For the Class of 2014

I'm not good at good-byes. In real life, like, away from this computer, I struggle with how to express emotions. So good-byes, which are so often filled with that peculiar mixture of sadness and anticipation, are not exactly my strong suit. In fact, I am so bad at good-byes that I often choke on them. A recent example happened on this year's trip to the Dominican Republic. Jack Horton, one of my students, asked me to say a good-bye on his behalf to a little boy he connected with on the trip. Since Jack wasn't going to get to visit the boy's village on the last afternoon of the trip, he asked me to give his good-bye wishes on his behalf. Jack, I feel like you should know me well enough to know that I would fail miserably at this, but, I suppose, that in the end, I really just have myself to blame. That whole afternoon in the village, I could feel the anxiety of the good-bye building up within me. I would have to find the right time, the right spot, the right words- in Spanish. But I wanted to do it. I didn't want to let Jack down. Finally, the perfect moment presented itself. I was walking along the dirt road just outside of the village, on the way to see what the villagers call "la laguna" (and what some gringos have not-so-affectionately named "the death pond"), when all of a sudden Jack's little amigo starts trotting along right beside me. I'm thinking to myself, "Wermel, this is your chance, you've got to go for it." And I did. I introduced myself, and asked the boy if he remembered Gato (Jack's Spanish name). He nodded his head and looked at me in anticipation. This is it Wermel. You can do it. But did I do it? No. Rather than saying "Gato says to tell you good-bye," I told this kid that Gato says, "hello." I was thinking good-bye, I knew to say good-bye, but when the time came I totally choked."Hello" is all that would come out.

Good-bye means the end. And when things are good, I don't like the end. So I don't like good-bye. And what I don't like, I'm usually not any good at.

In the next few days, there are going to be some good-byes. Maybe we won't say it to one another. God knows I probably won't volunteer to utter the words aloud. But, in my heart, probably in all of our hearts, we know that's what we're doing. These days are my last days with the people I've come to know and love the best since moving to Texas. It's finally time to say good-bye to the class of 2014.

I got my job at Hill Country Christian School on a stormy April morning in 2011. I'd been married for just over one year- and that year had been as stormy as the morning I was hired. People say that the first year of marriage is the hardest. I don't know if people say that for the same reasons that I claim it, but, regardless, in this case, what they say is true. Details don't really matter, and now is not the time for that anyway, but I will just say this, when I went in for my final interview, that morning, the clouds hung low in the sky, swollen and purple with rain. And if I could have drawn a picture of what my heart felt like at that time, then I would have drawn a picture of those clouds and said, "That'll do."

In that time of unexpected pain, I wondered what would ever un-do the hurt. I know relational pain. I've had my share in my past, a lot of it a byproduct of my own choices. But I don't know if I've ever felt a pain that was so surprisingly deep as the pain I lived in that year. And I don't know if I've ever doubted so much that God would act to remove it. During that time, I read something about the book of Ruth, and was taken-aback by a statement about how God works. For the life of me, I don't remember where I read it or who the author was, but it was said with such authority, that I wondered if it could be true. It didn't seem like it could fit all cases, especially ones like mine. The statement was about kinsman-redeemers. If you've read the book of Ruth, then you know this already, but in that story, Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, are in a greater amount of a pain than I've ever been in. Their situation is pretty dire. They've lost everything, and don't have a whole lot to look forward to in life. Their disappointments are crushing, and Naomi is so depressed that she doesn't even really want to be alive. But then, in the midst of their despair, God provides Ruth and Naomi with another ending. They were alone and without hope or a future. And then God writes Boaz into the story. Boaz was their kinsman-redeemer, a family member in a position to deliver them from their troubles by marrying Ruth and starting a new lineage, a new story. I'm not a Bible scholar, but I'd put money on Boaz being a "type"of Christ- the rescuer, the giver of new life and new hope. Usually, when you're reading Christian books, that's the kind of thing that you run into- Christ is your own personal "Boaz." So, what was so shocking to me about the thing that I read was that, rather than just saying, "Put your trust in Christ. He's the real-deal Kinsman-Redeemer," this author said that God delivers His people, through His people. God is still in the habit of writing kinsman-redeemers into people's stories. He still gives people new hope and new futures by using his own people to bless one another. But at the time that I read this, I didn't see how it was possible for me. When you read Ruth when you're a single girl, Boaz is the husband that you desire. He's the "one," right? But I was already married. I already had a Boaz and I was still in pain. So who was God going to use to redeem me? And, for a long time, I dismissed the idea as bad biblical interpretation. Who can really make a claim like that anyway?

When I started to teach them they were sophomores, and, at that time, I think they reminded me more of children than adults. They were respectful and attentive. They worked hard, and were endlessly patient as I fumbled through my Chemistry notes. More than once, I came to class and had to admit that I'd taught them something wrong the class before, and that I needed to go back and re-do it. Such is life when you're teaching a subject for the first time. I really couldn't have had a more patient and respectful audience. I was lucky they didn't laugh me back into working part-time retail.

It was tough, though. They were so smart, and I didn't want to disappoint them. I tried hard, but it wasn't enough. I still made all sorts of mistakes and wished every day that I was better at teaching them. Just after Christmas, I was probably at my weakest. Exhausted from trying to learn two new preps and teach five classes, amazed at the emotional and spiritual intensity of teaching in a Christian School and bewildered by news of my dad's cancer and Andy's job loss, I remember the morning that I woke up (very early, as has been my habit these past three years) and decided to tell them the  truth. I don't remember exactly what I said. I don't know if they remember either. But I think I told them about my dad. And about Andy being unemployed. And I think that I told them that I was trying my best, and that I was going to keep trying my best. I hope that I told them that I was sorry that my best sometimes wasn't good enough. I remember that I was nervous. I hadn't ever been that vulnerable with any group of people, and these were sophomores, for goodness sake. And, though I don't remember exactly what I said, I do remember that I left school that day feeling, for the first time in a long time, that I had spoken what was true in my heart- in the deep parts- and that it was heard.

It's funny, but I couldn't tell you what happened next. What exactly happened over the next two and a half years? I can't put it into words. Not in one sentence, anyway, or even in a paragraph. But in my mind, I can see it-a series of scenes and conversations. I see...

Marshmallows flying and cheetos burning. A Periodic Table made of cupcakes. I see Paige in a blue prom dress at the Oasis. I see Grace when she realized she could exempt her Chemistry final. I see Courtney and Paige in side-splitting laughter after they sunk almost all of the lounge chairs in our old apartment swimming pool. I see Preston's eye-brows knit together, the tell-tale sign that he is learning something new. I see Jack at 6:45AM, lying on the porch of my portable, waiting for the AP Biology test review to start. I see Courtney and Olivia with their pipe cleaner "sex combs," coming at me to pollinate me. I see Nathan Brown's drawing of houses, a perfectly planned community, along the side of his guided reading. I see Armineh's sweetness- always that sweetness- a portrait of true beauty. I see Paige frustrated and Courtney defeated when hours and hours of studying don't produce the results that they expected. I see Baley making peanut-butter balls in the DR and then she is crying, her face between her knees in the back of Anyuli's restaurant, and then she is smiling when she sees Darlin Frid. I see Mitchell Butterfield's eyes moving involuntarily from the pain of his sunburn. And then I see him with his head down on my lab table, the headache so bad that he can't even look up. Then I see him smiling after beating me and Robin for the dozenth time at "Clue." I see Ashton and Mitchell and Robin and I playing Jenga at the high school retreat while everyone else is in the chapel. Our time was holy just the same. I see pizza boxes and junk food and strewn review sheets at 9:30PM the night before the AP Biology exam. I see Jack and Preston at the door of my apartment, ready to help us move. And then I see Preston discover Andy's sword collection. I see Bella. I miss Bella. I see Federico's scar on the back of his head, and I see him walking down the street toward the Mak house with a Red Rock in his hand. I see him kicking off his shoes to jump into the pond in Chichigua. I see Olivia's face when Ashton surprised her at prom. I see a group of them in my living room, playing telephone pictionary. I see Preston running, I see Preston biking, I see Preston rolling around on the carpet underneath his dining room table because it's so soft and he's so tired after we've ridden God knows how many miles in the heat of a summer morning. I see Jack catch and I see Jack pitch. I see Cale's cheshire cat grin. I see Macey and Courtney fighting. I see Grace finally getting angry because life is so not fair. I see a text from Baley and will respond, even though my eyes are droopy and I'm nearly asleep. I see what I will teach them tomorrow, what I want them to know, what I want them to value. I see Armineh singing and I see Karen playing volleyball, those forever-long limbs stretching toward the sky. I see Colin warming up before a basketball game, looking very nonchalant, but I know he knows we're watching him. I see Zach up to no good with Fernando again and I see him grateful for help and I see some of his anger fade into friendship. I feel one of Aimee's sweet hugs and I see Andi's smile and her long, yellow braid. I see Courtney's eyes- brown- and Justin's eyes-blue, and God help me, I cannot help but think of a Punnett Square. I see Preston in his crown with my pointer teaching an Anatomy lesson. I see Jack's handwriting- perfect in every detail- thanks for everything.

It's funny how life forms from seemingly random moments that begin to connect, not in any detectable pattern, at first, but one day, you wake up and you realize, as if by surprise- I don't hurt anymore. And that is how it happened for me. Three years, countless moments. I didn't have just one kinsman-redeemer- I had a whole class of them.

Class of 2014. I don't expect to ever love another class like I love yours. And that is well. God gave me you at just the right time- a time when I needed you most. Maybe, just a little bit, we all needed each other. It's time for good-bye. I am proud. I am hopeful. I am sad. I am relieved. I am thankful. You have been my friends, my students, my challenge... my people. Go forth into the world and continue to bless it, and remember, always, that you have been a blessing to me.

I love you.

Catalyst

What do a hot air balloon, a posee of gnomes and a veritable army of hipsters have in common? Well, if you were one of the pastors, leaders or regular Joe's who converged at BentTree Church in Dallas this past week, then you already know. We were there for the Catalyst Conference- regular Joes, hipsters, and, yes, gnomes.

I've known about Catalyst since the days that I listened to Andy Stanley's podcast like it was my direct link to heaven. Catalyst was birthed in Andy Stanley's home city of Atlanta, and I would often hear a plug for it while I was waiting with baited breath for nuggets of wisdom from Andy's podcast. But I  never thought that I was really the type of person who would attend this conference. It's for pastors, for church leaders, for people starting non-profits... and apparently, for gnomes. But not for people like me. Fortunately, my principal thinks a little more out-of-the-box than I do.

One of the benefits of having a principal who is an Atlanta transplant is that some Andy Stanley has come into our professional lives. Our principal attended Andy's church in Atlanta when she lived there, and has been attending Catalyst Atlanta for years. She told us that one of her first thoughts when she became principal of our school was, "Now, how will I get these people to Atlanta for Catalyst?" It was good news for her when she found out about Catalyst Dallas. It was good news for me when she asked me to come along with a group of teachers this year.

Let me be the first to admit that I am skeptical about Christian "highs" that comes from conferences like this. I do not desire to personally experience them and I don't endorse them to others. When I was a youth leader in NC, I witnessed teenagers go to camp or youth events where they would stand with their eyes closed and their hands up to some really loud "worship" band, and then cry their way through forty-five minutes of some coolish looking dude smacking them upside the head with a "relevant" message, that they were, like, so torn up by. Then they would ask Jesus for forgiveness and be euphoric for like, a day. Only to come back home and have sex and drink like everybody else. At which time they would feel so burdened with guilt that we were lucky to ever see them again.

I also am just tired of the overdone  Christian worship "experience." I know that there might be people who get mad at reading this, but what does my opinion really matter to you anyway? Why do we need dark venues, strobe lights, and music that causes permanent hearing damage to raise our hands and worship the Lord? My husband used to work the sound booth at our old church. They told him that one of the reasons that they play the music so loud is so that men will sing. Apparently men don't want to sing if their voices can be heard. I'm sorry, but that sounds like a problem that needs to be addressed with discipleship, not increased decibels. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I'm concerned about permanent hearing loss now that I teach A&P (90-dB is the danger zone people!) I get that the goal of such an "experience" is to get people to engage in worship with reckless abandon. I'm for that, actually. I'm for clapping and hand-raising, and moving to the music. I don't think that worship needs to only be  hymns that we sing while holding the hymnal exactly 1 foot from our body and never moving from that position. But I do not see why darkness and loudness prevail every Sunday morning in churches across America. Are we ashamed of light? Afraid of quiet? Or are we just trying to keep up with the loudness of the world as it screams past us? Do we think we need our AV teams to "set the mood" for us to approach the Throne of Grace?

 One last word on my position as I approached this conference- and if you've read this far, you're picking up on this already- I'm tired of the religious stuff that Christians do. Last summer, I went to Six Flags in Dallas. Our first roller coaster was the Titan, which has one of the fastest and steepest drops in the world. As we crept up the track, Sara, my partner in this nerve-wracking experience, and I sang "Jesus Loves Me" nervously, excitedly until that moment when we lurched toward the earth, dropping 255ft and reaching speeds of 85mph. At first, it was kind of fun, we were screaming our heads off and laughing. But, the g-force on that thing is sickening. And, after even just a few seconds of it, I could hear Sara yelling, "I want to get off!" And, to be honest, I was thinking the exact same thing, and if I hadn't been so scared that my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, I would have yelled it too. What started with a nerve-tingling sensation became a wild and uncomfortable ride. When you ride the roller coaster ride that is Christian work, you often experience these same types of feelings. Jesus loves you, so you get on, thrilled to start working for Him. You nervously sing His praises to the top and then, you lurch forward into His Kingdom-building work. The ride is tough, there are unexpected twists and turns. People are ugly. Plans fail. Your own pride sickens you, and, before you know it, you've stopped singing "Jesus Loves Me" and you're screaming "I want to get off!" When I was a younger Christian, and new to Christian work, I loved the bigness of it all. It seemed intimidating, but exhilarating. But in recent years, there've been plenty of times when I've just wanted to get off- and, more or less, have- sinking into patterns of work and distraction like everybody else.

And yet, I knew I needed to go to Catalyst. I needed to be fed. One of the things that anyone who shepherds in any capacity can understand is how easy it is to slip into a pattern where you pour out way more than you fill up. Parents, teachers, pastors- all of us have more demands on us than we have time to meet them. And the natural progression tends to always be that we let the intimate time with Jesus go first. Someone needs something, so we shorten our time with the Lord so that we can meet that need- so we can tend to that child or tutor that student or meet with those men. Maybe there's a Christian out there who doesn't fall into this, but I doubt it. And, if there is, it's certainly not me. I'm a doer. I like things to get done and be on time and be in order. And I definitely put my spiritual health on the altar and sacrifice it for the sake of what I perceive to be productivity. The good thing about Catalyst was that just about every speaker told us they do the exact same thing.

The theme of this year's conference was "Known." (The gnomes were a punny play on the theme- they were in costume to add to the craziness of the atmosphere, which, to be honest, was a little bit of a contradiction to the solidness of the teaching, but whatever.)  The booklet that we were given has this written on the front, "I am known. Because I am known by God, I may know myself, be truly known by others and know my Kingdom calling in this world." I could have just gone out in the hallway and meditated on that and would have still been fed, but Catalyst spares no expense at bringing together teachers, leaders and entertainers to consecrate that message in a two day time period. The first day alone we heard nine speakers, all who had different spins on this theme of being known by God and known by others and how this could impact our lives, our legacy and our leadership.

My brain was buzzing by the time I lay my head down on the pillow at the Comfort Suites on Thursday night. But when we arrived at the church Friday morning, one of the MC's said something about how most of us had probably heard something in the past day that made our heart "sing." And for all of the music and teaching from the day before- even being taught by Francis Chan in person, which was like, the holiest experience I've ever had. ;) I couldn't say that my heart had truly "sung" yet. And then came Louie Giglio.

When Louie stepped on the stage, he informed the audience that God had told him to change his message that very morning. He said that he was really excited about the message that he had prepared, and that he hoped he would be able to share it at some point. But that God had told him that someone in the audience needed to hear something else. Thanks for be being obedient, Louie, because I was one of those people, and what God wanted you to say made my heart sing.

Before Louie came on stage, a band called "Leagues" had performed. Louie loves their music, and actually funded the band personally when they were struggling to make ends meet. They have since made a turn-around professionally. You might actually know one of their songs, "Magic"- from a Taco Bell commercial that played during the Super Bowl. How strange that a commercial for Taco Bell's loaded grillers would have a connection to spiritual revival, but life's funny like that. The lyrics of that song say, "You and me, we've got something magic." And Louie started his message by asking us if we  remembered when we could say that about our relationship with God. What brought tears to my eyes was that Louie knew that we had once felt that way- and he also knew that we didn't necessarily feel that way anymore.

Louie, like everyone else, had been asked to speak about being known by God. But, in the end, he didn't. He said, "So you're known by God. Okay. That is good. He has always known you." Jeremiah 1:5 says that before God formed Jeremiah in the womb, He knew him. He knew what he was going to be, and the word that he was going to do. That thought is amazing- to think that God knows each one of us before we are conceived. How often do we look at new babies and wonder who they will become? What will they accomplish? What will their little personalities be like? These things that even the mother who carried them for nine months in her own body cannot fathom- God already knows them! So Louie said that there's really nothing that we can do that would catch God by surprise. He knows us intimately, more intimately than we can even know ourselves. And as good as that news is, there is a limitation to the relationship. Because though He knows us, how well do we really know Him?

In Revelation 3, Jesus is talking to a struggling church in the city of Laodicea, and He says to them that He's fairly disgusted with them because they are so lukewarm in their relationship with Him. He says that He'd rather they be hot or cold. As it is, He's on the verge of just spitting them out! It sounds harsh, but I can imagine the sentiment. If I felt that Andy's feelings toward me were lukewarm, I'd want to say the same thing- why would you ever have even chosen me if you weren't going to pursue me in love always? But He gives them hope- He says, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock." Louie said that we so often use this verse to try to win people who don't believe. But the verse is out of context when used that way. This statement is to believers- to believers like me, who are tired and worn out by Christian work, to believers whose magic with Jesus faded a while back. To believers whose prayers have been unanswered, whose hopes have been dashed, whose hearts have been broken, whose dreams haven't been realized. He says, "Here I am! I'm at the door of your heart!" And how precious those words are to me. I'm so thankful that He realizes that sometimes we don't have the strength to come and knock at His door. Even though we could, even though the invitation to approach Him is always there and always open. Even though we are the lukewarm to whom He could and maybe should just throw up His hands and say, "Really!? With all that I've done for you, and all that I've let you see, you can't keep the faith!?" But that's not who He is. He says, "I am knocking. I want you to open the door and let me come in and dine with you."

One Valentine's Day years ago, when I was single, I actually planned a meal for me and Jesus. It sounds so goofy and embarrassing and there are plenty of reasons to make fun of it. But the thing is, back in those days, I actually wanted to eat Valentine's Day dinner with Him. He was the Love of my life. I adored Him and wanted nothing more than to spend time with Him. Sure it sounds crazy, but real obedience to God usually sounds crazy. Jesus actually says that He wants to dine with the lukewarm believers in Laodicea. Why not with a single girl in Fayetteville? After Jesus was resurrected, He would just randomly appear in different places and spend time with his disciples. Then He would disappear, which is a little creepy, but my BSF notes said that the reason that He did that was that He wanted His disciples to get used to the idea that He could be with them wherever they were, whatever they were doing. The first appearance that He made to all of them, though, was on a beach for breakfast. Jesus wants His disciples to dine with Him, and know Him- the resurrected Christ. I mean, this is challenging, right? He's not physical in this realm at this time. So it's hard. But so is the alternative. Not opening the door is worse. Not knowing Him, not spending time with Him leads to a life of futility, even if the work we're doing seems "good" from the outside looking in.

In Christian work, like in everything else, we can become obsessed with comparison. How many times have I envied others because they are doing something that looks more holy? I desire to be elevated and acknowledged because of my work. But my desire is for recognition from people. God forgive me, because I want to be noticed by people more than I want to be noticed by You. When you do that, though, when you compare your work to others, yours always looks so small and insignificant, and you're always a little angry because you want more. I feel jealous so often when I compare myself to others. I feel small because I look at others who are going oversees or writing or teaching or church-planting, or redeeming brokenness or creating great art or adopting or restoring relationships, and I think that I have nothing. No ministry. I'm not as popular as others, not as wise, not as productive. And I spend a lot of wasted time thinking about this and trying to justify myself. And when it all seems to overwhelming, I retreat into entertainment for a distraction from my disappointment with myself. But the whole time, God is saying to me, "Meredith, why? Why are you looking at others? Why are you looking into yourself? I knew you before you were born. And I made you to be mine and to KNOW me, and to make Me known." And when Louie reminded me of that, things in my life became crystal clear. Not what I should do- work schmerk. I have no idea what work I should do. But how I should be. Louie said that Christians really just have one thing to be doing- know God, and make Him known. And that seemed simple, and so necessary. Not just for me, but for the people who are around me.

Yesterday, I played two soccer games. I like playing soccer. When God was creating me when He knew me before I was born, He knew I would be a soccer player. Funny to me, because I would think that I would have something more important to be doing than soccer, but maybe He just likes watching me play. At one of our games, I was told something really sad. A lady who sometimes plays with us lost her daughter this week in a car accident. She was a junior in high school. I don't know this lady well, but I've played with her a few times, enough times that I knew she had daughter, and I knew she loved her. She was in a car with a group of other high school students. They were speeding through a neighborhood and hit a tree. Apparently they were going so fast that the car actually split in half, killing two of them. Did she know God? I don't know. Tragedy is very personal. And this tragedy is not mine. But tragedy also is a warning for others. It's the only sliver of good that comes from so much sadness.

To know God and to make Him known. It's serious. It's important. It's really everything. Not just for myself, but for everyone that I come into contact with.  

I don't know if I experienced a "spiritual high" this week as much as I was reminded, with powerful words from an obedient and wise man, to practice what I've known all along. He's at the door of my heart, and He's knocking. It's time to open that door again. It's time to dine with Jesus. It's time to stop trying to be productive. It's time to stop trying to make myself known for what I can accomplish. I'm going to open the door, so that I may know Him better once again. And, through that experience, that I will genuinely desire to make Him known.

Advent

It's been a strange 24 hours. First of all, I'm able to write this morning because I'm sitting at home due to a two-hour inclement weather delay. An arctic blast has been blustering its way through Central Texas, so, despite the fact that it was 87 degrees earlier in the week, I'm cuddled up on the sofa, waiting for the roads to clear before I can go to work this morning.

As strange as it is to even say the words "freezing rain" in Texas, the events of yesterday were even stranger. Mid-morning, I learned about the death of Ronnie Smith, a former pastor at The Austin Stone, who had moved to Libya with his family over a year ago. When I first heard about it, I barely had any reaction at all. I envy those who can cry easily- who can become appropriately upset about something as tragic and shocking as this seemingly senseless act of violence. But I had no physical reaction at all. I was completely blank-faced and apparently emotionless. But, on the inside, it was a different story.

From the moment I found out, I could not really stop thinking about Ronnie's death. I remembered watching the video that he and his wife made for the Austin Stone when they took a "vision trip" to Libya before they made a permanent move there. You can see clips of the video on the CBS news website, but I'd caution anyone who clicks on the link because there are graphic images that I find upsetting. CBS NEWS-Ronnie Smith I remembered seeing him recite The History of Redemption, a beautiful book about the Gospel that he edited, and the church promoted two Christmases ago. History of Redemption I didn't know him personally, but what I did know is that he understood the risk that he was taking by moving to Libya, and he wanted the church-regular people like me and Andy- to know that he thought it was worth it.

Throughout the day, all I could do was think, and occasionally pause to pray for Ronnie's family. The day went on. American teenagers are who they are. They demand your attention and your energy, even when you want so much to be quiet and introspective. But, even in response to my students, I thought about Ronnie. He had taken a job as a Chemistry teacher at an international school. In the afternoon hours, stories about his death began to reach major news websites. His students were quoted in the articles- comments on how Mr. Smith believed in them, how loved he was. He had stayed in Benghazi to administer their exams before returning to the States for the holidays. This shook me to the core. When you go to a giant, hip church like the Austin Stone, and you see these really quality film presentations like the one made about Ronnie and his wife, it's easy to think that your small, normal life is not really worth much. It's not the intended effect, I'm sure, and maybe I'm one of few people who responds to such dramatic beauty with intimidation instead of inspiration. Watching that video a couple of years ago, I knew that Ronnie and Anita were doing something that Andy and I probably would never do. Sometimes this can defeat me. It was defeating me as I thought about it yesterday afternoon- about the great risk, about their great faith, about the story of it all, and Who it points to and how much He is worth. And, I have to admit that my own life does not demonstrate how much Jesus it worth- does not do justice to His dramatic beauty. But, at the core of it, Ronnie was teaching. Teaching Chemistry. Which is exactly what I do. And though the risk was much greater, and the story more compelling and his reward in Heaven will be greater (as it should be), sounds like God called him to be a teacher. And to love his students as Christ loves. And to show them mercy, and justice and humility. Which is what all Christian teachers should do, at all times, no matter where they are, no matter how they feel.

It was strange to leave Hill Country and go out into the world with its Christmas lights and holiday songs, strange even to be in my own house with our tree and my "Merry Christmas Ya'll" dishes. But when I got home, I went to the tree and took a picture of one of my favorite ornaments- the lion and the lamb. There's a promise in Isaiah 65 that one day the Lord will bring peace to Jerusalem (and all the Earth) and that the "sounds of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more." The lion and the lamb symbolize this everlasting peace- a peace that I really believe in, and one that seems a little more real and little more necessary when days like yesterday happen. Christians say, from time to time, "Amen, come Lord Jesus," which means that we want this eternal peace to come soon. I confess, my life is often so busy and happy that I don't think about this often. But yesterday I did.

While at first I thought that Ronnie's death was in stark contrast to this season of good cheer, I now don't think it is at all. Because this is the season of advent. Advent means arrival. In BSF, our lesson taught that Jesus's advents (there are two) are like two mountain ranges. When Isaiah wrote about the peace of Jerusalem so many years ago, it looked to some like there was just going to be one arrival, just as when you look at a mountain range from a far distance, it can appear that you are looking at just one mountain. But, the reality is that Jesus's first advent, which is what we're in the midst of celebrating, is only the first mountain. We live in the valley between the first advent and the second. The first advent is the one with Mary, Joseph, the wise men and the shepherds. I love it. I love the songs about it, I love celebrating it and every symbolic meaning derived from it. Usually, I dwell there completely for the month of December. But yesterday, while I looked at the lion and the lamb, I couldn't stop thinking about the second advent. The one that isn't here yet, but is coming. The one where the weeping is going to stop. The one where He is going to reign as King forever. The one that Ronnie is going to see, and so am I.

Amen, come Lord Jesus.

Some summer

 Today is sort of my "last day" of summer. Tomorrow I begin some of my official school teacher duties, and next week, the kids come back and it's all systems go until next June. I've had a really great summer- very restful, relaxing and FUN! Some of the highlights were...

2302 Dijon Drive
Mumford & Sons in concert 
Myrtle Beach with my mom 
a quick shopping trip to Brooks Brothers in Garland with Grant 
watching Tour de France with Preston & Robin 
grilling out with Andy 
the first competition of La Copa de Felipe y Gato 
learning to road bike 
singing "Jesus Loves Me" with Sara while the tallest roller coaster in Texas climbed its initial descent 
soccer, soccer and more soccer 
sleeping 
Jesus the King by Tim Keller

I wish that all the good moments could be caught on film, but they can't be. Here are a few. It's been a good time. :)

Waiting for Mumford & Sons at the Circuit of the Americas amphitheater

A couple of days into the summer.. just beginning to look relaxed. 

We've LOVED getting settled into our house this summer! 

I spent most of the month of June in a book- here, And the Mountains Echoed is my focus while Andy puts kabobs on the grill

Gatsby loves having a yard.

On the Fourth of July, Andy smoked his first brisket. Here, he and Gats are getting an early start.

 

Even though we love staying at home, it was really nice to get to go up to the Howard family ranch for a weekend getaway. We had a great hike, grilled some delicious steaks, gazed at the stars and just slowed down, in general. 

Daisy enjoying the view from the porch. 

The ranch using my "watercolor" feature on my camera. 

There's been a lot of soccer this summer. I've been playing women's league, and we've both been playing co-ed, and we both got pretty into the Gold Cup. When we found out that the USA was going to play Honduras for the semifinal in Dallas, we snagged tickets. The game wasn't particularly exciting, but it was amazing just to be there and see the players live. Chanting USA! USA! in person was such an exciting experience! 

Delicious and not a tiny bit good for you! 

Mexico and Panama take the field for what turned out to be a really exciting game! 

When I was home this summer, my mom gave me this piece of stained glass that used to be one of the windows in the country church where I used to attend family reunions when I was growing up. It's nice to have a little piece of Antioch Methodist Church catching the light every morning. 

What would summer be without bugs! I caught this one molting one morning. 

I have had a LOT of fun this summer, but my favorite thing is to just be still and hang out in the backyard with this guy. :) 

Snapshots of Who I Am- Unconditionally loved

Every Christmas, my mom gives me a Mary Engelbreit desk calendar. Each day, I look forward to pulling off the sheet from the day before, and seeing cute drawings of round-faced children in colorful garb grinning back at me. The drawings accompany a memorable quote- something meant to infuse the day with humor or good cheer. Today's sheet doesn't have a cherubic looking child. Instead, there's a shaggy charcoal-colored terrier smiling at me. His head is slightly tilted, ears perked up attentively, pink tongue just barely peaking out of his furry mouth. His red collar has a heart-shaped tag, and he sits next to a red and white polka-dotted ball. Above his friendly face, I read, "A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself. - JOSH BILLINGS"

My dog Gatsby is lying beside me on the sofa while I write- he's polka-dotted, but his ball is not.  When it comes to balls, Gatsby has no shortage of variety- red, blue, a green one with a bell inside it, one that looks like a soccer ball, a pink one that was supposed to be for Daisy, our other Cocker Spaniel, but that Gatsby has, of course, claimed as his own. When he turned ten last year, Andy & I bought him ten balls from Pet Smart. He's eleven now, and he's lost a few of his birthday presents, but we keep a pretty steady supply of balls for our boy.

If you've ever met Gatsby, you don't need me to describe him to you. For you, the phrase "Great Gatsby" already has double meaning- F. Scott's and then the Cocker Spaniel version. But if you haven't  had the chance to meet Gatsby, I'll do my best to introduce him to you.

When I was in college, I went through a period of blatant spiritual rebellion. Actually, I don't know if "rebellion" is the right word. Doesn't rebellion imply that you once belonged to something and have chosen, defiantly, to leave it? If so, then that's not the right word, because it would mean that I'd once truly followed the Lord with my heart, that I had loved Him, had accepted His ways, and then left Him. That's not true. My heart hadn't ever been devoted to Him, and I'd only followed his ways out of fear. I had fooled a lot of people, even myself, but in truth, I'd been devoted to myself all along. In college, I just began to let my true devotion show, and I spent my Freshman year following the ways that seemed best to me at the time. One of the ways that my parents dealt with my behavior was by requiring that I transfer colleges at the end of my Freshman year. I might have been out of their house, but they were still paying the bills, and they had more authority than I wanted them to have at the time. Their rationale was that I had to have some consequences to my actions that went against their Bible-based standards, and a change of environment was going to be one of them. I was so angry with them, with God and with life that summer before my Sophomore year of college. It was the closest to hatred that I'd ever come, and yet, I knew, on some level, that I was a huge mess inside and someone had to do something or my heart, much less the rest of my life, was never going to get cleaned up.

On the day that my mother took me up to the college that I would be transferring to, I alternated between tears of self-pity and the silent treatment. My mom, God bless her, suffered through my antics while we visited the Registrar's office and then an apartment complex, where I would live by myself in a one-bedroom in the fall. I was sullen, thinking the whole time of myself and what I would be losing- how I would miss the friends that I'd made my Freshman year at the college I was being forced to leave, convincing myself that my quality of life would be almost unbearable come August. I was such a jerk back then. Now that I'm a teacher, and I deal with sullen, indulged, self-obsessed teenagers, I'm convinced that what my mother did next was nothing but a demonstration of God's grace and her love for me. As we left the city to head back toward home, she picked up a newspaper (This was before she had her iPhone) and began to look for an advertisement for puppies. We'd secured the apartment, now, we were going to find me a roommate.

She found a breeder in a small town about an hour and a half away. She made a call and let them know we were coming. When we got there, the breeder showed us a litter of Cocker Spaniel puppies- some were solid black, or black with chocolate markings. They were really tiny, not very old at all. Then, she let out a litter of polka-dotted puppies- what's known as "Parti Mix" to dog enthusiasts- into a little outdoor playpen type of thing. They ran, if you could call it running- it was more like wobbling quickly- around the pen, tackling one another, making impossibly adorable noises. I couldn't take my eyes off them.

For months, ever since I was told that I'd have to transfer schools, I'd tried to seal up my heart, turn it into stone- a monument to my self-justified anger toward my parents and their stoic, demanding God. But when I first knelt down and picked up a rough-and-tumble puppy with a white streak that ran down the middle of his head, separating two soft, curly black ears, I knew it wouldn't last. I gave him back to the breeder so she could give him an injection and a bath. She handed him back to me. He was dazzlingly white with perfectly-placed black speckles on his nose and his back and his feet.

On the car ride home, my new puppy curled up in my lap and fell asleep. I watched his rhythmic breathing and was amazed that something so tiny could trust me so quickly, and so completely. I named him "Gatsby" because of a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's book that fit my life at the time. I didn't know it then, but I was naming my best friend. By the time we got home, my heart was softer than it had been in months.

In college, Gatsby was my saving grace. I struggled spiritually for a while longer, before surrendering whole-heartedly to Christ in the spring of my Sophomore year. Still, the years that followed weren't exactly easy. I struggled to follow Christ, to make sense of religion- something that I'm still struggling with. I had a break-then-mend-then-break-again relationship that lasted too many years, and I struggled with depression, as well. I never did make very many friends at the college I transferred to. I studied a lot. I watched too much TV. I gained weight. I wished that I looked like, could be like, someone else. In all of this, Gatsby was my friend. On days that I would have gladly stayed in the bed, not having the energy or desire to do much else, I would look at his playful face- always hopeful to go out for a walk or to play ball- and I'd get up anyway. I took him everywhere with me. Some days, when the weather was nice, I'd let him ride to campus with me. I'd park in a big gravel lot, and roll the windows down in my Jeep, and he'd wait in the car for me until I was done with classes. Looking back, it kind of amazes me that I did that. Nowadays, I'd be afraid that he would be stolen or would get too hot (even though I never did take him on hot days). But then, I always wanted him to be with me. There was a girl in one of my Chemistry classes who brought her Basset Hound to class with her. My prof was an older gentleman, and I don't think he knew the dog was even there, he was a little hard of hearing, and too excited about explaining the difference between cis and trans configurations to pay attention to the back row, where she sat with her hound. I seriously contemplated bringing Gats to Chemistry with me, but I was confused enough in that class, and knew that Gatsby would never be able to sit still like that lethargic Basset Hound could. But I would have if I'd thought that we could get away with it.

Gats and I have always had lots of adventures. We both love hiking and he loves to swim. We've gone to National and State parks together. We've been swimming in the Atlantic and the Pacific. We've lived in a lot of different places, and made different friends. In all of this, God has gone out of His way to protect Gatsby. In eleven years, he has fallen down a mountain waterfall, fallen through insulation from a second story to a first story, been shot (with a bb gun while my college boyfriend was dog-sitting him. I never did get the whole truth on that one), and been attacked and nearly killed by a pit bull. Each time something scary happens to Gatsby, and God delivers him back to me, I am reminded of how undeserving I am of God's grace. Gatsby has always been living proof to me that God loves me- not just that He loves me, but how He loves me. But I had all but forgotten about that in early summer 2010.

Months had gone by since I sat at the lake-side coffee shop. The weather had turned hot, and so had my anger and frustration over the faltering relationships that catalyzed argument after argument in our new marriage. I'd started working part-time at Banana Republic, both to help with the bills and to bring some semblance of structure back into my life. I was still trying to write, trying to sit quietly and let Abba talk to me about my identity. But I was impatient. I felt raw on the inside. More words, more actions had inflicted more pain, and I was lashing out in full-force anger at Andy on a nearly daily basis.

Every time I would get upset over something- either something that was communicated to me or about me- I would, with or without reason, launch into an emotional and verbal crescendo that culminated with me yelling hateful things, filling our two-bedroom apartment with filth from my mouth. Every time that I did this, Andy would suffer through it in silence. He'd usually just sink into the sofa- his head dropping and shoulders slumping, giving into my verbal battering in a way that I never could have. I'm from a family of feisty folks. One of my own flesh and blood would have given it right back to me, but Andy's not a fighter. Not verbally, anyway. He sat quietly while I raged on, folding in on himself, wrapping his arms around his torso, a symbolic shield from my anger. Sometimes his calm fueled my rage even more-I could not understand it, and I interpreted it as a lack of concern or unwillingness to defend our marriage. But Gatsby- Gatsby was not calm. When I would first get started, Gatsby would try, bless his tiny good dog's heart- to get me to stop. He would look at me pleadingly. He'd stretch his paws up on my legs and make the most pitiful face. One time, he sat next to Andy on the sofa, while I paced the living room floor, fussing and fuming. At one point, I looked at Gatsby and Andy, sitting side by side on our salmon-colored sofa. Gatsby's paw was placed on Andy's leg and he gave me a look that said, as clearly as if he'd had words to speak, "Stop. Stop this. He doesn't deserve it." That time, I did stop. I hugged Gatsby and Andy, and that time, like all the rest of the times, I promised to try not to erupt again. But I did erupt again. I was powerless to stop it. The perfect storm of insecurity raged inside me, and I'd not yet responded to the truth completely. And so I raged on.

When I would get angry, Gatsby would always try to communicate with me with his pleading looks, and then he'd begin to shake- his entire body quaking in fear. Eventually, he would find somewhere to hide- in the bathroom, under the bed, behind the sofa. He had never seen me like this before. We had lived together for eight years, and I'd never been like this. Nothing had ever brought it out before. One of the things about marriage is that it brings to the surface things about yourself that you may have never known. I heard a sermon about this phenomenon one time. Andy Stanley talked about how people in marriages often blame one another for causing them to become angry, ugly, abusive, selfish, etc. They say to one another- "I was never like this before we got married. You've made me into someone I'm not!" Sometimes people will even use this as a reason for divorce, believing that if they can just get away from their spouse, then they'll be a better person again. But Andy Stanley said that you're angry, ugly, abusive and selfish because that's sin, and sin is in you. It's in you whether you're married or single, old or young. It's in you until God replaces it with Himself. And that's a continuous, lifelong process. Andy Stanley made an analogy of two very full glasses of water. If the glasses were to bump one another, then what's in the glass inevitably spills out. He said that marriage doesn't change what's in the glass, it just increases the amount of times the glasses are likely to bump into one another. But what comes out when those exchanges occur depends on what's inside you. If you're filled with your sinful, selfish nature, then, when you're bumped, that's what comes out. It comes out because it's in there. It's not your spouse causing some new thing to come out of you. It's you spilling out what's already there, what's always been there, since Adam & Eve and the original sin. Because of this, I knew that what was spilling out of me had always been there- though I have to admit that I was shocked to see it. I knew it wasn't really Andy's fault, or anyone else's, that I was reacting this way. I knew that I'd just gotten jolted so hard by my life's circumstances and the identity crisis that followed that the ugliness of my sin was pouring out with an intensity that had been previously present but never  seen.

It was during this spilling-out period that I came home one day with my arms filled with groceries. I was on the phone with Andy, already angry over something he'd told me, my tone probably mid-crescendo. We lived on the second floor, and when I opened the door, Gatsby dashed out. This wasn't completely uncommon. Sometimes, after I'd been gone a while, he would squeeze past me as soon as I opened the door and trot quickly down the steps to a little patch of grass by the stairwell. I assumed that's what he was going to do, so I stepped inside to place the grocery bags on the counter, still barking at Andy on the phone. After I'd unloaded my arms, I stepped back outside to search for Gatsby. A minute hadn't even gone by. I looked at the patch of grass, but he wasn't there. I looked underneath the stairwell, and along the side of the building, my pace quickening and my heart beating faster. I didn't see him. I stopped complaining to Andy, and my voice changed from anger to urgency. "I can't find Gatsby," I said, bounding back up the steps, thinking that maybe he'd slipped past me and gone back inside the apartment while I wasn't paying attention. I searched the apartment half-heartedly, but thoroughly, knowing deep down that he wasn't in there. I hurried down the stairs again and began to run all over the apartment complex shouting his name, over and over again. Andy was still on the phone with me, and he promised that he was one his way home right then. We hung up and I called my mom, panicked, "Mom, I can't find Gatsby. Please pray." I called my best friend back home, Lacy, and asked her to do the same. Then, I called my mom back. By then, I had started to cry.

Gatsby had never run away before. I'd never not known where he was, and losing him was unimaginable to me. My faithful, loyal friend was always with me, or I at least knew where he was at all times. Sometimes, when we would hike or play off-leash at a park, people would tell me that they wished they could trust their dog to stay with them the way Gatsby stayed with me. I had never once worried about him running off. The thought had never even crossed my mind. He kept his eye on me better than I kept my eye on him. In many ways, Gatsby was more my care-taker than I was his. I'd always just taken it for granted that he would be with me. Even though only minutes had passed since I'd last seen him, I felt a hole rip open inside of me that I'd never felt before. I'd lost my best friend. And it was completely my fault- I had been too harsh, caused him too much stress, and he had run away.

While I waited for Andy to come home and help me look, I paced around our apartment building, crying, praying, and talking to my mom on the phone. In some vague way, I admitted to her that it was my fault that Gatsby had run away. She knew how hurt and angry I'd been the past few months. I hadn't kept it a secret from my parents, though I doubt they, or anyone else for that matter, could imagine the destructive power of my full-throttle anger. My mom was clearly concerned, but was confident that God would not let anything bad happen to Gatsby. She told me that God loved that little dog and He loved me. Her words ripped the hole in my heart open even further, and I felt the weight of my actions in a way that I never had before. She was right, God did love Gatsby, and He had loved me, too. He had loved me when He let me have Gatsby. Of that I was convinced. But lately, I was not sure that God loved me anymore. He seemed so distant. And I was certainly not behaving in a way that anyone could love. It was not the first time I'd acted in such a way.

The summer that I got Gatsby, I had convinced myself that God was an ego-maniac.  He wanted people to worship Him, and wouldn't let them truly live. I thought He was too demanding, too judgmental, too difficult to please. I was never an atheist or an agnostic. I've always been convinced that God is real, I just chose not to like Him.  And the summer before my Sophomore year of college, I made sure that He knew just how much I loathed him- shouting at him one day in my mother's garden, making sure that there was no mistake that I was like my parents, who loved Him and thought that everything He did was so great. I was different. I was making my own choices. I was rejecting Him and felt justified in doing so, and I wanted to make sure that He knew it. It made me feel tough and worldly and real, at the time. Later, I realized that I was not tough, I was critically weak and needed saving. My words that had once seemed so bold and authentic were stupid and vapid, and so was I. But during the time of my greatest defiance, God gave my mother the patience and unconditional love that brought me to a dog kennel, where I picked up a tiny creature that would turn out to be one of my life's greatest blessings. He gave me this gift when I was at my ugliest- when I'd told Him how much I hated Him, how full of Himself I thought He was. I puffed up my pride in His Holy face and spat out my disapproval with arrogance that should have been obliterated right then and there underneath my mother's tulip tree- and He gave me a puppy.

It was thinking about this grace that made me completely break down. Andy had gotten home by then, and we'd searched the apartment complex completely on foot. We were making a second round when I fell down, literally unable to stand in my grief over what I had caused. I didn't deserve Gatsby. I never had deserved him. And now, God had finally done what was just. He'd taken him away.

I couldn't bear it. I sobbed into the dirt, not only because I had lost my friend, but because my ugliness was the reason for it. I imagined him lost, confused, hurting somewhere. Had he been hit by a car? Hd someone stolen him? He was suffering because of me, I was sure of it. This was justice for me. I didn't deserve him. I never had. But it wasn't fair for him to be afraid. And this was my prayer. I asked God for His mercy- knowing full well that I did NOT deserve it. All of my rage, my anger, my nastiness since I'd been married, this was fair punishment for me. This was the pain I rightfully deserved. But I asked God to spare Gatsby any pain. Please, God, don't hurt him because of me. And then God let me realize the bitter truth- that I had been hurting him all along. And I had the audacity to ask God not to hurt him. In truth, I realized that maybe God was taking him from me so that I couldn't hurt him anymore. Then I looked at my husband, who was also crying, while trying to come up with a plan of action for how to better search for Gatsby, and I thought, "Maybe God will take him from me so that I don't hurt him more either." And I sobbed, not with self-pity, but with a deep, mournful sorrow over the greatness of the loss, and the justice of it all.

Andy & I searched for over an hour. We got in the car and drove around, we searched on foot again, we talked to the folks in the apartment complex office and to some neighbors we didn't really know. No one had seen Gatsby. Finally, we went back into the apartment. Andy went to the computer to create a flyer. I got him a picture of Gatsby and he sat down to type up the necessary info before we went to FedEx Office and made a bunch of copies to post around the area. I sat with my back against our apartment door, in more intense emotional pain than I'd ever been in. I thought that my emotional pain was bad when I walked up the stairs that afternoon. Wasn't it catalyzing everything? Bumping my glass and spilling all the anger that was within me? But it was nothing compared with what I felt now. In the months since my wedding, I'd felt so far away from God. I couldn't figure out where He was, why He was letting me go through what I was going through. I knew we had been close once, but in my time of need, He seemed to have evaporated. I wanted Him, but I was having such a hard time finding Him. Then, today, He had shown Himself- not as the Comforter or the Restorer that I had been asking for- but as the Judge. He had sentenced me, and I hadn't even known that I was going to be on trial that day. But the ruling was fair, and I deserved my pain, and it was my own fault for thinking that I could get away with habitual sinning that hurt others. He had to put a stop to it. Any good judge would have.

I heard footsteps, heavy ones, outside the door. Someone was coming up the stairs. Then, a voice- the complex maintenance man, Charles, asking a neighbor where the people with the black and white dogs live. My muscles have never responded so fast. I was on my feet in milliseconds. I could hear it in Charles's voice, even before I swung open the door, and heard his words, "I found your little dog." I can't even remember if he told me where to go. He had barely gotten his first sentence out before I was sprinting down the stairs. When I got to the parking lot, I didn't look to see if cars were coming, or pay any attention to the curious neighbors looking at me. I was a mad woman, running recklessly toward the sound of a familiar bark.

He was in the side yard of the building adjacent to ours- a place we'd searched several times already. Some of the landscape crew had him cornered there, and he was barking at them. He looked confused but otherwise okay. I ran toward him and knelt down, more tears flowing than when I'd lost him. I opened my arms. He ran, and then everything was a blur of tears and black and white fur.

Snapshot 1- I am unconditionally loved. The Bible says this. Its storyline is all about grace. Grace is unmerited favor. It's not what we deserve. It's not based on what we do, how we behave, or what we can achieve. The Bible tells me so, but sometimes, because God is a God of grace, because He loves me with a crazy love that can't be explained except by the fact that He is love- He shows love in a way that our hearts will forever understand. In 2002, He gave a puppy to an arrogant, self-righteous young woman, and today, my heart understands that was an act of his great love for me, even when I was His enemy. And He shows mercy when justice is what's most appropriate. And this might be even greater evidence of God's unconditional love for me than when He gave me Gatsby in the first place. To be given the gift again,  even when I had proved that I thoroughly did not deserve it, was too selfish to care for it as I should. Nothing has ever been more convincing that God's love and His intentional goodness to me is not based on how I perform.

The day that Gatsby disappeared, I had no idea that Abba was telling me a story about His love for me. I didn't realize that He would, one day, point me back to that day so filled with sin, fear, sorrow and regret, and say, "Meredith, here you are and you're crying. You're in a lot of pain because you've lost the gift I gave you. But here in this snapshot, I've restored the gift to you. I restored it, not because you deserved to get it back, but because I love you."

Today, my desk calendar tells me that my dog is the only thing on earth that loves me more than he loves himself. But I know that's not quite true. Gatsby does love me unconditionally. He's still one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given (and re-given). But, the truth is, that the Giver loves me more than Himself, too. So, today, looking at this snapshot of who I am- when my Dad tells me that I am unconditionally loved, I look over at my black and white Cocker Spaniel, who's been sleeping beside me the whole time I've been writing, and I can say, with assurance and thanksgiving, "I know."

Snapshots of Who I Am- Intro

It rained a lot in Austin the spring of 2010. I didn't realize how abnormal the rains were because it was my first season here. It was an El Nino year. I had taught Earth Science that fall, and we covered a unit on weather, so I had some vague notion of what that meant, but the three years of drought that have followed have certainly given me a greater appreciation for the rains that spring.

I was at a lake-side coffee shop one morning, watching raindrops fall into the water- splashes that spread into tiny waves that crawled away from one another until they met other little waves and were diverted, creating cool, concentric circle patterns that looked like something in a modern art museum. It was a slow, gray rain. The coffee shop was filled with people in scarves and skinny jeans, hugging white porcelain coffee mugs and clicking away on their silver Macbooks. Many were at tables together, huddled around large textbooks whose imposing titles stared at me authoritatively. Microeconomics, A History of Art, Calculus. Students worked purposefully around them, like drones in a bee hive. In a way, I wished for one of those textbooks to command my life, as well. "Memorize this chart. Apply that formula. Learn this lesson from that story." You don't realize it when you have those books- the way that they direct your life, how they squeeze your existence into the simplistic, and yet impossibly difficult,  demands of scholastic achievement.  I had those books once. My dog, Gatsby, hated them. He would sit on them when I'd leave them scattered across my bed in my college apartment. He'd sprawl out on top of their glossy pages and refuse to get off, leaving me with no choice but to spend a few minutes petting him before I pushed him off and went back to studying. You think you hate those books at the time. You can't wait to go down to the college bookstore and sell them back for 30% of the value you bought them for and be rid of them forever. But if you ever get lost like I did- if you're ever searching for your identity in the darkness, you might just miss them and the order that they brought into your life.

There were also some smartly dressed men in the coffee shop. Probably early thirties. Good-looking in a professional, intelligent, and slightly creative sort of way. Very cool. Very Austin. They seemed to be convening for some sort of business. Just the thought of a meeting was enviable at the time, though I'd often dreaded staff meetings and parent-teacher meetings when I was teaching. But a meeting implies that there's something worth discussing- something on the verge of being accomplished. I imagined what kind of business the young men were into- something creative and lucrative, I mused,  something that was going to make a difference in their lives and other people's.

In contrast to the other coffee shop patrons, I sat at a table by myself and looked out the windows at the brownish-gray lake. I didn't have any textbooks on my table- just a beat-up-looking green NIV Bible. And I didn't have anyone important or cool-looking who was going to meet me there. I was very much alone. The rain continued to fall steadily outside, but, inside me, there was a greater storm. One word kept reverberating through my mind, shaking my insides, threatening to tear down everything that was in there- what little was left in tact. The word was appalling.  It had been written in an email directed to Andy but it was about me. The person who wrote it was so fed up with me that they felt the need to let my husband of just a few months know that my behavior was appalling. I won't say who this person was- and won't go into details on why they said this about me. All I can say is that my husband & I had a relationship of sorts with this person and a few others, and that those relationships were crumbling- painfully and quickly.

This past spring, when Andy & I went to the Dominican Republic, he and a team of guys tore down an existing wall to make room for a new paved parking area for the Makarios School staff. A lot of us stopped what we were doing the day they tore down the wall, and watched as the guys on the "Chain Gang" work crew took turns with the sledgehammer. Each full-force swing made a dent in that wall, and in surprisingly quick time- only a matter of minutes- the wall was down. For me, the word in that email was like a sledgehammer- making mighty, forceful blows into my identity, leaving me crushed and broken inside. The process of identity- demolishing had started months ago- I was getting married, I was leaving my family, I quit my job so that I could move to Austin, where Andy had a job as an engineer. I believe those circumstances were big enough to create some sort of dent in my identity on their own. But then the conflict started a few months before our wedding, and there were cutting words and then sledgehammer words, and by that gray morning in the coffee shop, I was almost completely destroyed.

I didn't know who I was anymore. I couldn't find me. I didn't even know who to be looking for. Maybe I really was the appalling person others were convinced that I was. That thought rolled through me like thunder as I sat and watched the rain fall steady as a metronome. The inside of me didn't feel gray and steady like the rain I was watching- it felt swollen and purple and threatening, like the summer afternoon storms of my childhood- the ones that forced us inside while wind splintered the boughs of pine trees,  and lightning streaked the sky. If appalling was the thunder inside of me, then my reaction to it was the lightning. For every ounce of pain that word and other similar judgments had inflicted inside of me, my defensiveness compensated with an equally penetrating measure of meanness that flashed like lightning- blazing through my mind with vengeful thoughts, and occasionally striking my poor, confused and hurting husband with harsh, critical words  My confusion over what was happening howled like a desperate, damaging wind. I was lost inside of that storm, and I didn't know where I was. I didn't know who I was, and I didn't know how to make any of it stop.

That morning, I sat there, with the steady rain outside and the howling storm inside, and I remembered a story I'd heard in church. The story was about a little girl- I think she was about three years old. Her dad was a pastor at our church and he told us that during the time that he and his wife were anticipating the arrival of their second child, the little girl began to kind of act out and do odd things. He didn't go into a lot of detail on that, but he did mention that one of the things that she was doing was bringing her baby photo album into the new baby's nursery. She'd plop down in the middle of that unfamiliar territory, and open the book. Her dad sat down beside her, and began to go through the pages with her. He described, snapshot by snapshot, the events in the little girl's life. "There you are and you're still in Mommy's tummy." "There you are with your Grandma when you're brand new." "Here you are sleeping in your crib when we first brought you home." What amazed me most about this story was that, at each picture, when her dad would tell her the story of who she was in that moment, the little girl would reply, simply, "I know." I know. I know who I am. Even in these circumstances that are changing, I know who I am. When we sit here together, and you tell me my story, I know that it's true. I know who I am because I believe you. I know who I am because you've told me, and I knew that it was true.  I couldn't make sense of very much that rainy spring, but I knew that morning that I wanted to be like that three year old- more than I wanted to be one of the students whose next move was as clear-cut as making it through their next exam, more than I wanted to be like the young professionals in their respectable, trendy attire, even more than I wanted to go back to my life before I came to Austin, before any of the crumbling inside of me began.

I knew that little girl had experienced something that transcends age or personal experience. And her insistence to sit still in the midst of the unknown and wait for her dad to speak words of truth about her identity inspired me. I wanted to do the same. I wanted to sit still with my Father, my heavenly Father, and listen to Him speak to me about who I was. Because the thunder was destroying me, and the lightning was destroying Andy, and I was terrified of it all. As arrogant and awful as I was then, as much as I tried to convince others and myself that I knew the Bible and I knew what I was doing- inside, I was a three year old- a really scared, often petulant child- but one who needed, more than anything else- for her Dad to tell her the truth. I needed his reassurance. I needed Him to tell me who I was. Because I knew that if I listened to someone else- even myself- then I'd hear a lie and I'd just remain lost.

"Who am I?" I wanted to know. I was crying it, practically screaming it at Him- because I didn't know where He was then, either. There wasn't an easy answer. It didn't happen as quickly or as sweetly as the story of the little girl and her dad in the nursery. But it did happen. And I hope it happens for other people, as well. Because I think that there are a lot of people out there with storms inside them, too. People who have been ripped open inside by words and events far more dangerous and damaging than what I went through. Life is scary, and painful and chronically changing. What we do to ourselves and what other people can do to us has no end. We get lost. I still get lost. I am by no means an expert on any of this. I'm not permanently fixed or found. I have no authority whatsoever- a good reason for me to have not written anything more than a blog about this stuff- I don't have credentials. I'm just a person who sat- very lost, very hurt, and very capable of inflicting pain on others- in a coffee shop one day, and asked Dad to tell me- snapshot by snapshot- who I am. The posts that follow will include His answers.