Category: Life Insight

where suffering meets joy

Here’s a little piece I wrote for the guidance newsletter this month:

My friend went to Kenya in 2008 and found himself surrounded by refugees displaced by civil war.

We all marveled at the pictures and listened to his tales when he returned, but after a while, we found ourselves again caught up in our lives layered with routines and more “important” matters. His experience was forced to fit into phrases like, “Oh, yeah, when you were in Africa…” because we didn’t have time for deeper questions requiring deeper answers.

As we step into this Christmas season, much of our discomfort results from crowded checkout lines and shopping cart traffic jams. Our culture presses in to define this celebration with catchy tag lines and guilt-ridden advertisements enticing us to add another gift to the cumbersome pile.

The joy in the angels’ announcement that filled the sky at Christ’s birth is somehow reduced to greeting cards and cavalier “Happy Holidays” thrown around like plastic swiped in those nifty little machines.

Scan of a Christmas greeting card.
Image via Wikipedia

Is the subject of your holiday adoration worthy of all the discomfort?

As I examine my own motives for crafting homemade gifts, my mind wanders back to my friend who went to Kenya. Maybe we moved on so quickly from his experience because being near to someone’s pain brings a certain suffering to our lives as well.

Thinking about Kenya beyond the powerpoints and post-trip Q & A is… uncomfortable, and we have a tidy way of stuffing uncomfortable stories in the attic while we stuff stockings over the fireplace.

Though we often set them against each other, suffering is not opposite joy. Christ, who for the joy set before Him, endured the great suffering of the cross. When we open our lives and hearts to let the Spirit move in us, we will experience some of the greatest suffering and most abundant joy.

Christmas is both a time to celebrate the joy of a Savior and a time to long for Christ’s appearing as the only response to the suffering around us.

The closer we walk with those who are suffering, the more we will wonder at God’s joy in this season. Who will you choose to walk beside this season, sharing their pain? Great joy awaits, dear sojourner… GREAT JOY!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

things are not what they seem – including Mondays

I started a mental list awhile back, because I always happen upon the strangest things. I realized, they might not be strange after all, just bad assumptions.

Before I get into my somewhat silly list, let me be serious for a second. Three things happened today that made the world shine like a candle at a Christmas Eve service. 1) phone chat with my mom and grandma, who came through surgery like a champ 2) a skype call with a dear friend that made distance feel like “just around the corner” 3) the most GLORIOUS reunion of baking goodness with my favorite high school ladies…

this combo is the BOMB!

AND bonus number 4) students huddled in my office for the first mission trip meeting with excitement practically bursting out of their buttoned up uniforms.

These things prove again my belief that any “case of the Mondays” can surely be cured – Mondays do not have to be the dreadful thing they seem. My favorite scene from the day involves: one student working through a series of facial expression while texting, another student busily finishing college applications, and myself dancing around the kitchen to Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas,” while piping hot Nutella-Peanut Butter brownies cool on the counter. Mondays? Yes, please!

Okay, here’s a few examples of bad assumptions:

  • A sign that says “maquinas trabajando” does not necessarily mean machines are working… it could also mean men with pickaxes and shovels.
  • When you see sewer covers in the road, don’t be fooled – they may not have a long life as a sewer cover. Chances are, you will soon have to swerve around that spot with great skill because someone has swiped it to make a buck.
  • Those silly yellow and white lines on the road are not to indicate to drivers what should and should not be done in traffic. Nonsense! They are to decorate the otherwise dull streets!
  • Whoever said there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing” has obviously never tried the nutella + peanut butter combination.
  • That terrible cliché about “dancing like no one is watching” is horribly misguided. I think it should go something like, “dance like everyone is watching… and just keep going!”

Okay, that’s all for now. I hope you bursting with joy tonight – don’t forget to

let LOVE fly like cRaZy!

Posted on by Caroline 0

we are looking at the same stars

My mom sent me an email this morning, bright and early before electricity was working in my neighborhood. She wrote to update on James, who was released this morning, praise the Lord! He posted pictures on facebook from the collision and I am thanking the Lord for His presence and provision on Friday night.

God's hand of protection surely covered him!
the mash-up

God has surely preserved James so he can continue to live glorifying the Lord. I’m praying James’s life verse will be rooted more firmly in his heart,

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
(Hebrews 10:39 ESV)

The only reason my mom left the first surprise hospital visit was to trek across the state to be with my gram in a different sterile room. My grandpa followed an ambulance in the middle of the night in a snowstorm on Friday and yesterday my mom joined them. Praise God, gram is stable and my mom is there to support both of them. She will get a pacemaker tomorrow and we will pray she flies through all procedures without any difficulty.

And here I am, making a mess of crafts in my bedroom.

the space in the middle is where I sit

I guess this is what I do when my arms can’t reach that far.

I am so confident placing my loved ones in the care of my Savior. I am confident in His plan and in His eternity and in His love. And only for that confidence can I trust it will be okay, because in His presence there is fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11). All the time, joy.

So, when I read my mom’s last words of encouragement I smiled a silly smile inside.

“Have a great Sunday, sweetheart.  You are not that far away.  We are looking at the same stars.”

Yep, we sure are. And, today, the goal is not to worry or be anxious, but to walk boldly in the peace of Christ,

letting LOVE fly like cRaZy,
for the glory of Christ’s name and for the good of all people.

Posted on by Caroline 0

if it doesn’t break your heart it isn’t LOVE

I just want to say something… a simple something with switchfoot as accompaniment.

Few things hurt more than watching beautiful, amazing, inspiring, lovely kids live without the unconditional love of their parents. It can be a kid on the street or a kid in my office. Oh, boy… it HURTS to hear of empty houses and awkward dinner conversations and all sorts of cover-ups that make it seem okay.

it’s NOT okay.

This is a link for a free download of a Switchfoot song covered by Darren King of Mutemath. It’s called, “Yet” and these words keep playing over in my heart today:

If it doesn’t break your heart, it isn’t love.

what is breaking your heart today?

let LOVE fly like CrAzY

Posted on by Caroline 0

with a wink and a smile

I’m not sure why, but this song was playing in my head as I sat down to write today. I just lunched on my version of a Honduran staple – baleadas (substitute wheat tortilla, take out salty cheese, add salsa) – and now I sit helplessly waiting to hear back from students who are probably sleeping and completely unaware that my afternoon plans somewhat hinge on their replies.

In the meanwhile, I want to bring you up-to-date on some of the happenings here. In my typical, completely disconnected fashion, I’m giving it to you straight today about baking, meanings of words, and a strange desire to start a movement.

LovE CakE!

I’m still marinating on this idea of baking and sweetness and life and tasting … yesterday was the last day of chapel and I spent the morning hours (prior to 6:30 departure) baking up some serious pumpkin gobs with butter/cream cheese frosting. A week of creative treats for the seniors who bring their Bibles to chapel almost wore me right out, but there is a beautiful, redeeming quality to what some women painfully label a chore.

This redeeming quality to laboring in the kitchen is not the look on people’s faces when they eat your hard-won creation (though I’ve found I often make them eat it in front of me so I can see a reaction) nor is it the exclamations of delight and the serious battle for second helpings. The redeeming quality is an empty tupperware at the end of the day.

I (quite haphazardly) stumble onto the school bus in the morning in professional garb, toting a backpack and the familiar tupperware container with secret treats. By the time I get to school, I usually have frosting or chocolate or some unknown ingredient stuck to some inconvenient place. But, back to redeeming qualities…

The tupperware goes out from the house full and comes back empty. Every single one of the little, labored-over creations has found its place and that knowledge only finds me right back in the kitchen to make it happen again. What joy! Check out this video that my friend Kasey Miller (who, by the way, is one of my favorite inspirations in the kitchen!!) shared… this will make you want to LOVE CAKE too!

gracia and gracias

So, my word study on “pan” and “paneh” might have failed, but I’m very interested in the connection between the Spanish words, “Gracias” (thank you) and “gracia” (grace) and I think this will lead to something more conclusive. Both words are derived from the Latin root “gratus,” which means “beloved,” “agreeable,” “favorable,” and “pleasing.”

I was originally interested because at the Micah Project sometimes we just spend time in prayer thanking God for His character. Many times, this will come up, “Señor, gracias por tu gracia!” Maybe no one else takes notice or thinks it odd, but whenever I hear that, I wonder about the strange and beautiful connection between gratitude and grace. When we say thank you, we are responding to an action or a gift or something we have received. Gratitude is what happens (or should happen) after receiving something good. We feel strange accepting a gift or complement without giving something back, so we express our gratitude by saying, “Thank you.”

Here is where I get really interested… why do we use almost the exact same word to describe unmerited favor? The Miriam-Webster dictionary (and many Christians) gives the first definition for grace to mean what is received from God and that which allows one to have faith in what Christ did on the cross.

So – back to that Latin. If the Latin says, “pleasing, beloved, agreeable,” and “favorable,” why am I stuck on these two words? Well, if we say “thank you” because we have received something, that person or persons have become (in some way) beloved or agreeable to us. What is AMAZING is that we have done absolutely nothing to please or become favorable in God’s sight. Even our righteous acts are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), but God called us “beloved” and showed us “favor,” though we came with nothing to deserve this response.

WOW!

starting a movement

Everybody is making movements these days, so I thought I would throw in my two cents about what deserves “movement” status. Maybe it’s because I’m sitting here waiting for a student to tell me if she does/doesn’t want to meet for coffee (though she told me for sure yesterday) or maybe it’s because I’ve been around young people long enough to know commitments are … fluid at best and often motivated by bad information.

So, I’d like to start a movement. The movement will be called, “we care and follow through with things that matter.” I know – it’s not very catchy right now, but I think I could hire some serious PR and those flaky kids would really start jumping on board. Well… they would jump on board if the message was so diluted no one knew exactly what kind of movement they were joining. But, they would join for sure, eventually. And, by that time the whole purpose of said movement would be moot (case in point).

That’s my point.

It is very easy to get kids fired up about things (there are many, many broken things to bemoan in this world) and very hard to get kids fired up about searching serious answers followed up by serious action. I’m not talking extreme, here, folks. I actually think things get extreme when we get distracted by flashy PR campaigns and people telling us what is important and what to do about it.

I guess it would be refreshing to see a youth movement with, as my high school history teacher used to say, “fire in its belly.” Everything from coffee dates to mission trips to environmental debates would be informed by something solid – something true and absolute and transformational. Let me know if you know of one and I’ll scrap the whole idea.

Posted on by Caroline 5

trees and used books

Whoa. Christina’s post yesterday (all the way from LA, I might add) sure rustled some feathers! How true, though, that the only way to expose darkness is with Truth. Regardless of the sin you are dealing with – unhealthy views of the body can take all sorts of forms – Truth exposes darkness and leads to Christ, the only Healer.

Well, here’s what I’m reflecting on, many countries and cultures away…

The blooms of white flowers on my favorite tree outside our house gate. The smell is something like lilac mingled with gardenias, but not in a strange perfume-mixing way. No, it’s in the just-the-right-amount kind of way that grabs my senses every time I walk by and makes me stop to admire.

I think Psalm 23 is something like that. God’s beauty and peace is so strong a scent that we are made to lie down in green pastures and led beside still waters. There is something in the beauty of it that demands attention and response. So, I respond every morning and every night as I walk past. So sweet the smell!
This week is trudging right along, but I am finding so much encouragement from Joni Eareckson Tada, whose words just happened to be shelved tightly between a weathered Mary Higgins Clarke and a worn paperback Tom Clancy in the used book stacks at Metromedia. I have been so refreshed by her sincere heart and wisdom. The yellow pages smell like Laura Ingalls Wilder and deep trunks full of treasured things. The wisdom – oooh the wisdom – is a treasure in itself!
Here is a little tidbit:

Suffering sets the stage on which good qualities can perform. If we never had to face fear, we would know nothing about courage. If we never had to weep, we would never know what it was like to have a friend wipe tears from our eyes.

and here’s another:

When God tells us to suffer, sometimes our tendency is to use our very trials as an excuse for sinning. We feel that since we’ve given God a little extra recently by taking such abuse, He owes us “a day off” when we can do as we please. This is a continual inner battle for me…And it is so easy to justify. Son’t I already have to give up more than a lot of Christians just be being crippled? I say to myself. Doesn’t my wheelchair entitle me to a little slacking off now and then?
When we feel like this, if we sit down and examine our lame protests in the light of the Bible, they will vanish one by one.
And all this from a woman who became paralyzed from the neck down after diving in for a swim as a teenager. What a testimony her life has been since! Check out more here.
Hope this day is blessed for you and always remember, even in suffering….

let LOVE FLY like cRaZY
🙂

oh, and PS, you should check out my brothers from Tanzania and Nigeria and the story of their first/last prom in the US.
Posted on by Caroline 0

downpour, quinceañera, and sister

Since I believe apologies are not acceptable, I’m moving very quickly past the place where I might make one for not writing in so long. With a few well-placed headlines, I’ll let you in on some of the goings-on here in Tegus while I eat some deeee-licious Honduran-style beef stew.

torrential downpour
Last Friday night was the overnighter event for the elementary kids. Though I’m not involved in the outreach with the little ones, they asked me to help with the game CLUE that our HS students had come up with a few months back for our own outreach event. … And play human CLUE we surely did! We ran to different “rooms” and played games in order to receive clues and try to solve the mystery.

After all that madness ended (God give me grace when I have crazy, screaming little ones!), I loaded up good ‘ole Louis and down the mountain we went. (I still don’t have a muffler, but I’m working on it and I’ve told myself that’s good enough right now.)
The rain started just before we threw backpacks into the trunk and ourselves into the seats. We didn’t get very far before I realized that this ride down the mountain would be less about what music we were rocking out to and more about getting down safely. I was wiping the windshield with one hand and steering with the other. It was foggy in addition to the less-than-stellar defrost sputtering out of my dashboard. The girls were respectful and less crazy, but the rain kept coming. We prayed.
I successfully dropped off one student and then we came upon a lake in the road. Yep, it was a lake almost as big as the pond behind my house where we went swimming. And it was still raining. I kind of just followed the lights in front of me, but definitely felt we floated for a second or two.
On the way back, we encountered the same lake and I had to turn around after watching a car sink too low for my comfort. So, I made all the drop-offs and arrived at my house with a curious scraping sound accompanying me. Yep, that’s right… last week Louis lost a muffler and this week he’s dragging something on the front end. These roads are shaking him to pieces – literally! But, praise God for safety and PRAISE GOD for rain!
Today, I was on my hands and knees inspecting the damage like a real trooper. I like to think my brother William would be proud, but he would probably ask if I fixed the problem and then I would have to say no. I’m not really sure what the purpose of that silly, sturdy piece of plastic… and I couldn’t figure out how to jimmy-rig it up with rope, so I just shoved in a few places and hope that it will stay in place long enough for me to get to someone more handy!
quinceañera
When you turn 15 here, it’s like a sweet 16 party but much, MUCH bigger! I’m talking color-coordinated decorations, a ‘program’ of events for the night, three special music performances, high schoolers in suits, fake champagne, super fancy dresses, a sermon, a serenade, a video, and lots of fun. And that’s where you would have found me on Saturday night – in heels my dad found at a thrift store and a dress my mom sent me a few years ago that I hemmed and altered for fun. It was a beautiful way to celebrate Jennifer’s life and also a great, grand introduction to Honduran tradition of quinceañera!

sister
Have I told you how much I love my sister? Probably not, because she’s gets uncomfortable when people get mushy (which of course is my specialty). Well, tonight as we were talking, I remembered how much I loved her all over again. It seems we always swap stories of our mishaps and mistakes. I think we sound like broken records, but I guess I’m encouraged that much more – that we are sisters in our repetition. You see, it doesn’t matter if the stories from work seem not to have moved in a week or if our hearts are struggling in the same ways we thought we’d moved on from, or if our haphazard living styles have not moved to a less-embarrassing state… it doesn’t matter because we love and encourage each other in the midst of all the mess.
Today, as we were talking … I started to share about my current dream-squasher: fatigue and failure.
I want to press on, but I’m tired.
I want to believe change will come, but failure creeps on my shoulder like an ugly monster.
Anyway, no surprise, right? You’ve heard this before if you know me at all. I had an imaginary conversation with my mom a few weeks ago, when I was knee-deep in stress about my students and their decisions.
Honey, she told me, the BEST you can do is pursue your Savior with your whole heart. I said, I know. She said, do you have anyone to sharpen you and push you deeper and further into your pursuit of Christ. Not really, I said. Well, she said, maybe in this time God is trying to teach you that He is all-sufficient. Yes, maybe, I said.
So, weeks later, I am relaying two dream-squashing excuses to my sister and expressing my frustration and she says something like:
You know, I was trying to have some time with the Lord the other day and I kept trying to wrestle Him into giving me answers and get productive with my time. Finally, I just decided to be with Him… to sing and praise and love and honor Him. I realized I just needed to be with Him, not to just ask Him to figure out my problems.
I give up on things and let my dreams get squashed into the pavement because I try to have hope in an end HERE… I go to God hoping He will give me more tools to be effective instead of trusting Him to work.
I want results when I love people. I want improvement.
I want something significant to come out of gas money and coffee dates.
I want something spectacular to prove God’s glory here.
Well, guess what? God’s glory does not need proven.
My desire to see results shows that I am not TRUSTING in His plan to reveal His glory. If I really want eternal results, than I will throw myself into time with my Savior and trust He will work all things according to His will and purpose. And who am I to doubt His work will be significant?
Thanks, sister, for reminding me that time with my Savior does not need to end with a ‘take-away’ objectives and keys to unlock more ministry.
Time with my Savior is truly time to

let LOVE FLY like cRaZY
🙂

 

Posted on by Caroline 3

honest about my wishes

Sometimes I have these romantic phases in my mind (okay, often) … and in those times I desperately wish everything would make sense together. Today, as I am going about the most random list of things “to do” I am taking mental lists of some of those wishes. Indulge!

  1. I wish, when I read a good book, I could be COMPLETELY in the book and not preoccupied with the desire to finish it, to know its contents, or to have a conversation about it later.
  2. I wish Simon and Garfunkel more regularly appeared on my “recently played” list.
  3. I wish my ambitions to be a neat and tidy person were more natural and less guilt-driven.
  4. I wish my distracted approach to projects yielded masterpieces like Picasso that everyone strangely admires, rather than disaster like the “derelict” fashion line in Zoolander that everyone pities.
  5. I wish my passion for people and causes could have a least common denominator… something I could refer to at the beginning of every day and then have an obvious, mathematical approach to deciphering the day’s greatest needs.
  6. I wish I could be in several places at once (typical super-human power, right?)… and actually FULLY be there in mind and heart.
  7. I wish steady, standard routine was not something I only wished and planned for… but something that HAPPENED consistently in my life.
  8. I wish I was less likely to order Diet Coke and more likely to order water.
  9. I wish I knew how NOT to be wasteful, but creatively thrifty to the max!
  10. I wish I wasn’t so good at making resolutions (though I always deny making them) and better at DOING.
  11. I wish I wasn’t so overwhelmed by all the good things going on the world, thinking I have to in some way be a part of all of them… and just be GLAD good things are happening (especially in the name of Jesus!)
  12. I wish overflowing love out my mouth was effortless.
Well, there are some wishes of mine, folks. Will some life-wish fairy grant me these? Nope. But, sometimes you just need to call a spade a spade in your life and face up to the wishes you are secretly wishing.
I hope you are all doing well, my friends, this fine Wednesday.
don’t forget to
let LOVE FLY like cRaZY
today!
Posted on by Caroline 4

spring cleaning and bullet points

I’ve decided to succumb to the temptation to title a post like millions of others will this spring. Partly because the idea is very fitting for all the clutter I’ve gathered in my life and partly because I am very literally spring cleaning. The laundry is going out back, the trash is beckoning from all corners of my seemingly small abode, and my room is desperate for some attention.

Tonight, I have moved my computer combo (what I now lovingly call my laptop/computer monitor combination) to the dining room table and now I have the grandest ambitions to do some spring cleaning (or planting, maybe?) in the area of writing.
My operation looks something like this, if you put them both together on the kitchen table:
This week is Semana Santa (Holy Week) and most all of my friends and students are off to a coast or a country or a lake to enjoy the week off from school. Meanwhile, I am reading feverishly and awkwardly adjusting to this strange, SLOW pace of life. Yesterday, as I sat outside reading and sunning, I told my mom, “This week is going to be fantastic and so needed. I really just need the rest.”
This morning I woke up and felt the usual antsy-ness creeping into my system. “A whole WEEK of this!?!” I asked to all the stuffed up, hot air in my house.
I know I have A LOT of catching up to do here on the blog, and my default method when I have lots to say is to use bullets, so I hope this will give you a picture of what has been happening.
Bullet points are kind of my way of spring cleaning my mind. I have a tendency to make all my physical spaces reflect the mayhem and madness in my mind…
translation: my desk, room, craft space, work space, car space, all space looks distracted and dysfunctional.
solution: bullet points. it may not make the mess go away, but at least I can look at it with some kind of order.
MISSION TRIP
First of all, I don’t know where to start with this one… I’ll give you the best I got (in slimmed down, bullet-version of course) of the mission trip where I took 9 students to team up with 29 coming from Texas for a week working at an orphanage, planning carnivals for rural schools, and doing various work projects.
  • I have a greater understanding and appreciation for the ministries being “served” on short-term mission trips. Whew! It’s definitely NOT about the work that the high school kids can accomplish in one week (it can be done faster, cheaper, and better by locals). It IS about the heart. period.
  • The opposite happened than my mission trip norm (personal devotions become a last priority) I practically LIVED for that hour in the morning to keep my head on straight.
  • I love watching students learn and love and feel the love of God come out their fingertips. It makes my heart downright giddy.
  • I have a hard time fitting in to the “adult” table and “adult” meetings and “adult” discipline of a mission trip… will have to work on that in the future
  • I am a WORLD CLASS WORRIER! If I had a quarter for every time my students said, “Miss, chill. Seriously, just chill.” I would have been able to pay for all the mission trip expenses! I admit, I got a little out of control with the worries. There is no excuse, but I think having a co-leader could be a good idea. It was just too much for me to think/plan/coordinate… and frankly (no matter how many times they say, “chill”) someone has to worry about the details or guess what? nothing happens. I’ve tried “chilling” to the max and basically it is un-productive.
  • Every day since the mission trip ended, I have felt a huge burden to continue encouraging the students.
  • pursuing any cause, mission, goal, or idea as an end in itself (or for my own accomplishment as an end) is to pursue death
PASSION for TRUTH/PERSONAL GROWTH
  • I want more Bible. I want more Jesus. I want more God. That’s the best way I can explain my deepening desire to KNOW my Lord more. Whenever God calls me from Honduras, I know I will be going to pursue more Bible instruction. I am considering this option, a ministry of Mars Hill Church in Seattle: Re:Train I want to learn under the best teachers and be forced to question every assumption based on the WORD as Authority. I want to be fully equipped for mission with a great dexterity in wielding the sword of the Spirit.
  • physical “things” are so fluid… well, they are mostly flowing out of me right now. I think I am a financial planner’s worst nightmare. No, that can’t be right….. a financial planner wouldn’t know the first thing to think about me (probably that someday I’ll end up living in my parents’ basement). Funny, cause this ‘money flowing out’ thing can only work as long as it’s flowing in… and I still want a blackberry and a new Mac laptop. Guess I can’t shake all the materialism off, can I? 🙂
  • Loving the inspiration coming from musicians like this: Robbie Seay Band, The Civil Wars, JJ Heller, Rhema Soul, The Arrows, Luke Brindley, Trevor Davis
  • Loving the preaching/teaching of these good folks: Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, Chris Tomlinson, Vessels of Mercy, Jared Wilson, The Gospel Coalition, WORLD magazine
STUDENTS/DISCIPLESHIP
  • relationships, relationships, relationships. I thought this year would be simply a building year, after spending last year reaching out and in the ambiguous and easily excusable stage of ‘getting to know’ students. My assumption that I could reap so quickly has led to many humbling experiences. Regardless of response or excitement or fruit, I am called to do the same thing for the students here: LOVE fiercely and SHARE the Truth of the gospel unashamedly.
  • God, in His grace, has given me beautiful glimmers of the blessing of His refining process and His timing. I have been able to REJOICE with students who are seeing Him clearly for the first time. Actually, I think they are seeing just the edge of His garment and are surprised at the joy they find. WHAT a BLESSING to watch them discover!!
  • I am trying and testing my heart to know how I can best love these students in discipleship relationship. I want them to HUNGER and THIRST for the Lord. … and then I remember being in high school and how strange that sounded. But, regardless, I feel an URGENCY to insist they pursue the BEST and not just okay.
CURRENTLY READING/JUST FINISHED READING
  • Angel of Mercy by Baker
    This book blew me away – crazy what the passion of one person can do. She blazed the trail for the indigent insane to receive care in the United States and some countries in Europe.
  • The Reason for God by Timothy Keller
    For doubters, skeptics, and YOU. That’s right. I think EVERYONE should read this book because it will sharpen your skills to understand and examine WHY you believe in God.
  • Twenty Years at Hull-House by Jane Addams
    Read a bit about her in college, but returning to read about the amazing work Jane Addams did in Chicago with the poor and needy. She’s said by some to be the mother of modern day social work.
  • Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church by DA Carson
    I’m revisiting this knucklepunch. It’s pretty heavy (over my head, if you will), but I want to learn.
  • Lord, Is it Warfare? Teach me to Stand by Kay Arthur
    Oh, boy. I picked this up off my shelf because I feel like I desperately need it.
  • Basic Christianity by John Stott
    I bought this awhile back and need to dive in.
  • The World is Flat by Friedman
    I’m feeling an urgency to know how small our world is getting, because I think it has crazy implications for the Gospel!
Okay, friends. I could go on and on and on, but I know you would never make it to the end of the post and then I would be too tired to continue to write this week. So, I will leave it here. To come: mission trip pics, funny driving stories (YES THE CAR IS UP AND RUNNING!), 17 again anecdotes (I have way too many!), and aspirations to make an herb garden, sew some t-shirts, and accomplish 3 loads of ironing. 🙂
and please, please, please…
let LOVE FLY like cRaZY
Posted on by Caroline 3

here I am, Returning


I’m back.

My room is a mess. My overflowing suitcases lazily rest on the floor where I dumped them after a 16 hour journey, a bed of rumpled blankets boast the 12 hour nap that directly followed my arrival, each thoughtful gift I received over Christmas lays half-pondered on the ground where I have very good intentions about fully pondering it, a strange collection of mail that should’ve been shoved in one of those convenient blue boxes is still clinging to the insides of my suitcase,

and I am sitting here, drinking jasmine green tea and typing.

returning.

I was in Iowa for almost 1 1/2 weeks. The snow wooed my warmed, Honduran heart and the faces of favorite people filled my vision. There were not enough hugs and jokes and convos and laughs… but there were so many! The laughter made me certain of God’s goodness (if I wasn’t before), because if we are made in His image then He must be the Ultimate at laughter and that makes me love Him all the more. Sewing with my grandma and crowding my mother’s kitchen, running around with cousins in the snow and cuddling up in a blanket with my sisters, wrapping a cold night with the wise words of my grandpa and chilling with my best friends who also happen to be my siblings…
I’m returning to community and family. I’m returning to the admission that we need people.

My best friend Meghan asked me to be her maid-of-honor. Our eyes filled up a little bit, but life is mostly the same between us – we share the kind of understood love that doesn’t necessarily send emails or letters or phone calls, but it prays and hopes and is still so fierce.
I’m returning to the joy of the heart friends I only see once-in-awhile. I’m returning to believing I can love them without a face-to-face coffee date.

I snuggled into two books before I jumped on a big Continental bird to fly back here. One I have nearly finished after two days: Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner. Winner’s writing style reminds me why I love getting lost in between black and white typed words. I heard her speak when I was in college, but my too-skeptic college self didn’t allow me to believe her story was good. Well, it is. The other book is Forgotten God by Francis Chan and it is proving just as delightful … my heart is necessarily challenged at each page-turn.
I’m returning to believing things are good and worthy of hours of thinking and digesting and several cups of jasmine green tea.

I bought a new journal at Target in Michigan. The store startled me with all the bright reds and discounted prices, but I managed to find a $3.24 eco-friendly journal with wide pages and a wire binding (very important, as I like to flip each page completely behind).
I’m returning to writing with a pen. I’m returning to saying my prayer with bold strokes. I’m returning to a personal account of fears and failures.

My sister Christina’s birthday is today. I only left the states a couple days ago, but memories always make me feel uncomfortable with my love. My sister isn’t really one for precious, picture moments with fluffy words and embraces. She is the queen of conversation and wild with wit… but sometimes I just have to know that she can feel my love without words or corny phrases. I know it, I do and I’m whispering happy birthdays today for her.
I’m returning to confidence in how people understand my love. I’m returning to believing that my sister doesn’t need to be persuaded – she just knows how much I love her even when my hands are empty.

My friend Chels is my new mentor (she doesn’t know that yet). I turned my head slightly after college to pursue what I thought important. It was easy, as we all went separate ways …but a few years later here she emerges as this gentle well, deep with wisdom. I am sad to not have watched the process or been more supportive as she grew brilliantly toward the light of Love.
I’m returning to knowing I have much to learn. I am returning to humbly searching the deep, deep wells of the wise ones around me.

here I am, returning.
Posted on by Caroline 3