Happy Summer

A photo collage of July life...

 Easter lilies (in July!) as tall as my shoulder! 

Baseball game with my small group...

...and Nick =]

Lonesome Lake with Tosha...

...and Lynnette!

Dawn's birthday! I love these women. :)

I'm missing a few things... Loads of Bible Project podcasts... Dinner conversations and a hike with Matt when he was in town... Lemonade and front-porch sittin' with Jack... Small group gatherings at the Henderson's home... Hugs at church and tea with my Lauren-neighbour... Lots of conversations on the tailgate of a FedEx truck... And way too many hours inside my office/basement—though some were with Elli, and she makes office hours enjoyable, even in the basement. ;)

Kindness Makes Me Cry

What a month it has been. . . In the last 30 days I have flown on 2 airplanes, been in 1 wedding, attended a second wedding, eaten Chipotle during 2 wedding weekends, danced for at least 2 hours, hand-written 25+ pages (double-sided), talked on the phone for 33 hours, worked more hours that I want to count, welcomed 1 new baby into our community, and lost 1 friend to death.

Two weeks ago I experienced one of the hardest weeks of the year. In the span of seven days I was asked to resign as an editor over a difference of opinions, had to kill a suffering mouse with a rock, offered a listening ear to an upset friend, found out a different friend ended their life, and had to have a hard personal conversation with yet another friend. I called it the week from Hell, because so much of that week was shot through with death in one form or another, and that is the work of Hell.

But this past week was balm to my soul. I didn't work overtime. My sweet neighbour came over for dinner and a walk. My Scripture circle met under a double rainbow, sharing some things I've been chewing on this week—or more accurately, things that have been chewing on me. I wrote my heart out. I got to spend three precious hours with one of my best friends. A couple of friends and my family were so kind to pray for me and check in on me often. My sister sent me a box of sunshine. The friend who needed a listener sent me cheese, chocolate, and flowers in the form of a totally unexpected gift-card. The CEO of our company wrote me a kind note and gave me a gift-card for my ten year anniversary at work. And today, my boss got married. 

Just like the Hell-week had redemptive moments and hours, this balm-week had its dark moments and its bitter tears. But there were so many good conversations in both weeks. So many walks and cups of tea and scudding clouds across the moon. There were invitations into sorrow and invitations into deep joy. There were things that scared me, but I did them. There were things that wounded me and others, but we are walking with one another into healing.

This evening, in the midst of deep joy and fun on the dance floor, without warning, familiar notes washed over the room. I've never seen so many people scatter for exits so quickly when there was no emergency. . . The DJ couldn't have known that playing "Don't Stop Believin" would be incredibly painful for nearly a dozen people. He couldn't have known that a few days ago we found out our friend, Mike, was dead. "Don't Stop Believin" was Mike's theme song. If I heard it blasted from the classroom once a summer, I heard it half a dozen times a summer. I like that song, but tonight it made me sad. Yet, in a way, it was like Mike was there in spirit. Like maybe he was dancing, too. 

This week so many beautiful, good, kind, and joy-filled things happened. It doesn't fill the maw of Hell-week. No. In some ways, it stuffs goodness down the throat of the aching blackness and still overflows everywhere. And in some ways, that gaping emptiness of Hell-week carves a pit in the many of us it touched. The wound of death does not heal here, not fully. I will always bleed a little of my heart out for the friend I lost nearly two years ago. Our world will always bleed a little for the loss of Mike. Goodness doesn't fix the not good. 

Sorrow and grief over many things still clench my heart and make me cry. But the kindness of family and friends also makes me cry. The deep gift of love, the deep joy of watching my friends get married makes me cry. I cried hearing my friends exchange their wedding vows and hearing their people toast them. And I cried tears of loss watching the father-daughter dance, because I want to get that experience and I don't know that I ever will. And simultaneously, I cried tears of anger and hurt that a person who might have given me that chance declined to even try. And I cried the achingly sweet tears that come when you hear grown men say "My life is what it is partly because of you, and I love you" to another man in front of a whole crowd of people. 

Hell-week wasn't all bad. And balm-week wasn't all good. Even something so beautiful and deeply good as a wedding brought all kinds of mixed emotions—joy, pain, sweetness, grief, and hope... Hope of these friends birthing light in the darkness our world is falling into. And lest it all sounds like this hope or joy or kindness springs from my friends, it doesn't. Its source is God the Father, showering His deep affection on us (often through other people) where we are—whether that is a place of pain or gladness, or a mix of sorrow, joy, sadness, loss, hurt, and hope all co-mingled. And let's be honest, we're often an amalgamation of emotions, not feeling one at once, but many (even conflicting) emotions at once. That is the agony and the beauty of being human.

Grief makes me weep. Sorrow makes my heart bleed. But alongside these, kindness makes me cry.

Why?

Do you ever find that the answer to "Why all of this, God?" is, "I am Good." It is not "I am God" - though in another way it is that, too. But His answer is "I am Good." 

And He is.

He is good, whether or not the situation changes. He is good, when the heart of a man is slow to change, and all we feel is the tension. He is good when cancer is not cured, or the car crash happens. He is good when He holds us in the midst of searing pain, though He may not remove us, or it. 

God's goodness is not trite. And often pain, sorrow, suffering, and loss are felt more intensely in the midst of knowing just how good God is. Yet it is His goodness that brings Him to walk with us now through the valley of the shadow, through anger, through disappointment, through realising we do not have what it takes to be this or that. We do not have a God Who suffered with us, but a God Who suffers with us, present tense. That is Good. That is God. And that is why.

~ Johanna

Marriage

In case you thought I was going to expostulate about marriage, I am not. If you thought I was going to extol the benefits of singleness, I am not.

The fact is that today, 7 March, my parents have been married for 43 years. Forty-three years. Forty-three years!! Now that is something you do not hear about very often in this epoch. But it can be done, by God's grace and kindness, it can be done.

Today I am thankful for parents who have worked through hard times, who love one another, who still flirt with each other, and who have loved us girls. I am grateful that I grew up in a peaceful home, where my parents worked through their disagreements without a lot of yelling and name-calling. I am thankful for the examples my parents have set in honesty, love, wisdom, knowledge, teaching, giving, forgiving, and much more.

I love you Dad and Mom!

~ Johanna

The LORD is King Forever

The Lord sat enthroned at the Flood,
And the Lord sits as King forever.
The Lord will give strength to His people;
The Lord will bless His people with peace.

~ Psalm 29:10-11

When the flood waters rose upon the earth, God was the ruler of the Universe. He saved Noah and his family through those violent waves. The LORD sat enthroned when David wrote Pslams, tended sheep, killed Goliath, and when king Saul tried to kill him. God reigns now in the midst of our political and economic woes, and more personally, in the thick of our own sorrows and great joys. Indeed, the LORD is King forever. He is always on His throne, constantly sovereign. He is the One who will give us strength in our weakness, and hope in our hurting and brokenness. 

I do not know how many times I have read Psalm 29, glazing over those final verses, but this week when I read them, I saw them. I heard them. I knew something in them was more true than I knew (experientially) before. God is good. God is King over all of creation, over all circumstances. It is God who is our Strength in our weakness - and we are always weak. And only God Himself can grant us peace. 

When I read these verses this week I realised something else: if God is our King, our Strength, and our Peace, He is also worthy of our praise. Circumstances do not dictate whether or not God is worthy of praise - He is always worthy. It is we who must learn to praise Him when life is at its highest joys, and its deepest sorrows.

I will praise You Lord my God
Even in my brokenness
I will praise You Lord
I will praise You Lord my God
Even in my desperation
I will praise You Lord

And I can't understand
All that You allow
I just can't see the reason
But my life is in Your hands
And though I cannot see You
I choose to trust You

Even when my heart is torn I will praise (trust) You Lord
Even when I feel deserted I will praise (trust) You Lord
Even in my darkest valley I will praise (trust) You Lord
And when my world is shattered and it seems all hope is gone
Yet I will praise You Lord

I will trust You Lord my God
Even in my loneliness
I will trust You Lord
I will trust You Lord my God
Even when I cannot hear You
I will trust You Lord

And I will not forget
That You hung on a cross
Lord You bled and died for me
And if I have to suffer
I know that You've been there
And I know that You're here now

~ Johanna

The Lord is My Strength and My Shield

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him.
~ Psalm 28:7

Gilded sunlight is filtering through the gauzy clouds of morning. Birds pipe their morning carols, joined by a choir of crickets. Across town, Pike's Peak is mostly visible through what appears to be the last remnants of fog. However, if I think about it, when I take a deep breath I can smell smoke. I have smelled it for so many days that I don't think about the scent any more. That probably will not change soon. Nor will I soon cease dreaming of glowing orange balls of flame. Ashes still cover my car in a thin layer, or drop onto my computer screen whilst I type. When I hear sirens I will praise God for our firefighters and emergency workers. It is going to take some time before I stop bursting into tears of grief for those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. 

 The last several days have felt like a month. I have slept in my own bed once since the fire began on Saturday. This is mostly due to the hospitality of friends all around town who are offering their homes to shelter evacuees or former evacuees (like myself). Persons all over my community have given food, clothes, money, time, their homes, dinners, and most importantly, their prayers, non-stop over the last five days. Churches have opened their doors to evacuees, set up prayer services, and have visibly been Christ to the watching world.

Tuesday afternoon and into the night, I watched the most horrific sight I have ever personally witnessed. Clouds of smoke, and ash that fell like snow, swelled over all of Colorado Springs. The front range was covered in hundreds of orange bursts that looked like lava swelling down the close side of the foothills. It was as if Mordor had sprung to life before my very eyes. I could see circles of fires, whole housing communities  lighting up the night's darkness. Two of my friends lost their homes in what looks like a war zone.  

(The photo above, courtesy of someone on facebook, is my friends' neighbourhood. I do not show this to be sensational, but to explain the heartbreaking loss incurred, and how persons are praising God through it all.)

Yesterday I was back at work, listening to worship music as I packaged books and curriculum for Summit customers. One song, Our God is Greater by Chris Tomlin, came on and these lyrics caught in a lump in my throat: "Into the darkness You shine, Out of the ashes we rise. There's no one like You, None like You." Indeed, though nearly 29 square miles of my city and national forest have burnt, there is no one like God. Job's response to God after great calamity now makes more sense to me: "Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshipped.  And he said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

And naked shall I return there.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;

Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

 There is great grief and sorrow at the loss of so many homes - I even feared losing my home for a brief time. However, the LORD reminded me it is only 'stuff'. No persons have been seriously injured or killed in this fire. Our firefighters have tirelessly protected us from extreme danger at their own risk. God is still worthy of our praise, no matter our circumstances. I am seeing this over and again in my own life, and I have seen it displayed in the lives and attitudes of my friends who have lost their home.

Last night the fire was more contained. I didn't feel like I was in the midst of Armageddon or Chernobyl. During conversation with my friends, we looked up and saw a rainbow over Colorado Springs. God is still faithful to keep His promises. God is still good. He gives us hope, strength, and wisdom.  In our very weakness He is our Strength and Shield, no less. He is still worthy of worship and praise.

I am reminded of this truth: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (II Cor 4.16-18)

*Please keep praying for our firefighters and city personnel who are tirelessly fighting on the front lines or behind the scenes. I praise God for them daily.*

Under His Mercy,

~ Johanna