God

[Good?] Friday

~ Alina ~ Leave a comment

Good Friday is, perhaps, my favorite church holiday.

This day commemorates the crucifixion of Christ, whose resurrection is the cause for the feasting and new-life celebrations of Easter. Which is also a great day.

But some people get so excited about Easter that they skip Good Friday altogether. After all, what’s so good about the day Jesus died? It wasn’t so good for him.

While there are lots of explanations of the word “good,” some people say that Good Friday is good because of the ultimate salvation it brought to humankind. Yes. That’s probably part of it.

But I think Good Friday is also good for its own sake. For all who have ever suffered, this is the day when God chose to identify with us. To stop and mourn with us. A day when the loss has taken place and the redemption hasn’t.

We love stories with happy endings. We love them so much that sometimes we skip ahead to the happy ending, past all the dark parts, the sad parts, the parts where badness wins. This Easter story has a happy ending, eventually. But it is not yet. First, there is a time that seems like “the end of all things.”

Sunday is coming, but Friday is its own sacred space. 

If you are mourning today, stop and be here. Be silent. Lament for a while. Today is its own sacred space.

If someone you know is mourning, stop and be here with them. Be silent. Lament with them for a while. Don’t, please don’t, try to fix, explain away, or rush them past their grief. Today is its own sacred space.

Whatever our grief, today is a day when we are not alone in it. When God became “a man of sorrows” and chose solidarity with us.

And that’s why I say Good Friday is good.

Peace to you.

Revving My Engine

~ Alina ~ 2 Comments

January 3rd, 2014. The year’s first blog post. (Check out the sidebar for posts from the blog tour I did last month.)

And now I have no idea how to write for my own author website, after the regular ol’ blog I kept for the past 2 1/2 years. I’m still figuring out where all the buttons are here, let alone how to write!

Well, here goes. Please bear with me as I figure out my voice like a 14-year-old boy.

In 2013, I set these goals:

1. Grow closer to God

Status: yes. By the bumpy, circuitous road by which one always approaches the Most High. Including some harrowing rappelling and scraped knees. Including some good books, like C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain and A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. Including astonishment at the imagination, grace, and wisdom of a Love greater than myself.

2. See my novel accepted for publication or self-published

Status: Why, done, as a matter of fact 🙂 The labor and thrill of the year was seeing The Illuminator’s Gift published on December 2nd, 2013!  (Permanent links to its Amazon home are on the “Books” page.) After five years of writing and months of research into publishing options, I finally decided to self-publish…then did it in seven weeks, thanks to the grace, energy, and forbearance of everyone I know. I was also extremely honored to host my first book signing last month, supported by so many loving family members and friends.

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Photo credit: Jim Hillmann

3. Work up to a monthly income I can live on

Status: This one’s a bit more vague than I realized. Rather than achieving the American Dream, I’ve come to peace with holding my hands open to God’s plan. For someone who likes to plan, that’s a teeth-grinding journey of trust. But I’m learning. And with His imagination, it’s a wild ride.

4. Learn the craft of bookbinding

Status: Not done yet. But it’s still a goal 🙂

And now, for some new goals in 2014. My practical, small-picture goals are too numerous to list, but here are a few big-picture habits I’d like to develop:

1. Pursue God first and wholeheartedly. (That goes for writing as well as everything else.)

2. Get up earlier….

3. …in order to write at least 5 times a week. 

4. Blog weekly. You all might have to help me with this one. Clamor at me if I lag! If I do, it’s probably because I’m working on the sequel to The Illuminator’s Gift.

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Photo credit: Jim Hillmann

 

I’m revving my engine for a busy, exciting year full of completely unpredictable adventures. What are your goals for the new year? 

 

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Rest along the Road

~ Alina ~ 4 Comments

What’s the purpose of your life?

The thing that’s bigger than yourself–your mission, dream, calling, purpose, the something that you alone feel uniquely designed to do.

Maybe it’s writing a book (harrumph). Maybe it’s spiritual growth. Maybe it’s investing in a relationship. Maybe it’s leading a ministry. Maybe it’s raising a child (or a few). Maybe it’s spending a year backpacking across the country, like my friend David. Maybe you don’t have a clue, but you’re seeking it. Something you were born to do. Something you believe in, that gives you purpose, that makes you feel alive.

Purpose is a great thing. Without it, we constantly ask ourselves, “What am I here for?”

But journeys of purpose are big. And big journeys take time. Lots of time.

As time passes, energy drains away. We lose sight of the distant, big-picture goal because our myopic vision gets crowded with small failures, hiccups, hardships, naysayers…and tiredness. Just plain road-weariness.

Photo credit: Chaz Harding

I read this story about the Biblical prophet Elijah today. Talk about someone with a big life purpose. But at one point he said to God, “I have had enough, Lord” (1 Kings 19).

Had. Enough. 

Photo credit: Soon

The long road of pursuing purpose can leave us feeling burned out like fire-gutted stumps. Elijah was so fed up with chasing purpose and feeling like a failure that he wanted to die.

God’s advice, delivered by angelic messenger?

“Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”

God even sent Elijah an ancient Hebrew Happy Meal to get him started.

Photo credit: Stefan

Before God urged Elijah forward in his journey of purpose, the prophet’s immediate needs had to have some attention. He ate some food. Took two long naps. Went away to Mount Horeb for some refreshing alone time. Spent time in the presence of God. Found a helper.

And THEN he was able to go back to full time prophet-ness. Proclaimed God’s words to difficult people. Did miracles. Made history.

There’s a lot on my plate right now, especially as I look to move forward with my writing career. Maybe there’s a lot on your plate, too. But Elijah’s story encourages me.

The strength to carry on, to continue down that long and worthwhile road, may be closer than you think:

Eat food. Get sleep. Take some time away to refresh. Be in the presence of God. Get a helper.

Or, in the sweet and simple words of my friend and fellow blogger Anna Taylor: Peace, darling.

Purpose is a long road. So pace yourself. Rest along the way. You’ll make it in time.

How do you find rest along the way of purpose? 


Cracks in the Floor

~ Alina ~ 2 Comments

Last Thursday I went hiking with one of my dearest friends. We have a favorite trail that takes us through four miles of hill country, but the highlight is the lake at the halfway point. Jade-green and hidden by hills until you’re almost on top of it, it’s always a spectacular sight, like a snippet of the Amazon in California.

This time, though, there was something extra-special about it. A whole flock of seagulls (inexplicably far from the sea) was camping out on the water. Then, as one body, the flock rose into the air, fluttering on wings that “gleam and dart,” as W.B. Yeats would have it. Moving like an airborne whirlpool, they formed a column of light and air over the lake. Something about that moment–the surprise sight of so many birds in an unexpected place, their movement in perfect unity, the way their half-translucent wings caught the light–was unspeakable. It was like a glimpse of the Old Testament’s pillar of cloud, the visible presence of God that guided the wandering Israelites through the desert.

The sight got me thinking about such moments, moments that jump the gap between heaven and earth. Life here isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The road is peppered with suffering, unfairness, betrayal, fallings-short. But more than any rational argument or logical progression, it’s beautiful moments like these that make me certain that there is a God–a God of tenderness, breathtaking beauty, and an astounding imagination. C.S. Lewis called these moments “joy.” I like to think of them as cracks in the floor of heaven.

I caught sight of another one the weekend before. I spent the weekend in Seattle, driving down to the Portland area for the wedding of a former roommate and dear friend. Though there was a lot of preparation and clean-up work involved, when all the cheese cubes were arranged and the dozens of chairs unfolded, the wedding was beautiful. One of the things the bride and groom did during the ceremony was braid a three-stranded cord to symbolize the intertwining of their lives with each other and with God. Watching a friend step out in love and faith to make a decision that will last a lifetime, transforming before my eyes from an individual into a couple bound together for life was one of those moments that was piercing in its shock, its newness, and its beauty. 

That continued as they danced their first dance, sometimes uncertain in the steps, but completely oblivious as they rocked in their own world. Human love is one of those mysteries that leaves us curious, wondering, and feeling the eternal echoes reverberating within. Clearer even than a swirl of white birds over a hidden lake, it’s one of those things that stops us in our tracks and hushes our words. Those moments are enveloped in bubbles, untouched by the incompletenesses and disappointments life can bring. They make us pause, look up, and catch a glimpse of light sparkling through the cracks overhead.

What cracks in heaven’s floor have you caught sight of lately? 

Exhale

~ Alina ~ 4 Comments
OK, it’s time for Theology 101–a la YouTube!
I saw this video (below) on Facebook a few months ago. It’s humorous, but it also expresses the deep and sometimes mind-boggling concept of grace.
I’m a perfectionist (surprised?) As a teenager, I struggled furiously with the idea of God’s grace. Me, a fundamentally flawed person? Good enough only because of Jesus? I wanted to work hard enough, perform well enough, prove to God that I deserved His approval–as if God carried around a cosmic clipboard where I could earn His love if I just got enough check marks. I’d rather not be indebted to that guy Jesus. I’ll do it myself, thank you very much. Sometimes I got the puffed-up feeling I was doing pretty well at God’s game. Other times I was crushed beneath the weight of total inadequacy, failure, and self-loathing.
Maybe it was life experience, maybe tiredness, maybe the spirit of God catching up with my stubborn soul. But there came a day, my shoulders scrunched tight from trying to stand tall enough, when I realized I could exhale. Because Jesus paid it all. I read in Romans 8 that God has no condemnation for those who are in Jesus–that He keeps no cosmic clipboard, no record of check marks or failures. His son’s love is the amazing eraser of “good enough.” And that discovery was the relief of my life.

How have you experienced grace? From God? From other people? 

Fingerprints of God

~ Alina ~ 18 Comments

This is my Grammy. She will be 90 in three months. She has cancer. After she was released from the hospital with this diagnosis, she moved in with my family in early December.

It was 5 years ago when she sat for this photo, the summer of 2007. She was also living with us then, but things were different. Then, she was in transition to a nearby retirement community.  She laughed often, had a Rodgers and Hammerstein song for everything we said, and took fastidious care of her makeup. Always an artist, she clipped pictures of interesting faces from the newspaper and used glitter pens to make and sell handmade cards. For my birthdays, I could count on gold ink on the inside of the card as well as the outside, bold loops in her confident calligraphy: Much love and luck. Grammy M. After she moved into her own place, I couldn’t stop by without being metaphorically lassoed and force-fed: I remember a day when she asked me at least 15 times if I wanted a sandwich. Her easel always in the corner, her walls were practically papered with photographs of her family: four children, their spouses, nine grandchildren, two great-grandchildren. It was easier to talk then. We talked about reading: biographies, mysteries, classics, the latest article in Time or Newsweek, interviews with the actresses of The Help. We swapped cooking tips and recipes, and I accompanied her to dinner in her retirement community a few times, enjoying conversation with some lively ladies who had experienced much of life.

A lot has changed in the last 5 years—really, in the last 5 months we’ve been caring for her. Now she spends her days in her recliner or in the backyard, watching squirrels or observing that all the trees are on the other side of the fence. Her routine is limited, but strict: eat Cream of Wheat and drink coffee, bathe with the help of a Hospice health aide, sit in the sun, nap, read, watch Jeopardy and Dancing with the Stars. Actions like climbing four stairs or pushing a chair into place sap her energy. Her physical limitations are growing but understandable; it’s harder for me to cope with the sunset of her mind. She asks to eat whatever she sees me eating and becomes fixated on issues that appear in commercials. A fog seems to be moving over her, limiting the scope of her vision, shrinking our range of conversation topics until often it’s just silence or us reading side by side at lunchtime.
It’s hard to love the helpless. It’s hard when the relationship becomes one-way. Much of the time now, Grammy can only absorb, not give back. I get tired and frustrated, and sometimes I catch myself writing her off, treating her as a burden rather than a person with dignity and value.

But when I find myself there, I’m basically saying that personhood is dependent on utility. Isn’t that often how we view people? We prefer the young, the beautiful, the intelligent, the rich, the witty, to those who don’t “contribute” as much to society. We’d rather discard them than care for them. It makes me think me of the young adult book The Giver, in which the helpless are simply disposed of—the elderly, the weak, the sick, the deformed, the disabled. Their worth is measured based on their abilities.

But even as I scrape another morning’s gloppy Cream of Wheat leftovers into the garbage can or have another conversation about squirrels, I have to realize that personhood is not dependent on abilities. It’s a stamp on all human beings: intrinsic, irreducible, universal. It was there from the beginning, when God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Every person bears the image of God. Whether they can get up from a recliner or dress themselves or hold a lucid conversation is irrelevant to that. And thank God! Because one day, if I’m given the chance to grow old, even if I can’t walk, can’t hear, and can’t remember their names, I want my grandchildren to treat me with the respect and love that belongs to a fellow image-bearer.

My Grammy was young once; she drove a car and did Tai Chi; she was an artist who moved to Mexico and learned Spanish from scratch; she went through 8 pregnancies, lived in 4 states and 2 countries, and loved to dance. But even if she hadn’t done all those things, she would still be a person of infinite worth because she is fashioned and designed uniquely by God. So is every person: the homeless, children, the uneducated, the unborn, the comatose, the disabled. All are valuable and worth loving, covered with the fingerprints of God. And how we treat them, regardless of their utility, is the litmus test of our faith.  

And so I pray for love and for patience with my Grammy. I don’t always show her the kindness I want to. But even when she can’t do the things she used to be able to do, even when we just read side by side or settle in for another night of Jeopardy, she is a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable child of God, never before seen and never to be seen again. And that makes her more than worthy of my love and respect.

How do you love the helpless? What image-bearers in your life deserve your love and respect? 

Dancing

~ Alina ~ 12 Comments
Last Friday I tried something new: ballroom dancing!
A small studio in town offers lessons during the day and an open dance floor at night. Teenagers in jeans, older men in spats, graceful Asian women in butterfly-twirling skirts toe-tapped and spun on the shiny wooden floor under the colorful shifting lights. The music alternated from Latin to pop as the quickstep, the two-step, the tango, the waltz were called. Far from the hormonal gyrating demonstrated on most dance floors, this was an art form–as structured as a fencing match, as regulated as a bicycle built for two, yet as flowing as the strains of music playing over the loudspeakers. 
 Graceful yet rigid, moving abruptly from fast-paced to legato, it was as fun to watch as to do. The best part was watching the couples who were equally matched in skill–not just executing the sequence of steps correctly, but playing it up with fun and flair. The experts ad-libbed their way through and made it look effortless. I myself have a long way to go before I attain that level of ease. For me, it was a victory to navigate a salsa spin without falling over.
File:Tango ballroom standard.png
Photo credit: Porfirio Landeros
 I discovered something interesting, though. Several experienced dancers invited me to try the cha-cha, the two-step, East Coast swing–dances I’ve never tried before. In spite of my protests, they insisted I could do it. And to my shock, they were right. 
Why? Because in the rigorous art form of pair dancing, there’s the amazing experience of being led. I thought successful dancing was about remembering all the right steps and individually keeping perfect time with the music. Not so. If your partner knows the steps and knows how to lead, you hardly need to think at all–just respond to the the subtle pressure of hands and wrists, follow the gentle pull of feet and shoulders.  
For me, that was a total image of following God.  When you’re a lone ballerina or hip-hop dancer, it’s fully up to you to remember the routine, execute all the steps perfectly. But when you’re with Someone who knows the dance better than you do, Someone strong yet filled with grace and control,  your job is just to listen to Him–to feel for His movements and just respond, just follow. It’s perichoresis: a Greek word one of my theology professors defined as the divine dance. It makes life more than just a challenging routine, a performance: it makes it a beautiful, intricate dance for two. 
I can imagine God singing the words in this lovely clip from the 2006 film Miss Potter, starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. In just 50 seconds, it’s everything I wanted to say: 
What are your thoughts? How is life with God like dancing? Are there other parts of life where the same parallel shows up?  

Rhinestones and Diamonds

~ Alina ~ 11 Comments
I am blessed to have some of the world’s finest girls as my friends. They volunteer with the deaf, they start small businesses, they cook up exotic dishes with unpronounceable names. They’re going to graduate school, writing books, getting internships around the world. But not only are they energetic and talented; they are kind, loyal, dedicated, and faith-full people as well. They won’t tell you about the time they spend behind the scenes, supporting tired parents, making cupcakes for church events, encouraging their coworkers, starting conversations with the “fringe kids” on campus. They are the quiet gems in their communities, and I am honored to know them.

But here’s a mystery. Most of them spent a lonely Valentine’s Day this last week. I know that most of them came home that night to reheated leftovers, a movie by themselves, maybe some homework or e-mail. Why? While there’s certainly nothing wrong with singleness by choice, many of these girls haven’t even been offered the choice. In a world where their initiative and servanthood is exceptional, why on earth weren’t these young women of character, intelligence, and sincerity asked out to dinner by every available man on February 14?

A couple of weeks ago, I needed to clean a few pairs of earrings. I love shiny things, but I am a writer; thus, my jewelry is made mostly of tinfoil and rhinestones. To my chagrin, the Internet informed me that it is difficult or impossible to clean rhinestone jewelry. It comes down to the difference between rhinestones and diamonds.

Rhinestones, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, are imitation diamonds made from crystal, glass, or acrylic. They get their glitter from a reflective backing that refracts the light, creating sparkles and rainbows. They can be cheaply mass-produced, which makes them attractive options for impoverished English majors (and people looking for ridiculous stilettos):


This budget glitz is all fine and dandy as long as its reflective backing doesn’t get wet. Water washes away the glitter, revealing rhinestones for the plastic they are underneath.

Diamonds’ scintillating coruscation (dictionary break!), by contrast, will never wear out or wash away, no matter what they go through. That’s because their legendary luminescence comes from within one of the world’s strongest crystal structures, used for grinding metal tools or containing high-pressure lab experiments when it’s not perched atop engagement rings. Peerlessly beautiful and virtually unbreakable. I guess you get what you pay for.  

So if diamonds are where the real value lies, why is it rhinestones are so much more plentiful? And in higher demand? And for that matter, why were many of the best girls I know single on Valentine’s Day?

Cost, I think, is the answer.

It’s definitely easier to be a rhinestone than a diamond. A nice haircut and new heels are far less expensive than a heart of integrity and sacrifice. Developing those is back-breaking work that will take every day of your life and constant prayer to build. And when just a little lipstick and a flirtatious smile seem to garner instant attention and admiration, why go the distance to become a diamond on the inside?

Key word here is seem. To seem is to have one thing going on the outside and another on the inside, a double life—the opposite of integrity, being one person within and without. As women, are we all about the fragile falsehood of appearance? Are we nothing more than painted paper masks? Or can we say, with Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “I know not seems…I have that within which passes show” (I.2)?

So if it’s more costly to be a diamond, why do the boys so often choose the rhinestones? This question is even asked in the 1936 novel Gone with the Wind (which I have at last begun reading; only 1,215 pages to go!): 

Scarlett: “Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?”

Mammy: “Ah specs it’s kase gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jus’ knows whut dey thinks dey wants.” 


Cost again. It’s far easier—and seems more attractive—to accept the first girl who waltzes into your arms than to labor to win a woman who has a strong character and developed beliefs.

But rhinestone beauty washes away under pressure. I know for a fact that life will throw you curveballs (if it hasn’t already). When you lose your job, when a family member is diagnosed with cancer, when you have to make a hard choice between the easy thing and the right thing, which do you want supporting you: glitter-backed acrylic, or the world’s hardest rock (which also happens to be one of its most beautiful)?

I have met these women: those who choose God’s will even when it means laying down their own, who believe in His big-picture plan and are willing to wait for it, who sacrifice for their families, who show kindness to strangers. They may not always have time for makeup, but they make time to listen to friends in need. They practice the discipline of putting others’ good before their own and seize singleness as an opportunity to serve God. They are beautiful even through suffering, through service, through sacrifice. This is the kind of beauty that withstands hell and high water. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 

Men, I’m not going to lie to you. You’re not going to win the heart of a woman like that easily. It takes a lot of work and prayer to become a person worth having—believe me, these women know. But set your sights high, because their value is beyond price. Diamonds, as the ad says, are forever. No water, no hardship, no struggle can wash away the radiance that comes from within such jewels. No amount of bad hair days or wrinkles can ever touch their beauty. Time cannot tarnish them; no storm can shake them. Many women do noble things, but such diamonds surpass them all. 

So here’s to the diamonds, the ladies who are of such great beauty in God’s sight. Here’s to the single women who choose to spend their time giving, laughing, discovering instead of wallowing in self-pity. Here’s to you who keep on serving even when nobody sees; who keep on praying even when God doesn’t instantly say yes. To you who reject a superficial life of mask-wearing and take the hard road of integrity: your worth is far above rubies. 

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Who are the diamonds you know? What makes them so special? 

Setting a Course

~ Alina ~ 6 Comments

Hello again! 


2 weeks away from my blog feels more like a month and a half. So strange! I feel like everything I re-start after the holiday break is individually packaged in a fresh layer of brain fog. It doesn’t help that I am returning to my computer from one of the most beautiful, relaxing places imaginable: 

Ah, well. 
It is good to be starting a new year, though. I like the chance to break schedule during the holidays. Sometimes I’m so busy putting out the day-to-day fires that come up that I lose sight of my big-picture vision. It feels like a chance to pause, pick up the scattered pieces, regroup, and re-strategize about where you’re going in life. Then New Year’s Day arrives, and with it, a chance to turn a new page and do some things differently in life. 

As a rule, I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. The jokes are true. Talk is cheap, and they’re made of talk. They’re flimsy; made to be broken. Besides, until this year, I was living on the school calendar and made whatever resolutions I was going to make in September. School offers a certain structure to the resolutions you make, too–study more (or maybe less). Invest in friendships. Get an internship. Graduate.

With the rigid frame of academia removed, though, I find that I am the only one responsible for setting goals for myself–for not letting life make my decisions for me. As you can tell by the size of the word “trust” in the sidebar, my process of direction-setting is one that involves a great deal of prayer and wrestling.

So this year I’ve made some New Year’s goals. The word resolution, in my mind, says self-reliance. That’s why New Year’s resolutions don’t last. I myself am weak. When I run out of energy to stay resolved, I give up, out of exhaustion if not lack of will. I think goals, however, are visions we lay before God for partnership. If my life direction has been submitted to Him for approval and guidance, goal-setting is an act of faith: setting a course and trusting Him for strength and courage to hold to it.

I’ll tell you what my goals are in a minute, but first I want to clarify that this is not just my personal mind vomit. I read a great blog post by Kathy Lipp this week that talks about goal-setting for writers. In her words, “public humiliation goes a long way to getting your book written.” Accountability goes a long way toward other things too: when other people are aware of your goals, the pressure to meet them rises–and you accomplish more than if they sit secretly moldering in your journal.

I also like a tradition my knitter friend Audry has instituted on her long-running blog, Bear Ears. At the end of each year, she sets goals, ranging from “knit a sweater” to “build a terrarium.” But she also reviews the results of her previous year’s goals. It becomes a neat cycle of tracking growth and watching how God’s plans sometimes completely diverge from ours. I hope that next December/January, I will be able to track those long-term patterns, too.

OK, so here are my top 5 New Year’s goals. I hope you will hold me accountable and share yours as well!

1. Get to know God better. To do this, my goal is to read through the Bible in chronological order in one year.

2. Have the second draft of my children’s novel completed and be ready to start looking at literary agents by June.

3. Take a 2-month class to learn more about blogging and social media for authors. I hope you’ll be seeing regular improvements on this blog from now through the end of February!

4. Buy a car (wings optional).

5. Read Gone With The Wind, Othello, and The Kite Runner.

What are your goals for this new year? 



Remembering

~ Alina ~ 3 Comments
The Old Testament is full of stories of forgetting. It was a cycle: the Israelites, God’s people, would witness a miracle and worship Him. Then, after a while, they’d forget and go chase after other gods. Then they’d suffer for it and cry out to the true God for help. And then He’d display His power to rescue them yet again.
His continual command to them is to remember. “Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done…Remember the wonders he has done.” (Ps. 105:1,5)

The word “remember” appears 166 times in the NIV. It’s the antidote to many ills: dissatisfaction, self-satisfaction, discouragement, arrogance, pride. It keeps us close to God by reminding us of His goodness and the times He’s been faithful in the past.
As 2011 draws to a close, I want to remember the times that remind me of God’s goodness—the successes, the mountaintops, the glimpses of assurance. Some highlights: 
  • In June, I graduated from college, probably the happiest person to go through that three-hour ceremony in the baseball stadium.
  • In September, I sat down at my computer to start a blog and launch a career as a freelance writer and editor. It was a leap of faith: I didn’t really knowing where I was going, but was trying to obey God’s call and guidance. Today this blog has almost 1,200 hits (thanks to all of you)!  
  • In October, I started tutoring (now have 9 students) and had an article and a poem published on Associated Content (now Yahoo! Voices).
  • In November, I quit my babysitting job and started writing the second draft of my children’s novel (now up to 12,000 words!)
  • Two weeks ago, I received and completed my first professional proofreading project (I flinched at dangling modifiers for days). Now there’s another one coming my way!
These milestones remind me of God’s mighty power and tender love. Four months ago, I had no job and no confidence that I could make it as a writer. Now the elements of a writing career are sprouting up around me like crocuses. It is amazing to watch, because although I planted the seeds and watered them, God has worked (and continues to work) the miracle of growth.
I also want to remember the tough times of this past year, though. In between the milestones, there have been many dry days when I was too tired to write, had no income, wondered if I was doing the right thing at all, or if I should go out and get a “real” job. When I’ve felt sad and alone and sorry for myself, though, is when I have most desperately turned to God (just like the Israelites). When all other support crumbles, when the music dies and you’re alone in the quiet, it’s then that you really understand that God is the Solid Rock, all-sufficient and very present in trouble. Deserts are testing times: for growing and learning to depend, to rely, to trust. It’s in the book of Deuteronomy:
“Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.”

It’s in the times of dryness that we learn if we’re really walking by faith, not sight. Sometimes you can’t tell until you experience blindness.
The main thing is, I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to forget the lessons learned in the desert. And I don’t want to get deluded and think that I worked the successes for myself. God gave me the gift of words and has called me to use it for His glory and others’ blessing. He has opened doors of opportunity and given me fortitude to face the giants. And through it all, He has been incredibly faithful.
So I close the year with a prayer from the Psalms:
“Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness” (Ps. 115:1).

What do you remember as you look back on this year? 


A few quick notes:
  • No blog post next week: I’m going out of town. See you the first week of January!

  • I’ve signed up for an online blog class that goes through January and February. I’m excited to learn more about blogging, so keep an eye out for updates and improvements throughout the next couple of months!