After a Fire

Last week we hiked through the remnants of last winter. The purity of wood covered in white stills the soul and I kept thinking of Frost's poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and wondering whether snow are the mountains' way of healing themselves once a year.

This week we hiked through the scars of a fire that tore through the park and left swaths of black trees and pounds of ash and, even still, the slight smell of campfire.

Quite the difference.

The kicked up ash smudged our legs and the blackened trees offered no protection from the sun; and what business, really, would something so badly burnt have in trying to help make someone's path a little easier?

The beauty caught me off guard, in all it's charred glory.

Maybe because, as we've come to find out, sometimes a forest has to burn before it can keep growing. Something has to clean out the brush, and driftwood, and all the things that tend to build up over years of sitting. 

As we came upon a lake, it seemed the earth was soaking in the ash & learning how to live again.

And then, the best part. A sea of green at the base of a mountain of black. Life was beginning again in the valleys and working it's way up the mountainsides. 

And I wondered if, after all is said and done, a fire couldn't bring some sort of healing, too?

Summer Hope

Side note: I received a lot of positive feedback this past year about writing - this was quite encouraging. It seems this is something I should keep investing time in and I’m excited about it, though you probably wouldn't guess that based on my long stretches of not writing. It seems every time writing takes a back seat it just so happens to be about two months every time. Weird.

We’re in the Rocky Mountains for the summer and there is limited wi-fi and even less cell service. So we’ll see what a summer of limited technology, ample reading & writing time, and *hopefully* some extended time with God will produce.

***

I’ve been cleaning.

Cleaning years of dust off old pine boards and peeling linoleum. It’s our home for ten weeks. A cabin that leans into the mountainside it’s built on and settles with creaks and groans.

College students come to the heart of the Rocky Mountains to gaze at God in these snow-capped peaks and see if they can find the divots of His footsteps in the valleys, among the rock & brush & wild rivers.

My husband and I come to help them, as best we can, and I often find a footstep or two of my own.  

I have chosen a verse for the next ten weeks:

   

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (II Cor. 1.8-9, NIV)

To remember that my God is a God of resurrection: physical, emotional, & spiritual ones?

That’s something that can renew a sturdy hope that has roots mountain-deep. 

What's your hope for this summer? 

Mountain High & Valley Low

Something in the mountains stirs me counter-clockwise, and maybe I miss something others get: mountains being places of stillness & quiet.

All I see is nature rolling, cracking, stretching to the sky, as if the peaks won't be satisfied till they are able to brush the sun's face. I see a dangerous, stark beauty that demands care before conquering. 

My comfort-loving self longs for the open, wide spaces where the air is full and the eye can see what's in store because everything is flat. But up here is striving & molding; up here the air is dry & thin and causes cracks in the unyielding vessels; up here, peaks don't come without valleys. 

Yet, my Yahweh-loving soul knows only in the mountains can true rejoicing be found. The rejoicing that means "to bring glory, whether with reason or without." What would it be like to rejoice in the midst of strife & trial? To hear even the mountains themselves "break forth into singing?" 

I see the mountains as jagged scars across the face of His Creation. Faint echos of those on the hands, feet, & back of One who bears them to free this comfort-addict from a life lived for self.

Rejoicing is found in those scars, too.

Home!!

Kyle and I will be moving into our house very, very soon. I am so excited to open up my wedding presents that have been sitting in closets and every available corner in my parent's house for the past eight and a half months. 


I hope they still work. 


I'm excited to give my mom a hug and see my cousin, who after four years I will no longer be sharing a town with - much less a house. 


And I can't wait to feel the sun sink into my skin. Call me crazy but I have missed the heat (and the humidity....). There's just something that's not RIGHT about it being 63 degrees in AUGUST. 


I can't wait to see my older sister and hear about how Africa changed her. 


Not to mention being back with our church after being gone for over a year. 


I told Kyle the other day that while the mountains do captivate me, they also leave me unsettled. Which is why I think God brings me up here, usually - to stir things up when I don't have the luxury of being in a familiar environment. 


After being up here for two and a half months, I'm ready to actually watch the sun sink below the horizon and leave a trail of color behind it. Up here the sun dips below the mountains early, and I can't help but feel like I'm missing out on something every evening. 


There's something very real about the Rocky Mountains. Colorado never promises anything more than honesty about it's rough edges and a fierceness about its beauty. It's something my soul can only handle for so long. 


So we leave in less than a week, and I've asked Kyle if we can stop at the closest Mexican restaurant and stuff ourselves on chips and salsa and sweet tea at our first opportunity. 


Soon, and very soon. 


Meanwhile - here's some pics from the summer: 

Mt. Ypsilon 

Chaco lines after hiking in Moraine Park..... nice. 

Camping at Allen's Park

On the way home from Spectacle Lake. 

Rocky Mountain High

We're officially in the Rocky Mountains now, and will be for the entire summer. I spent the summer here two years ago, and driving into Colorado made all these nostalgic feelings surface that I wasn't expecting. 


I'm excited about spending two and a half months in the Rockies, but honestly the last summer I spent here sucked. Mainly because God brought a ton of not-so-fun-things to the surface that I had to deal with. 


So when we drove into Estes Park I was surprised to feel a rush of, "I'm so glad to be back," feelings. I don't know what it is about this place, but God weaves His work into your soul in an undeniable way. 


My husband and I are helping staff a 11-week leadership training program (LT) for college students up here. Our role is to coach a small group of these college students as they meet once a week for the summer and experience community and intentional evangelism - all while growing in Christ. We also will be teaching a few workshops and doing a ton of one-on-one mentorship. 


When up here last I went through the program as a student. It was life-changing in a raw way. I remember equating my spiritual walk that summer to the mountains that surround Estes Park - rocky, rough, and hard to scale, but beautiful at the summit. 


Now as a newlywed who is just beginning her foray into full-time ministry, I find God has brought me back here to do more of the same. Different and deeper areas that need refining, but the same Refiner's fire that was used two summers ago. 


Recently God has taught me a lot about pride. In the New Testament Jesus makes no mistake about teaching the Pharisees a thing or two about authenticity and being so full of yourself that you miss God even when He's staring at you in the face. 


I feel like saying, "I struggle with pride," is something that has received a wrist-slap and a wink in today's Christian walk. While people who are open with other struggles (addictions, sexual perversions, abuse, etc.) are shunned. 


From someone who has come face to face with her inner-Pharisee, let me assure you it's not pretty. I could try and put into words how God feels about it, but I think I'll just let Him speak for Himself: 


When he finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house and sat right down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn't wash up before the meal. But the Master said to him, "I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn't the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.




"I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God's love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.


"You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You love sitting at the head table at church dinners, love preening yourselves in the radiance of public flattery. Frauds! You're just like unmarked graves: People walk over that nice, grassy surface, never suspecting the rot and corruption that is six feet under."


One of the religion scholars spoke up: "Teacher, do you realize that in saying these things you're insulting us?"


He said, "Yes, and I can be even more explicit. You're hopeless, you religion scholars! You load people down with rules and regulations, nearly breaking their backs, but never lift even a finger to help.


"You're hopeless! You build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed. The tombs you build are monuments to your murdering ancestors more than to the murdered prophets. That accounts for God's Wisdom saying, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, but they'll kill them and run them off.' What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it's on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay.


"You're hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won't go in yourself, and won't let anyone else in either."


- Luke 11:37-54 (The Message) 


The truth of the matter is I was more comfortable being someone like Christ described above than being the person who openly struggles with lust, alcohol, physical abuse, homosexual desires, or acute depression yet knows their need for God in it's full totality. Someone who cherishes vulnerable brokenness over approval because they now only in the place of confessing their absolute need for God is their true healing. 


A dirty cup will never be cleaned unless it comes to a place where it knows it's dirty... and admits it. 


I confess that up until a few months ago I had no idea of the depths of my depravity. (Nor do I still have a full knowledge. I think mainly because God is good and knows that I would never be able to handle knowing how deep the roots of sin go.) 


I have rarely had to really believe that God loves me. After all, why wouldn't He? I'm a leader in my church. I'm on staff for crying out loud. I have people tell me constantly how amazing I am and how wise and how I help them in their relationship with God so much. 


Sparkly on the outside - maggoty on the inside. 


I'm not one of those people who thinks that God sees us as vile, heinous sinners who are hanging on by a thin, thin thread that He will snap the second we mess up. The irony lies in that pride will land you right in that kind of mentality. 


I'm learning that instead of a thin thread we are resting in the mighty, wonderful, drenched with healing, scarred hands of God, and far be it from me to take a flying leap off and think I can follow Christ without needing His grace. 


Lord - how can I communicate this to you? I am in a state of hopelessness because of my refusal to see how desperate I am for you. Jesus all the words I long to speak have been spoken before in practiced and feigned holy humility and therefore feel tainted to use now. 


  "Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
   Scrub away my guilt,
      soak out my sins in your laundry.
   I know how bad I've been;
      my sins are staring me down.

    You're the One I've violated, and you've seen
      it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
   You have all the facts before you;
      whatever you decide about me is fair.
   I've been out of step with you for a long time,
      in the wrong since before I was born.
   What you're after is truth from the inside out.
      Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

     Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean,
      scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.
   Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
      set these once-broken bones to dancing.
   Don't look too close for blemishes,
      give me a clean bill of health.
   God, make a fresh start in me,
      shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
   Don't throw me out with the trash,
      or fail to breathe holiness in me.
   Bring me back from gray exile,
      put a fresh wind in my sails!
   Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
      so the lost can find their way home.
   Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
      and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
   Unbutton my lips, dear God;
      I'll let loose with your praise.

     Going through the motions doesn't please you,
      a flawless performance is nothing to you.
   I learned God-worship
      when my pride was shattered.
   Heart-shattered lives ready for love
      don't for a moment escape God's notice.

   Make Zion the place you delight in,
      repair Jerusalem's broken-down walls.
   Then you'll get real worship from us,
      acts of worship small and large,
   Including all the bulls they can heave onto your altar!" - Psalm 51 (The Message) 


Make this true in my life, Lord Jesus. Amen.