Last Days

Hello Family,

It's been a little while since I checked in - it's been a wild ride since then with a lot of stuff happening. For example, I was sick the last time I posted. I had been sick for about a week without really taking any medication (this is pretty typical for me) and it took another whole week before I went to the doctor (again, just like me) who told me it looked like I had the beginning stages of walking pneumonia. Believe it or not, being sick for about a month makes you incredibly tired and cranky - also, going to the doctor helps! Who knew?!? For those of you who saw my sad self, prayed for and urged me to go to the doctor know that I eventually followed through and am feeling a world better!!


Also in this period, I went to the memorial service for a dear friends mother. It was really beautiful. I am a pretty "morbid" person - in the sense that reality of death and the fragility and temporariness of life are a pretty active part of my awareness. So for example, it's really rare for me not to think at some point during the day about the fact that this may be the last time I see so-and-so, even if I have a lunch date with them tomorrow. I just think that way.

I tell you this, so that you understand I am constantly aware of the fact that people don't really live their lives. As one of my former clients put it. "they just go back and forth to the mail box collecting bills and then working to pay them." But Kay (that's the name of woman whose memorial service I attended) really lived - and when you really live, it shows all over. It showed on the hospice record of visitors, it showed in the stories told about her, it showed in the sea of pictures where she was present and smiling (and not hiding from the camera like I might be). And I felt so happy to see a life well lived, and so encouraged that when we turn our lives over to Him we SHALL DOUBTLESS really live our lives.

I don't know about you all - but I can honestly say I am living my life for a memorial service like Kay's. I am living my life with the hope that a sea of faces will fill that room, full of stories and love, full of the presence of God. It just brings me back to that Nichole Nordeman song Legacy.

I wanna leave a legacy, how will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to You enough to make a mark on things?
I want to leave an offering. A child of mercy and grace, who blessed Your name unapologetically.
To leave that kind of legacy.


Not well traveled, not well read. Not well to-do or well bread. 
Just wanna hear instead, "Well done, good and faithful one."

I mean that's it. That is what it is all about - and I feel so incredibly privileged to have real women examples before me.

Speaking of last days, I've also been having a lot of last Las Vegas days. Last day of WOW, last day of work, Syd's last day of school. I've got a little more than a month here and I imagine the last days will continue to come. (Hey maybe that guy who said the last days were starting last weekend was right, he just didn't realize he was speaking to me exclusively!)

Last days are so bitter sweet for me. I am resting in the assurance of God, that where He leads He will provide. If you know me at all this is less like rest and more like a daily inner battle.... but our God is amazing and meets me patiently where I am, with assurances and blessings literally sitting just the other side of a plane ride. But I love so many here - and good-byes are so hard for me (see the section on my morbidity above).  I have found Him here - in the safety and familiarity. But I think the thing with God is that safety and familiarity are not often His plan; instead it is Risk and Reward. Battle and Victory. Faith and Glory.

Today I was asked to read Psalm 126 as part of Bible Study - it seems an appropriate way to close.

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
     we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
     our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations
     "The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us
      and we are filled with joy.


Restore our fortunes, LORD,
      like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow with tears
      will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping, 
      carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
     carrying sheaves with them.

I love you all.

I am not kidding

Ok - As if the aesthetic beauty of the farmhouse were not unbelievable enough (it's really unbelievable)... this place has a history.

Here's part of it: A Christian song writer named Josh Garrels retreated to and wrote an album while living there. I'd never heard of him before, but I looked him up and this is what I found:


"The Stand" - Josh Garrels from Josh Garrels on Vimeo.


WOW - Seriously? I am too humbled to even speak to what a legacy like this means.

Thank you Lord.

It's a T-day

I feel terrible today.... tired and terrified. It's a T-day.

I imagine I am hard to be around on T-days - either full of fake smiles and laughs or somber and quiet.

I really hate this feeling.

I've drawn near to the Lord. I've even received a word just for me:

Psalm 143:8 Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You. Show me the way I should go, for to You I entrust my life. 


Unfortunately, it feels like a drop of water in the dessert - just as quickly dried up as it is poured.


It's fear that's turned me into this dessert. Fear, fear, fear.

Love, life - they cannot tolerate fear. So if you are going to be afraid - you cannot simultaneously love.This is ironic, because it is love that gets me into this mess every time. Or at least the risk of injury that loving others requires.

During our most recent series, Risk Love, Pastor Kevin discussed how we can love, only because we first trust God. The risk of injury for us is too much to bear without God's help, or the assurances of God's foundation.

Looks like that verse is incredibly timely indeed.

I love you.