, I whisper inaudibly to myself. To God.)

Let’s consider it done. I’ll look forward and not side-to-side. And if I lose focus,  you- more kindly and gently than I deserve- will bring me back to my firm footing. You will hold on to me always. Your truth will anchor me.

Your truth has anchored me. But if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that I will be tested. I have been tested. Mercy, help me to pass. Grace, help me to befriend my frailty. Wisdom, help me to know it’s alright. Sing to me all will be well so compellingly, so convincingly that I’ll believe you even on my most Jacob of days.

Deliverer, Way-Maker, Healer… have your way.

You see me plain and bare. You know every petal in my pocket and every stone in my shoe. And every dream-stitched, tear stained handkerchief I keep close at hand. You want what matters most to me; to you my trust matters.

So you chase me. And I run away. But sometimes you still find me.

Keep finding me. 

And wake me when we get there. Set my course to dreaming and tell me when we’ve arrived. And I will awaken the song with my shouts of joy and awe at the wonders only you could’ve worked, all without my help.

Because “it is not for me to open buds into blossom“. It’s not for me to make flowers bloom. Nor am I to be dictated or intimidated by the facts in front of me. Focus. If you ARE, you CAN.

Bless me, Lord. Not because I deserve it but just because you love me and I’m yours. And because I hear hints of your melody everywhere. Because I believe there’s something more living between the lines on this solitary typewritten page. Even the spaces tell stories.

So tell it now, Lord. Show me when to move and where to stay. And wake me when we get there. I’m trusting to you these sterling secret desires, asking you to line my Christmas tree with tinsel made of impossibilities that you made beautiful and right.