Christmas makes you feel emotional
it may bring parties or thoughts devotional.
Whatever happens or what may be,
here is what Christmas time means to me…

I was sitting in the doctor’s office earlier this month when I noticed it: an inner agitation I couldn’t quite shake. I sat quietly, taking deep breaths and trying to center myself. I looked around. The clinic already had their Christmas decorations out. A space heater hummed quietly by the front door of the small waiting area, sending wafts of warm air my way. Andy Williams was crooning his whoop-di-do’s and dickery-dock’s and at that moment, if I’d had a pellet gun, I swear I would have taken aim at the speakers. All of it felt stifling. The decorations. The cozy space heater. The crooning.

A few days later, I walked through a department store with my mom, noticing the various holiday decorations and gifts suggestively placed along the shopping aisles. All the hand-lettered, farmhouse, chalkboard, twine and burlap and buffalo plaid styling of it made me want to scream bloody murder. I felt like Christmas was being shoved down my throat.

I felt like hope was being shoved down my throat.

For starters, no one likes to have things shoved down her throat. Not even good things. I love cake with an ardent fervor, but if I’ve got a stomach ache, I’m not going to want any cake. And so it is that I entered December 2018. I love Christmas. I love the season and the lights and the Christmas plaid and the music and the memories and yes, the Hallmark movies, and yes, even the Pentatonix version of “Mary, Did You Know?” (Also, yes she knew and no she didn’t. Please just stop fighting about it.) But this year? Well, this year I’ve got a hell of a soul ache. So many of my people are in really hard places. The practical, spiritual and relational fallout of hostility and unchecked hubris pulls like so many millstones around my neck and the necks of those I love while the necks Jesus said should bear this weight appear to be flitting about completely unhindered.

I suffer from no delusions when it comes to the fallibility of mankind. I’m beyond the wide-eyed shock of naively wondering how we can all do and say harmful things. What I have found myself asking instead is: why?

It’s a question without an answer, I know. And the question whispered below my wondering, so faintly I have only just now begun to hear it matters infinitely more:

Don’t you know that I know your need, that I’m no stranger to your weakness? Will you dare to hope for the moment I send death’s dark shadows to flight?

Humbly, heavily, I sit with the question. I do believe. But hope? I’ve done a lot of that this year, Jesus. It’s taken quite a lot out of me. I mean, yeah, it’s given a lot back, too. More than I dared dream of, in fact.

But there are seasons to all of it – a season of sowing hope, and a season of reaping the harvest. And then there’s the season between the reaping and sowing. Between the harvesting and the planting. The inbetween season, when you’re not quite sure what to dream for next or what you’ll be asked to sow. How you’ll be asked to stretch and grow. It’s a bit unsettling, this season, with no shortage of uncertainty.

How can you dream of a harvest when you haven’t the foggiest what you’re about to put in the ground? Maybe this is when it’s hardest to hope. Sure, hope that is seen is no hope at all, but hope that’s not even been buried in the soil yet? What of that hope? What is that hope?

Is it enough to hope for hope?

Is it enough to know that we’ve planted before and we’ll plant again; we’ve harvested before and we’ll harvest again, but for now, perhaps the land needs a bit of a rest? Those words, they stick in my throat.

The land needs a bit of a rest.

After back-to-back seasons of sowing and reaping, the grasslands need a chance to re-grow lest the topsoil turns to anchorless dust to be carried away on the wind, sending hordes of us scattering west. And there it is. The thing that’s being planted is what’s already there – what naturally grows. Our root system. It’s what allows us to sow and hope and dream and harvest in the first place. Without it, we stand to lose everything. It’s the difference between looking out on an empty field and seeing barrenness or seeing fertility. After all, our dreams are only as fertile as the roots in which they’re anchored are sure. And if we do this resting and re-growing the way it’s meant to be done, we won’t just be making way for the next harvest – we’ll be cultivating crops for the next generation.

This is the part of Kingdom work no one tells you about. The unglamorous bit. It doesn’t sparkle. It hasn’t inspired catchy tunes. Families don’t gather to celebrate the re-growing days. Nobody carefully hand-letters “The inbetween season is my jam” on coffee mugs and v-neck tees. Maybe we should, though. Maybe we should learn to be okay with the season of rest and regrowth. Actually, not maybe. Definitely. We definitely should learn this.

You see, a very long time ago, there was a stump. Those who had known the stump as a tree were exceedingly confused at its becoming a stump. After all, this had been an immensely powerful tree. This particular tree was supposed to endure forever. Their every hope and dream had hung from its many branches. Yet there it sat, a withering stump. What those who had known the stump as a tree did not realize was that even a stump has roots. And so it was that just when everyone thought the stump was dead, a tiny shoot began to sprout. A budding, flowering, tender Branch shot forth, straight from the roots of Jesse’s stump.

A shoot from Jesse’s stump. A Branch from its roots. And His name shall be called Wonderful.

And so this year, I’m okay with not wanting Bing and Andy crooning away, telling me how to feel. I’m okay with a low tolerance for all things merry and bright. Most of all, I’m okay with not pretending it’s the harvest when, in reality, the fields lie empty.

I’m okay with hoping for hope. After all, even a stump has roots.

It can be Holy Week and you can be holding your own cup of grief, straining to whisper: Abba, even now, I know anything is possible with You…but Abba, even now? This one is all You.

It can be Holy Week and you can know what it is to face doing the hard and holy work in a way you dared not imagine just one year ago and it can make you want to whirl around in rage and howl at the last twelve months and all the pain their promises ushered in.

It can be Holy Week and you can think of Jesus’ ripping flesh even as you feel your own heart ripping right in two ragged pieces, threads torn in places that feel like they’ve only just mended from the last tearing.

It can be Holy Week and you can watch a beautiful story burn, watch the ashes fly off into the night without even enough leftover to scrape into a pile and someday barter for beauty.

It can be Holy Week and you can wonder how we went from hosanna to hatred in a matter of days.

It can be Holy Week and you can feel abandoned, forsaken, cut off, betrayed, left for dead.

It can be Holy Week and you can grab a towel and wash some feet.

It can be Holy Week and you can knowingly, willingly choose to share your table, your bread and your wine with a friend on their way to betray you with a kiss.

It can be Holy Week and you can pray so hard you sweat blood.

It can be Holy Week and you can stop the hand that grabs the sword to sever the ear to slow the death march.

It can be Holy Week and you can refuse to take offense.

It can be Holy Week and you can comfort another dying beggar.

It can be Holy Week and you can serve.

It can be Holy Week and you can love.

It can be Holy Week and you can die.

And because it is Holy Week, you can know you will rise.

Because it is Holy Week, you can know you will see that tomb empty again.

Because it is Holy Week, you can know: even now, your Abba will bring new life.

Because with your Abba, especially now, everything is possible.

My sister and her husband asked friends and family to pen a chapter for a book they would present their daughter on her thirteenth birthday last year, and I quite literally jumped at the chance. I share here what I wrote for her because I believe so many of our hearts need the reminder – mine included, perhaps chiefly. Although I address my niece throughout, I pray you will hear your name echoed here again and again. Shalom.

For my niece, darling of Heaven.
From your Aunnie, who loves you so dearly.

I was in West Virginia recently for work, and I had the opportunity to visit a salt mine that’s been there since the 1800’s. As part of our tour, we were allowed to roam the grounds of the mine and the old farmstead which included a barn, some very fascinating striped cows and the mine’s original office building. From the outside the office building looked like a one-room schoolhouse, the likes of which you’d see in a movie about America in the 1800’s.

As we entered the building, our guide told us the office had been left undisturbed for nearly eight decades now and we were free to peruse at our leisure as long as we left everything as we found it. A coat hung on the back of a door, as though someone had worn it in on a chilly spring morning and forgotten it when the weather turned warmer later in the day. Invoices were neatly stacked near a dusty ledger filled with handwritten names and amounts. Blueprints and large maps of the property hung on the wall or lay draped over desks and crusty jars of salt collected from various sources lined a high, narrow shelf along the wall. It was as if the original owners had simply walked out of the office one day and locked the door behind them, never to return.

Naturally I found myself studying one of the bookshelves. What had these West Virginia salt miners been reading all those years ago? The shelf held a black leather Presbyterian hymnal, the 1933 annual of The American Rose Society, William Couper’s One Hundred Years at V.M.I. and a very ominous-looking study of Leviticus. One book at the end of the row caught my eye. It was a small volume, its thin green spine elegantly lettered and gilded with gold vines curling around dark green flowers. They used to make books so beautiful, didn’t they?

I stooped to take a picture of the shelf and get a closer look at the title of this enchanting little tome. Pearls for Young Ladies, it read. Hm, I thought. That certainly sounds interesting. I wonder what wisdom one might have imparted to young ladies when this book still smelled of fresh ink and new paper. Quite lost in that thought, I was startled when one of my colleagues tapped my shoulder, pointed at the book and smiled as she said, “That’s for you.”

I think it’s only fair to point out a few things here. First, I had only just met this woman earlier in the day and couldn’t pick her out of a police lineup today if either of our lives depended on it. Second, I am often the youngest attendee at my work conferences, and the West Virginia meeting was no exception. Third, I have no reason to believe this woman has ever actually read the book in question. Rather, I think a very sweet woman saw me looking at an enchanting little book for young ladies, and she was merely trying to be kind or clever, or both. Nothing more.

Nevertheless, I was curious. This particular work is old enough to be in the public domain so I knew I could find its text with some ease. When I returned to my hotel later that day, I located the book online and began to read, unsure of what I would find. Might there be some treasure hidden here for today’s young lady, echoing words of grace to us all the way from the 19th century? Sadly, it was not to be. My heart sank as I read the author’s opening address. In so many words, he assured young girls they are not God’s special little flowers – “darlings of Heaven” he called them – sent to Earth at this particular time in history to gain any sort of special knowledge about God or His ways. To that end, he reasoned, they ought to remain appropriately silent. I was so shocked that I could not help but keep reading.

Next, the author cautioned young girls against considering themselves any more loved or dear to the Lord than all the other girls in the world – whether “rich or poor, civilized or savage.” And while I do not disagree that you, my darling niece, are “not one whit more thought of or loved by the great Maker and Master” than any other young lady in this world, I much prefer to reason what I believe to be the greater truth behind that statement, which is simply that it would be quite and entirely impossible for the great Maker and Master to love you or any other young lady one whit more than He presently does.

My dear one, He has moved the heavens and the earth to see your soul restored and redeemed. He did the same for me and for your mother and for your father and for your brother and your sisters and for every person who ever lived because that is love and love is more than what He does—love is who He is. He is not stingy or miserly with His love; rather, the beloved disciple himself tells us to behold what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. (1 John 3:1)

And do you think such a loving Father has brought us all into the fold of His family – His kingdom family – without any design or purpose for our futures? Nonsense! He is the Maker of all things. Walk outside, spend five minutes observing how the world around you works and see if you can even begin to imagine what your purpose might be. Should you require further evidence, note the book of Ephesians where the apostle Paul tells us that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10)

As I sat and reeled from the author’s purported pearls for the young ladies of the late 19th century, I thought of a story written thousands of years earlier. What of Esther? I thought. Had she not been placed in a position of influence that she might quite literally use her voice to save the lives of God’s people? And was this placing and purpose not expressed to her in those exact terms by her uncle as she struggled to find the courage to believe she could play such a role in God’s story? What if she had, as the author suggested, remained appropriately silent? For my part, I am deeply grateful Queen Esther had an Uncle Mordecai speaking to her of destiny and bravery and faith instead of the dreamless chiding I found in this beautifully gilded book.

Why do I tell you this random and mundane tale of a pretty but ultimately disappointing book I saw in an old abandoned office building in the hills of West Virginia?

I haven’t been able to get that book out of my mind, and I finally realize why. See, even though the book was written almost 140 years ago, I and so many other women I know grew up believing its words. Its message is nothing new. From early days we heard it: you are not special. You are not here for any particular reason. You are definitely not the darling of Heaven and any thoughts to the contrary are the misinformed ponderings of an exceedingly foolish girl.

The funny thing about the “you are not” statements we find ourselves believing is that eventually they become “you are” and they come at us from seemingly endless voices:

You are worthless.
You are odd and out of place.
You are unloved.

Oh, my sweet girl, if I could keep even one of those messages from reaching your heart, I would. But we have an enemy who is singularly threatened by our beauty and our purpose as women, and he loves hurtling flaming arrows ablaze with lies about our identity straight at our hearts. He will treat you no differently than he has treated me or my sisters or any other woman who has come before us. And so I find myself giving you one piece of advice on this, the occasion of your thirteenth birthday. If you hear nothing else from me, dear one, do hear these words, first spoken to me by my sister and your Aunt Holly:

Beloved, you must know the Truth to a greater intimacy than you know the lie.

The Truth you must intimately know is not the truth about who you are. At least, that’s not where you’ll begin. You must begin by knowing the Truth about your Father. Know who He is, and you will know who you are. It was not until I began to know Him more deeply that I began to see who He has made me to be. How can a daughter believe she is beloved unless she first knows her father as a loving and devoted parent? How can she believe she is created uniquely and with a specific purpose in view unless she beholds just how creative and intentional her Maker is? How can she dare to dream of her life’s adventure as a Kingdom-builder unless she has spent time with her King, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat for the nations until her own heart beats in time with His? How will she ever believe she has value unless she learns to gaze into the eyes of the Savior who willingly laid down His life that she might live?

My precious niece, you are special and unique and I believe down to the depths of my soul that you were placed on this earth for such a time as this. You are a darling of Heaven, and you will point many to the Father where they, too, will learn the Truth of who He is and see that they, too, are His darlings. He will use your sweet, tender spirit to lead them. He will use your compassion, your love of words and your deep and thoughtful mind to lead them. Only remember this: He will lead them. You will not have to lead them. You fix your gaze on Yahweh. Sit at His feet and know Him. Seek Him above all else. In Him is your deepest belonging, your greatest purpose and your most incredible journey.

You are so very loved, mi sobrina. I cannot wait to watch the pages of your story fill with bold, brave words dripping with the Father’s love. And someday, 140 years from now, when a young woman desperately needs to know she is loved and cherished and destined for something glorious beyond imagining, may your life be the story she finds bound in green and gold.

It all started with my refusal to cooperate.

I could have insisted. I had every right. Normally, I do assert this right. But there’s this journey I’ve been on lately, and it calls for a new way that looks a lot like surrender and peace. So when I was checking in for a flight last month and I had the option of changing my seat assignments, I refused. I wondered what might happen if I just went with the flow this time. What might I find in 6A or 23F or 42A? For starters, maybe I would find some freedom from my need to control my life – this thing I have been fighting to be free of for years now. This lie that tells me I can somehow manage my world and mitigate all risk, discomfort, pain or inconvenience.

The risk mitigation theory is a whopper of a lie, I tell you. There is not a single one of us that has that kind of power. Not one.

Yet we strive and we strain and we reach for the ever-elusive comfort of Controlling All The Things and we end up shattered and bewildered when life is still somehow itself:  mysterious and unpredictable and complex. I have been alternately striving and shattered for years now. One might argue both sides of the chicken or the egg’s pre-emergence, but in my case (and I think perhaps in many cases), the shattering came first. We are born. Life is itself. We are shattered. As we pick up the pieces, we realize: hey, these are pieces. Maybe I should just try holding onto them myself. I bet I can fit them all back together in a way that might not break again. And so we puzzle over the pieces, trying this combination and that. Sometimes the picture is garish and difficult to look at; other times, we manage to piece together a semblance of what we began with – yet somehow, something always seems to be ever so slightly off. Something is always missing.

My Father has been showing me for months now – lovingly and relentlessly – just how much I have loved tinkering with the pieces all these years. And just how much has been missing.

There is a freedom in powerlessness that I have always considered such dangerous territory. It seems to be the place where all the bad things happen. I have been so busy avoiding this place that I could not see my own hands, bloody and scarred from years of clinging to the pieces of my life and forcing them into place. As I have seen this in the light of day, I have made small choices here and there to consciously relinquish control of my life, to birth a way of living free and unhindered, dangerous in peace and beautiful in rest. Small steps into what I know is a spacious place.

Letting the airlines tell me where to sit on September 19 was a small choice, but by 9:00 pm that evening, I was seated in 17F, somewhere high above the Pacific, fully at peace.

You may notice that 17F was not in the list of seats I referenced at the beginning of this post. That is a fun little story.

The wonderful thing about living in Little Rock is that you get to see so many airports anytime you need to go anywhere. Seriously. It’s amazing. Who knew you could connect to so many destinations only by going through Atlanta, but when it comes time to actually go to Atlanta, you have to be routed through Houston? The mystery of air travel is amazing and I will never understand it. As a lifelong Arkansan, I have come to expect multiple connecting flights in my travels, and I knew this trip would be no different, particularly because I was flying to an island in the middle of the Pacific. Little Rock to Houston to San Francisco to Honolulu. No big. I squinted just a tidge at the 45 minute layover in San Francisco when I made my reservations, but the ticket was so much cheaper I decided it was worth the risk.

We left Little Rock the morning of my trip and all was well – a quick, smooth jaunt up and down, landing in Houston. When I boarded the plane bound for San Fran, I realized not only did I have a window seat, but the middle seat was empty. Huzzah! How wise I had been in accepting the airline’s seat reservations for me! What good fortune to have extra space to stretch out during the four hour flight to California without worrying I might accidentally fall asleep on my seat mate’s shoulder! I smugly settled in for the four hour flight. Clearly my decision to deliberately release control over my life was being rewarded.

We were in the air for approximately five minutes when something felt off. I was warm and anxious and nauseous and my head felt a bit like it was trying to expand three sizes. I shrugged it off at first. I do tend to be a little on the sensitive side, after all. The flight attendant assured us the captain was aware of the temperature in the cabin and was working on it. Then my ears started popping, constantly and uncontrollably. I reached for chewing gum. The passenger next to me reached for chewing gum. A passenger in front of us held his head in his hands and asked why his ears were popping. It felt like the captain was climbing fast enough to break the sound barrier, and then it felt like the plane was suddenly losing altitude. Because it was. We were coming right back down.

The captain announced the automatic cabin altitude regulator had failed, and while they were able to manually control the altitude in the cabin, we were being diverted to Austin to have the plane checked out before we could continue on to San Francisco.

Did I mention I had a 45 minute layover in San Francisco? Yes. An Austin diversion – no matter how swift – meant I would miss my connecting flight.

I have done this dance often enough to know how impractical it is to expect a same-day arrival once you miss a connection. Add the necessity of crossing the Pacific to the mix and you can forget about it. I had so been looking forward to getting to the hotel and having a moment or two to myself before jumping into several days of meetings and events. Still, I had to admit the obvious: I had zero control over this situation. If I wanted to get to Honolulu at all, I would have to wait and see how the plan unfolded. So I released myself from the dizzying self-imposed obligation of searching all available flight routes and forming fifty contingency plans in my head. Instead, I simply waited.

Once in Austin, we were asked to de-plane in favor of a new, cabin pressure-regulated aircraft bound for San Francisco. I prepared myself for standing in an interminably long line at customer service only to be told I would need to stay overnight in Austin or San Francisco or some other random city before being booked on a connecting flight for the final leg (or legs) of my trip the following day. I decided that would be okay. If I could not control the outcome, what good would it do to fret over that outcome’s many possible iterations, including the least desirable?

As I got off the plane, I tried to focus on one thing at a time to keep my mind from rushing ahead. Step one: get off the plane. There were two passengers ahead of me – older passengers, with slower gaits. Normally I would have brushed past them in a very self-important hurry to find out when I was going to make it to Honolulu because obviously I was the only passenger inconvenienced here. This is where I hear my dear cousin Shawn, a flight attendant, saying: Andrea. Please don’t be one of those passengers. But since I was focusing on one thing at a time, and my current thing was getting off the plane, I slowed. I walked behind the passengers without wishing they would move faster. It calmed me. It helped me remember: I am not in control here, nor am I alone. None of these people planned on being in Austin today. Besides that, no matter how you sliced it, I was facing at least 9 hours of flight time and several more hours of waiting at various airports. Shaving an extra five seconds off my walk to the gate would not get me to Honolulu any faster; if anything, it may make me a little more miserable in the process.

I reached the gate area and it was time for step two: find someone who can help. I stopped at the ticket counter and said, “My flight was diverted from Houston. I won’t make my connection from San Francisco to Hono…” and before I could finish my sentence, the gate agent was asking for my baggage claim ticket. I handed it to him and he said, “Yes. You’re headed to Honolulu. We’ve rerouted you through LAX. One moment please while I have your luggage pulled off the Houston plane.”

I just stared at him in stunned silence.

If you have ever flown and missed a connection, take a moment and let this sink in. What usually takes hours – and considerable gnashing of teeth – to resolve was handled for me before I was even off the plane. As the gate agent, a very serene man named Clemenceau, radioed the ramp crew about my luggage, I noticed another agent was struggling with keying something into the system. Clemenceau leaned over to help her while he was on hold with the ramp crew. Another agent was standing nearby, guiding them through the arrangements they needed to make, snipping out questions and reminders here and there. Clemenceau just kept moving, staying calm as a cucumber.

A fellow passenger, this one London-bound, was asking for help with putting her Samsung on airplane mode. She was terribly worried about incurring network charges once she arrived in London, but her daughter had insisted she bring her phone. After striking out with the gate agents, she asked me for help. (I was glad because I had been itching to help her but did not want to be intrusive.) What a joy to be able to stand there and help this sweet woman with her phone instead of being so consumed by my own situation that I was oblivious to her need. It was such a lovely gift to really see the people around me.

Three hours later, I was headed to LAX for a brief layover before making the final jump to Hawaii. I was tired. My knees were sore and swollen. I had eaten the most random food, and by the time I got settled in Honolulu, I would be awake for close to 24 hours. And all of that was okay. I would get where I was going. I would do what I was there to do. Then I would come home. But in that precise moment, even from that spot 32,000 feet above the ocean, I already felt closer to that spacious place where my feet roam free, hands open to receive whatever may come my way. And I flat could not shake the feeling that my decision to roll with the seat assignment flow the night before had somehow paved the way for all that peace.

I suppose I should not be surprised that I now find myself on a different sort of diverted flight. My flight from Little Rock went to plan. We took off in Houston and everything seemed fine, until it wasn’t. And now? Well, now I’m not quite sure what to expect. But I do know this: I will get where I am going. I may not know how or when, and trying to figure all of that out is guaranteed to make me one very crazy person. So I focus on one thing at a time. I’ve had to deplane in Austin. The man at the ticket counter can tell me what to do next. Purse and backpack in hand, I make my way to the gate, intentionally slowing my pace to match the passengers ahead of me. After all, their plans just went woppy-jawed, too. Trying to rush past them in my self-important hurry will only scuff my soul. But if I can slow down and breathe and remember that I am not in control here? Well, maybe I can find myself in that spacious place again. And maybe I can even help one of them find that place while we wait. Anybody here headed for London? I can show you how to put a Samsung in airplane mode.

When I was in my twenties, God the Father went from being a two-dimensional character on wispy thin pages to a fully alive, very real and amazingly involved and loving Father. I experienced Him in deeply personal ways, and I learned at least the beginnings of what it means to rest in being His child. Somehow through all of this, Jesus remained a bit of a mystery. Well, not somehow. I can tell you how, but that’s another story for another day.

In February of this year, I went to a conference in Houston hosted by Beth Moore for women in their twenties and thirties who are called to teach, speak or write. That I ended up there made no sense to me; how I ended up there showed it made perfect sense to God. Even if I did want to run straight out of that hotel ballroom in a wild panic about fifty times before we were even a full sixty minutes into the conference.

My sweet friend Melanie went with me, and we had the best and deepest talks throughout the weekend. After a Saturday full of listening, absorbing, worshipping, crying our eyes out and furiously scribbling notes, I felt comfortable enough to tell her how I felt about Jesus: that my experience of Him felt impersonal, somewhat removed; that I felt my primary line of communication was with the Father. It’s a very difficult thing to describe, so I don’t often try. But Melanie gets me and/or is gracious enough to hide it when she does not. Before we fell asleep that night, our heads still spinning from the day, I said I thought I would begin a deeper study of John when I got home. My pastor Craig has always said that’s a good place to go when you want to know Jesus.

Just a few days before I left for Houston, my dear friend Sarabeth asked me to write a series of daily email devotionals for our church during the Lent season. When I returned from LIT, I began to discuss ideas for that series with Sarabeth, and she suggested I focus on John. Surprise, surprise. I undertook the assignment with eager anticipation, and I thoroughly enjoyed every last minute of it. I felt more alive than I have felt in years – like a wild, rushing river was roaring in my chest. I loved digging into the text, imagining the stories as if I had witnessed them firsthand, geeking out on word studies and communicating what I had learned each week. I was loathe to see it end – I even asked if they would let me write a bonus week and I may have cried real tears when I hit ‘send’ on the final installment – but I intentionally refused to ask God to show me my next assignment when I finished. Since January, God has been graciously – if not relentlessly – showing me all the ways I just love “controlling” my life. (Those quotation marks there are 100% intentional.) So when I finished the Lent writings, I felt the need to just sit with what I had learned for a bit, to rest from several weeks of hard but rewarding labor and enjoy the afterglow without jumping right into the Next Big Thing.

Isn’t it funny how even our not-planned plans so often go awry?

Not long after the last Lent email landed in everyone’s inboxes, I was given a copy of Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge, a book specifically about exploring the personality of Jesus. Weary though I was from the weeks of writing and studying, I longed to read back through the passages in John and what I had written, to spend some time sitting with the stories as an observer and see what undiscovered treasures I might yet find. I figured I would dig into Eldredge as well. Then life happened. I got busy, and I didn’t take time to sit with those stories, or any stories for that matter. I allowed myself to get overwhelmed, allowed my voice to be stifled, and I watched in resignation as the rushing river in my chest slowly stilled and dried up, leaving behind dry, cracked, thirsty earth.

Over the last several weeks, I have felt my thirst to the point of great pain, and I began to intently ask: what does it mean to drink the Living Water? What does it take for that water to well up inside me? I waited for answers. They didn’t come at first. See, I was looking for a to do list (really, when am I going to stop with that?). I was just like the people I continually marveled at in studying John – the people clamoring for the gift and not the Giver. I was asking how to drink the Living Water and growing frustrated with the lack of response. Yet standing before me all along has been the actual Living Water: Jesus, just waiting for me to drop my guard and admit the obvious. It’s noon. I am at the well. Alone. Unseen. And I am ever so thirsty.

If there is one thing I do not lack at the moment, it is reading material. I have at least one dozen unread books silently accusing me from various places in my bedroom. That having been said, I just flat cannot abide reading anything at all about myself and my future and my five year plan right this second, but it’s also not exactly the time for Tozer or Lewis. Eldredge’s book about Jesus kept catching my eye, though. In the spirit of vulnerability, I will own that I have been afraid to read this book. What if I didn’t get it? What if I read it cover to cover and somehow fail to know Jesus more intimately? Something about standing in the blazing hot sun, parched and weary and desperate for Jesus has managed to strip me of those particular inhibitions, so I cracked it open and began to read. I’m mere chapters in and it’s already blowing my mind in the best and hardest ways. I’m also walking back through my Lent writings – this time less as an eager writer, more as a thirsty reader. Along the way I hope to share a handful of my thoughts on all of the above in this space, for two reasons:
1. I am an external processor and I love Jesus.
2. If I keep texting my long-form thoughts to my mentor after every new revelation, he may end up blocking my number. And I really need him not to do that.

For now, I ever so briefly revisit the beginning, when two of John the Baptist’s followers were trailing Jesus and He turned to ask them what they wanted.
“They said, ‘Rabbi’ (which means ‘Teacher’), ‘where are you staying?’
‘Come,’ He replied, ‘and you will see.’” (John 1:38b-39, NIV)

Come, He tells me. Come and you will see.

But Jesus, I need the address. Can you write down the directions? Maybe draw me a map?

No, child. Come. Walk with me. Release your need to know. Take hold of my hand instead.

Come and you will see.