The Waterfall

Abby,
One year. One year without your face, your voice, your hugs, your funny emails. One year without hearing you ask how I am doing, without our prayers together, without your voice uplifted in song. One year that you have gotten to look upon the face of Jesus, to dance in His arms, to glory in the fulfillment of all your heart’s desires.
I still think of you every time I worship. I think of you when I drive past THE SPOT in Granite. I think of you when I see your mother every day at work, when I hug her and wonder how I can relieve her sorrow. I think of you when I see flowers, when I wear the necklace you gave me, when I’m in the shower using the sponge you put in my birthday gift last year. I think of you when I see Brandon and know that he wishes he would have told you how much he loved you. I think of you when I see the last email you sent me, still in my inbox because I just can’t delete it. I think of you when I visit your Facebook page and see how everyone still pours their hearts out to you daily.
I am so glad I think of you. So glad your presence is still so real in my life. And now that one year has passed, the sharp edge of sorrow has become an ache that fits into my heart somehow, as if it has found a rightful place there, where it will always remain. The sorrow of your death is like a seed that is beginning to sprout new life. Through your death I have become friends with Echo (a miracle, definitely) and have watched her struggle to come to grips with loss and rage and doubt and loneliness. God has opened to me the hearts of Karlee and Brooke, and I am growing to love them like little sisters, watching them grow in their own ways. Our Girls Group which you started still gets together, and your spirit is there among us, drawing us heavenward. Your amazing mother still ministers to others more than she is ministered to, but I see seeds of hope sprouting and I am praying for flowers.
I see only a few of the sprouts, Abby, and there are thousands more, all over this town, all over the world. From your perspective I know you are watching a garden bloom. I suppose there can be no true life without death, and hope is all the sweeter because of the pain of its coming.
In church you were remembered and mentioned, and I began to cry as we worshiped, hearing only your voice singing those songs. I’ll admit that lately I’ve felt distant from God, disconnected and discontent. (Alas, I have not had our dates with God that we so often discussed.) But as we worshiped and I thought of you, God suddenly met me. I understood, in a way I have not in a long time, His AWESOMENESS. He was just so suddenly THERE, so real, and so overwhelming. My heart was broken because of its smallness, its inability to grasp His greatness. There He was, overflowing like a waterfall, and I could only stand a few droplets. But oh, how I wanted more.
Oh Abby, I believe this is what you discovered before you died. I saw it in you. You KNEW. You had plunged into the waterfall. And yesterday I knew with certainty that God had to have you with Him because He just couldn’t stand to watch you long for Him any longer. That thought brought me such comfort, because, idiot that I sometimes am, I had been doubting His love, not feeling it, not believing it was as real and big and all-encompassing as He says. But the thought of you plunging into that waterfall and God smiling in delight as He pulled you to Himself—I knew then that is what He wants for all of us. And we all have such small, shrunken hearts, such a noisy world, such deaf ears. We are numb with apathy and boredom and are desperately filling up our souls with distractions. We no longer know how to search for God, how to grope for Him, as the Bible says, though He is not far from each of us and is waiting for us to reach out so He can find us.
God, I want the waterfall. Not for myself only. For my husband, my children, my poor, misled students, for all of Your children bleating with meaninglessness, for this lost, lost world in its suffering. Please come. Please come in Your power, with your presence, and flood our hearts with Your love. Break down our walls of distraction and apathy and anger and suffering. Let us truly know You, as much as we are able. Undo us, ravish us, revive us into the children You long to see, the children who delight Your heart and dance with You in joy.
Thank you, Abby, for your love. I will never forget it. It will remain a precious treasure in my life. I miss you so much. I cannot wait to see you again. Thank you for teaching me so much, for living so passionately and openly before us all. Happy anniversary. I love you.

Come, Abide

I was telling a friend about my lifegiver resolutions, my convictions to tend to my home and to focus my energies and priorities more on where I should. “But whom are you relying on?” she asked me. “You can’t do that by yourself.” I agreed with her, of course, and gave a vague answer about how I need to spend more time with God. Then I spent the rest of the day feverishly working, not giving God much thought at all.
I had grand plans for my week, plans to begin restoring my home to order. My plans did not include Ben getting a violent stomach bug Monday night and Mikayla refusing to sleep for no apparent reason. I was up all night, resulting in a yesterday of chaos, disorder, grumpiness, and little of productive value. In the middle of the day, as I cried out to God for the hundredth time, my friend’s words came back to me. I smiled in spite of myself. Maybe this was God’s way of reminding me that I really can’t do any of this on my own.
The theme of my life lately seems to be “abide.” John 15 keeps popping up in all kinds of ways. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” Point taken. “Without Me you can do nothing.” Must I always be the living example?
“He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit…If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” Do any of us really know what it means to abide? To dwell. To stay. To remain. To rest. The concept of abiding presupposes that I am with the Lord, that I have come to Him and consciously chosen to stay there. First I must come.

Giving Life

I am leading a Bible study called "Five Aspects of Woman" with two amazing young women that God has brought my way. This is my fourth time through the study, and one would think that by now I have absorbed all of its teachings. Alas. Now I know why God wanted me to do it a fourth time.

The study examines the idea of Biblical femininity--what IS a woman, according to God? Five "aspects" or "roles" are presented, and we study each for three weeks. Currently we are studying the "Lifegiver" role. All women, mothers or not, are called to give life, physically and spiritually. We are to guard and protect the "inner domains": virginity, the womb, and the home, among others. We give life through these inner domains.

Today's study challenged us to examine the ways we give life. Who has God brought into our lives, and how do we give life to them? The author presented us with categories to consider: words, education, church life, holiday and social life, culture and the arts, heritage and traditions.

And today I finally stopped and came face to face with the fact I have been pushing away, refusing to deal with. Today I allowed it to become real. I have sacrificed the precious domain of home for the outer domain of work. I have focused on giving life to my students to the neglect of my family. I did not do this purposefully, of course. In my mind I have always said "family first." And I have done enough to make our home functional, to make sure my children are fed and clothed and that they receive adequate attention.

But this weekend God began revealing to me my neglect, neglect which I believe has amounted to sin. Much of my home is in chaos. Things are not put away. Pictures have fallen off the walls and have not been replaced. My office, the only room in the house off-limits to children, has become the stopping place for all the clutter and chaos I have not had time to deal with. Our puppy has destroyed the backyard, and I have not cleaned it up. I have years and years worth of pictures that are sitting in boxes or on my computer. Meals are planned at the last minute or pulled from the freezer. I have not taken care of my own body or soul for months, and thus I am usually grumpy. This blog is the perfect illustration of my neglect--I have not written since September?!? My heart, and thus our home, is not a place of beauty, rest, or refuge.

The maddening thing is that this is not who I am. My personality loves and craves order, peace, home. I have always longed to create a beautiful, safe, peaceful, happy home for my family. But I have allowed the clamoring voices to creep in and take over. One can take on so many good things that in the end none of them are good at all.

I realize that I could keep going, keep functioning and maintaining, keeping my head above water and surviving. Many, many mothers do. But what do I want my children to remember? That mom was always working, that our house was a mess, that I spent all my free time trying to keep house?

I write this here as a confession and a challenge to myself. I do not like to reveal such ugliness. But maybe if I say it now, maybe if I face it in its reality, things will begin to change. Maybe I will finally give myself, my work, my family, to God and allow God to work HIS purposes. Pray for me to do this. Pray that God will lead the way, and that I will be a lifegiver, not a mere survivor.