recollection of a dream.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009.

Just another Tuesday. Or so I thought.
Woke up, went to class, attended chapel. Saw Evan.
He looked and acted calm, cool, and collected. Apparently that’s not what was going on inside.
Went to another class.
Went to my room to kill time before I had to head to Allie’s office for some mysterious meeting…

*day before*
I had received an email from Allie, my RS, about a week ago asking me and 3 other RAs to come to her office on Tuesday at 4 pm to help her out with some project she was working on. She assured us it was just a quick job, but she really needed our help. As happens with most emails I receive, I read it, mentally comprehended its contents, and told myself I would reply later… of course that means that I totally forget to reply. Sometimes it doesn’t matter.

This was not one of those times.

So come yesterday, I receive another email from Allie, reminding us that she needs our help at 4 tomorrow… and asking us to please reply if we will be able to make it.
[at this point, Evan and all his cohorts are freaking out, since I of course have not confirmed that I will be at the meeting tomorrow…. And I kinda needed to be there]

Silly me, forgot to reply to another email. Allie was promptly replied to, assured that I would indeed be in attendance at this mysterious meeting.

*return to Tuesday*
3:55 rolls around and I make my way down two flights of stairs to Allies office on the first floor of our dorm. I walked in and was greeted by the usual Allie grin. “This is mysterious….” I tell her. “what are we doing?” A calm smile followed by “its just a project I need help with. I’ll fill you in once the other girls get here.”

5 minutes pass.

Allie picks up her phone to “find out where those other girls ended up”

They’re on their way, we’re assured.

2 minutes pass.

So there I am, sitting on Allie’s couch, living amidst a normal Tuesday afternoon when my world was suddenly on its way to being forever changed.

Into Allie’s office bound, dressed in black, 6 of my dearest friends and most favorite people on Moody campus. After some screaming and a bit of struggle on my part, I was blindfolded and picked up and carried out of Allies office, out of Houghton Hall, through campus (yelling, laughing, and all around hoopla ensuing on the part of my kidnappers), out to the parking lot where I was gently placed into a mysterious car with an unknown driver. My kidnappers bid me farewell and I was driven off into the silence (because of course the driver was not about to answer any of my questions).

10 minutes of excruciating silence pass.

“Ok,” says a familiar voice. “You can take off your blindfold.”

It was, of course, my best friend in the whole world, who had driven 2 hours down to Chicago to pick me up.

“NAOMI! OH MY GOSH! WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

A grin.

“Naomi, is this really it? Is it really happening tonight??”

Another grin.

By this point, I knew exactly what was going on.

*side note: I was shocked. I thought I totally had Evan figured out. I pride myself in being able to read people and pick up on subtleties. Of course, Evan knows this about me, and so was sending intentional accidental hints about another significant date that he would propose on.*

I was handed a small bag with snacks for the ride, compliments of my kidnappers, my makeup from my room (which was confiscated shortly before I was) a hot mug of coffee (do my kidnappers know me or what), and a large envelope.

Inside the large envelope contained 4 smaller envelopes. I was given permission to open the first one. And only the first one.

Inside, in Evan’s script, was a recollection in narrative form of the night that Evan asked me out on our first date. He retold events leading up to that first risk he took, and the thoughts and emotions revolving around the asking of the actual question.
March 22, 2009. Six months ago today.

Thus began mine and Naomi’s 2 hour car ride to my hometown, Port Washington, WI.

Vocal outbursts were occasional, butterflies remained constant.

Mile 50. I could now open envelope number 2.

A letter. Written with natural flow and giftedness, with the romance of Shakespeare. It was beautiful.

Vocal outbursts were occasional, butterflies remained constant

Mile 100. Envelope 3.

Another letter. Again from Evan, but it’s addressee was to One much higher than I: our glorious King, who had brought us together.

10 more minutes. As we got closer to Port Washington, the butterflies increased. I was commanded to replace the blindfold until directed otherwise. 10 minutes later, the car parked and I was permitted to remove the blindfold. We were parked at the bottom of a hill downtown. I was handed the fourth envelope.

“go to your spot…. I’ll meet you there.”

*my spot: a beautiful little lookout in Port Washington. Located at the top of a tall staircase, at the top stood a large Catholic church. Overlooking the lake and downtown main street which was lit up with lights, my spot was one in which I would frequently go to sit and think. It was also the place that I first told Evan that I love him.*

I made my way up the staircase. Already breathless before beginning my trek. The weather outside was perfect. Drizzling.

2 more steps.

There he was. Dressed in black dress pants, black dress shirt, black vest, and a white tie. Gosh he looked good.

I stood at the top of the stairs. Breathless. He walked up to me.

“Hi, baby.”

Much of the following moments are a blur in my mind, but his words were not lost in the moment. Those words however, are for my memory only.

Moments later, there he was. One knee touching the ground, small white box opened in front of me revealing the most breathtaking ring I had ever seen.

“Grace Elizabeth, will you marry me?”

I said no. just kidding.

A gleeful “YES!” followed by an embrace and a kiss in the rain.
The ring was slipped on to my finger. Perfect fit.

Breathtaking.

I never wanted that moment to end.

After relishing the moment for a while, we drove the half mile to my parents house where we were greeted by my parents and youngest sisters running out of the house to congratulate us. We had dinner with my parents, then left to drive back to campus.

We had class in the morning.

Back on campus, I was greeted with screams, hugs, and signs decorated by my RA small group and the girls on my floor. My hand was grabbed numerous times as I retold the dream I had just lived.

It was magical; every part. Beautifully executed; its amazing hearing the story from his side and all the little details that were worked out to make it so perfect.

And so our love story continues and our life together begins.

Thanks to Allie, my loyal RS who lied to my face.
Thanks to Katie, Kathleen, Kristin, Katelyn, Lisa Kay, and Jessica, my kidnappers and dear friends.
Thanks to Naomi, my best friend in the entire world. And apparently a really good liar. I had no idea. Your friendship has shaped me into the woman that Evan will marry.
Thanks to my parents, i dont even know where to begin. thanks for putting up with me these 21 years so far and daddy for giving Evan permission. my prayer is that our marriage looks like yours.
Thanks to Evan: my prince charming, my best friend. I cant wait to marry you.
And Thanks to God. For Your faithfulness, for bringing us together, for teaching us how to love.

I’m slightly excited.

I, the utensil.

I, the spoon.

The fork.

Sometimes even the knife.

Utensils, yes.

Useful, perhaps.

Effective, on occasion.

But mere utensils.

No intent of alimentation.

A spoon does not nourish

A fork does not feed

A knife does not fulfill

[through self created will]

Rather the Hand that lifts the spoon

The fork

The knife…

[Hunger no more]

The Hand nourishes

Feeds

Fulfills

… on occasion employs the spoon

…the fork

…the knife.

I, the utensil.

Custom utilization,

According to the need.

At times…

a spoon to smoothly glide

a fork to probe

even a knife to sever

but sometimes…

the utensil of excess with unseen necessity

[as present at meals of importance]

… and so is momentarily left to the side.

I, the utensil, found positioned as such

More often than preferred

Self esteem decreasing

But worth not weighing in

[for dessert has yet to be served]

And so I wait

For the Hand’s timing of necessity.

Because I,

Am a mere utensil.

To linger and speculate the success of digestion?

Silly.

To patiently await succeeding usage?

Not so silly.

Stomachs are grumbling.

The Hand has work to do.

And I, the utensil,

Purpose unfleeting,

Anticipate employment.

whichever.

Ah, to be freed from the tyranny of forced articulation
To set my words free
Free to soar at will
wherever they fair
To no longer be told:
think this,
say that,
write now.
To be released from the hold of manipulative literacy
I long to dance upon the page
Steps scripted
yet not.
My hand, it desires to run
to skip, to jump
or to crawl
whichever.
My words are full of joy
full of pain
full of loss and gain.
Yet you wouldn’t know it
For confinement of expression.


But persevere, anxious words.
Your sentence is temporal.
With the sun comes your manifestation
In forms as never before.
You shall dance,
run,
or crawl.
whichever.
Until then, rest.
Your time approaches.
Anticipate your release.

dont forget where you are.

"If there were any place better for you than the one in which you find yourself, Divine Love would have placed you there." - Charles Spurgeon

I think to some extent we all experience that intense longing. That longing for what is to come.

Always striving. Always seeking. Always looking ahead.

Ahead to graduation. Ahead to marriage (or the potential of). Ahead to grad school or some great career. Ahead to all the great ways that God is going to use us in the future. We’re gonna be part of this great ministry, impact these lives, change the world.

As if God’s will for our lives starts after the completion of our 5 year plan.

Could it be possible that God’s plan for our lives started the second we entered this world?

I submit that it is.

Im a big-picture thinker. A future-istic thinker. I love looking ahead. Seeing what’s to come, dreaming about, thinking about, and planning my days to come. The problem is that this future-istic way of thinking is rarely accompanied by the necessary quantity of patience. I have this problem with anticipating the future to such a great degree that I completely forget about what God wants me to do NOW.

The kid that I nanny for seems to have the same problem.

He really likes legos. No, loves legos. Possibly borderline obsessive. And we arent talking regular old legos here. We're talking mega-sets, the kind where you get to build an entire continent's worth of cars, boats, and airplanes, by simply following the directions in the enclosed pamphlet. He's only 5, and has a difficult time figuring out where all the pieces go, so lucky me gets to sit for about 2 hours a day and "help" him put together his latest mode of transportation. This allows me to get quite the insight on how his little mind works.

Putting together the masterpiece, as thrilling as it is for him, is not as thrilling as the idea of the finished product. Every 10 minutes or so, he flips forward a few pages to see where we'll be at that point, and exclaims "awesome! i cant wait till we get there! it looks so cool!" Often he tries to stay at the spot that he flipped to, and start putting pieces together at a further point of the project. Time and time again, i have to patiently flip back the pages to the step in the directions where we really are, and explain to him how we cant just start putting pieces together whenever we want to, we have to put them together in the right order, otherwise our truck wont turn out the way that it's supposed to.

How often do we try to "flip ahead a few pages" and try to start putting together the pieces right there?

We still have a few steps to complete before we can begin putting peices on a further finished product, and need to pay attention to the directions we are supposed to be following at THIS point.

The people that are in my life, the circumstances I find myself in… they are such on purpose. They aren’t just to prepare me for my future ministry (although they undoubtedly play a role there as well). They are my ministry now. My ministry doesn’t begin with a diploma or a degree.

To some extent, looking ahead is healthy. There’s wisdom in being aware of how your current actions affect future outcomes, and wisdom in making plans for your future. But not so much that you lose sight of your current duty.

Be here now.

Don’t forget where you are.

Look behind, look ahead, but don’t ever forget to look beside you.

What you find there is there on purpose.

Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:14

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21

training.

A thousand words racing through my head.

Not one will cease long enough to drink

water from the well of articulation,

of formulation,

of clarification.

The well overflows.

Not one word escapes.

Escapes from an inconsistent pace on a

course of which serves no purpose.

There is no prize,

no trophy,

no ribbons.

Running only resulting in exhaustion.

Exhaustion from over-use,

under-meditation.

Silly words.

Always analytical,

sometimes metaphorical,

rarely practical.

Rest, silly words.

Freedom is yours if only you cease

long enough to drink

deeply, deeply.

Slow down.

Grow up.

You’re only baby words.

Thoughts, really.

Stuck in a rut of self-discovery.

No rush.

Timing, sweet words. Wait for timing.

In the meantime, cease.

This course serves no need.

Catch your breath.

Drink deeply, deeply,

Tomorrow we shall start training.

eat the whole grapefruit.

half-surrender isnt possible.

either you're fully surrendered to God or you're not surrendered at all.

surrender is just not one of those things you can do half-way.

you could be half-sincere in your prayers.
you could half-trust God with your future.
shoot, you could even eat half a grapefruit.

but you cant half-surrender your life to God.

granted, its possible to surrender some areas of your life to God, and not others, but seriously.. is that really surrender?

NOPE.

half-surrendering your life to God is like taking half a shower.

stupid.

and very difficult to do entirely sane.

i could elaborate on that metaphor if you wanted me to; say something about how, just as you have to take all your clothes off in order to take a full shower and be completely clean, so we too must "strip" ourselves of anything that is hindering us of entirely surrendering to God...

i have a feeling though that the expounding of that metaphor would be purely for my own entertainment, and wouldnt necessarily get the point across any better.

besides, im not really trying to get a point across. this isnt a Bible study or a class assignment. This is just me processing.
processing the sudden realization that, even though i would claim to be fully surrendered to God, im not really, because when i really stop and think about it, there are several areas of my life that i afraid to fully surrender over to God.

becuase, after all, full surrender means that Grace no longer has control.

Grace isnt always comfortable with that.

of course, Grace also talks about herself in third person, so maybe you shouldnt really trust anything Grace has to say.

im getting off track.

all im trying to say is, if you're going to fully surrender your life to Christ, you cant keep holding a peice of it back. even a tiny little peice. because the truth, as i have recently been punched in the face with, is that whatever little tiny peice of your life you're refusing to surrender to God, is going to cause major problems when you come around to the point of wanting to deepen your relationship with Him. that little tiny peice will HUGELY hinder the ability with which you approach the throne of grace, longing to be held by the Prince of Peace.

it hurts a little, because life can get a little sour sometimes, but i have a feeling that, once you let go of that tiny little peice, and stop trying to half-surrender yourself to Christ, the result will be oh so sweet.

go ahead, eat the whole grapefruit.

constant dance of unpredictability.

change.

sometimes just the sound of that word makes me quiver.

I’m not a change kind of a person. With the exception of my hair and wall decorations, I try to do as much as I can to keep things exactly the way they are: comfortable. I live for my schedule, my reliability, my predictability. One thing goes slightly off track, and I have the potential of a nervous breakdown.

I think it’s the control freak in me that doesn’t adjust well. When things around me change, I can't do anything to stop it; and that’s what scares me. Maybe that’s why I so frequently change my hair and wall decorations. Its that one little area of my life where I can control exactly how much change is going on.

and maybe im just psycho-analyzing myself.

but I think there's truth to it. I don’t change well.

ergo, there has been so much change in my life recently. And its because I don’t like change. No doubt. Im struggling in a certain area, so im doomed to be tested in it. (and by doomed I mean in an optimistic kind of way). That’s part of why God is so awesome, and part of why growing is so hard.

but mostly why God is so awesome.

I have discovered a new-found strength to face the multiple facets of my life that are in a constant dance of unpredictability. And its not because im cool.

Its because God is awesome.

Its because, even though im being confronted with one of my biggest fears (that something might not actually stay the same way forever) I have also been constantly reminded of this:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8.

Talk about a smack in the face.

I asked God why there wasn’t just one thing that could possibly not change. This verse is the next thought that entered my head. Since then, it hasn’t left my head. Its kind of like when you get a song stuck in your head and no matter what you do to try to get rid of it, theres no hope.

Except that its because of whats stuck in my head that I have hope.

That’s why God is awesome.

and so, here i am, willingly climbing into the car that will take me on the ridiculous road trip of change that i am sure this new semester will bring. Blindly sitting in the passenger seat; apprehensively buckling my seat belt (not because im against seat belts, but because i know once its buckled that means im staying in the car); and putting my life and all the events it brings into the hand of the driver:

the One who is, exactly, precisely, always, the same...

yesterday.

today.

and forever.