Chapter 6

There are times in life when everything  seems to be coming together: you look ahead and the path is remarkably, beautifully, giggling strait.  Perhaps just a little bumpy.  Or perhaps it’s the retrospective end- of -chapter finality that is making the world seem the way it did.  My need to write and search and ponder was swept away in the bliss and perfectly timed newness of love and learning and teaching and paint.

But they’re back: the swirling thoughts and words and questions and run-on-sentences that echo my wonderings as I suddenly find myself without the familiar anchor of school, learning a new level of “realness” in life. 

And so chapter 6 begins with Jennifer, once again finding herself on an identity quest somewhat reminiscent of the first day at a new school. 

I think I’ve hardened into the mold of gearing up for new adventures backwards.  I look at the challenge in front of me, think about how I want to be perceived, and proceed to choose the magenta sweater: at once a comfort blanket and a bold move.  Let your eyes take this picture of “Jennifer” confident, outgoing, artistic, talented, loved.  Some days, potentially most days, that feels like a costume.  I’d be happy to be cozy in the background, quiet, sipping tea, watching.  

Maybe it isn’t barrettes and a zippered hoodie anymore.  (And frankly, I’ll take courage in the delight of never returning to grade 6.) Today its a ring, a teaching portfolio, a wedding website and a birthday cake. 

So to be clear: I’m gearing up for battle on the outside. Slipping into the armor of dress pants and blouses – I am a teacher.  Figuring out the likes of pinterest and guest lists and blocks of hotel rooms - I am a fiancée.   My portfolio of pretty looking experience, the flowers carefully arranged in my room, the layered cake and lattice pie crust all proof that I’m ready for the things that may be coming my way.

Later on in chapter six we see the contrast between the self-portrait and the self-image.

Literary devices aside,

It’s hard to remember every morning that my value, my worth and my identity is in Christ, not in the things going on my life. And bluntly, what does that even mean?

I am a child: accepted and understood when I make mistakes, misunderstand, and scrape my knees. I’m not supposed to have it all figured out. I’m not supposed to know all the answers.  I’m not supposed to “grow up too fast.”  I was made to embrace the pattern of learning and growing and swallowing peas as my Father gets me ready for the life He’s calling me too.  There’s no graduating.  There’s no “age of majority.”  I’m a kid. And I’m staying that way.  And how beautiful is it to know that it’s always ok to cry out when there’s a monster under the bed?

I am a servant: not because I’m bound or forced, but because Christ showed his love for me in this: while I was still a sinner, he died for me.  He loved me first. He loves me sacrificially.  His love has bought me from the captivity of death into he freedom of everlasting life.  The most beautiful and the most meaningful thing I can do is to follow the example of Mary, who poured perfume on the feet of Jesus, kissing them, washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair.    Whatever I “do” – if it’s teaching or washing dishes – I do out of love for Him.  And one day when I learn to drop the pride and serve Him in the season He has placed my through job he will bless me with, my job title is not my identity.

I am cherished: I get this feeling when my fiance is resting in my arms, that God has placed His beloved masterpiece creation in my care for my lifetime.  I am holding something far too precious for my clumsy hands, and I am feeling something far to deep for my little heart.  And suddenly I realize that this is the most tangible “word study” I’ve come across.   So much more than I can treasure this man, I am treasured by the God who made me.  I am cherished to the point that Jesus, knowing all of who I am, would choose to love me.  Exactly the wanderer and “stumbler” that I am: there’s a seat for me at His table and room for me in His house, and He will hold me, love me, and care for me eternally.    

Life can be overwhelming if I spend the whole morning figuring out what to wear.  Really, nothing in my closet is going to get me ready for a daunting job hunt, or for the unimaginable journey that marriage will be 8 months from now. 

I need to look first at my heart: being filled and changed and readied by l’amour de Dieu, being fully fitted with the armor of God – so that it’s not my self-image or my self-portrait or even my reflection that myself and others know as “me,” but instead I am the Jennifer that the Lord of heaven and earth knit together in my mothers womb.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind

A flock of geese takes flight, wings flapping into a wispy sky of lavender and peach and periwinkle.  My eyes drop down to a mother and her daughter, cozy in autumn coats running in the open field. They stop to pick handfuls of seeded dandelions, and my eyes drop down to the grass.  I sit on a rock that holds memories for me.  The sky gains intensity, and I gaze out at the sea of dandelions.  They are intricate – like living snowflakes, hovering above the ground, fluffy, delicate, and wonderfully translucent.

The sky gains intensity, and my fingers and toes tingle with the cold as golden sunbeams cease to filter through the leaves, and autumn’s crispness fills the air.  Alone in the field now, I gaze out at the seeded flowers, and I’m filled with an urge to run frantically from flower to flower, picking every one, making a wish, and taking a giant breath to attempt to blow all the seeds off in one go.

Would I make a different wish for every one? Or would I wish the same thing over and over and over, blending inspiration and determination, maybe even desperation as I long to see the wish come true.

My imagination jumps from stem to stem. What if all the dandelions, or really, all the living things around me were more than opportunities for wishes? What if they each represented a spoken prayer?

Father and son walk freely through the field.  The son chooses a flower and gently picks it up.  Eyes sparkling with emotion, he passes it into the father’s hands.  The Spirit blows and the seeds are caught in a graceful wind as they twist and turn and soar and fall back down to earth.  I think about my prayers – my heart flying out, not in a planned and careful manor, but just as it is.  I think about how surprising answered prayer can be.  How it turns up where you least expect it, and sometimes after you’ve stopped hoping for it.  It doesn’t always look like what I had imagined – but are the flowers or the trees planted in perfectly spaced rows in an undisturbed forest?

The city lights come on.  I pick two dandelions as I walk back to my car.  Closing my eyes, I thank my Father that when I see His handiwork, I can choose to see rocks and trees and grass and flowers – but he’s made it so that instead I can see and touch and know HIM.  I blow and spin around as I watch the seeds of one dandelion float into the evening.  I cradle the other in my hand as I walk to my car.

The wind blows.

The Red-Green Show

The season’s started.  Red is starting to soak through the green.  How is it that overnight, the leaves could all be dipped and saturated in a completely new colour?  It’s a radical turning around – running from the active growing summer, about-face into autumn. 

There are explosions of vibrant, fiery colours around me: see that one, golden orange yellow tree, standing in glorious contrast to the solid blue sky?  It embraces change, unlike those still transforming around it.

I get too focused on the leaves falling off the trees, day falling into night earlier and earlier, lives falling into sometimes daunting and never ending routine.  In the rustling, indecisive wind, I need to be reminded to be still

and look around. 

I feel way too abstract: a compilation of colours and curves and emotion against a backdrop of right angles, hard lines, and a pallet of grey and gray that is in its own way beautiful. Too often I rush past it, a number, somewhere in the middle of black and white, busses and cars and trucks and students racing making noise that is grey and gray.   Need      focused      forced      mode    think    and see the softness in the spectrum of stone and sweeping shadows and swift motion that speak to the sweet soul of the city, and cover the sour that seems to stick with me.

Trying to sort out everything that needs to be done and needs to be learned for class is exhausting.  There are days when I feel like giving up.  The mountain of homework seems too big.  My schedule is too tight.  Maybe it’s all just too fast for me? Maybe this isn’t what I was cut for, when those scissors and hands that planned all time chose my colours and textures and sewed me together in my mother’s womb.

I arrive at school and the kids ask me if I can teach their class instead of the sub who found out this morning that she’d be filling in for the day.  And in that moment, I look into their eyes and think to myself....how I could want to do anything else?  It’s the way they wonder as they soak up my answers, and it’s the way they are excited to show me how their self-portraits are coming along.

There is this pride in their school and in their accomplishments, this curiosity and unsureness in their dreams, this need for attention that makes me want to dump a giant bucket of love on them, that they would taste and see the goodness of their creator.  

And so I ponder how to see beauty in the city.  How to see calm.  How to feel home.   I walk into the school, or into my apartment building, and I realize that when I see the city through their eyes, and through the names I can’t pronounce, and through the way their colourful hijabs fall and fold around their necks – the “rightness” of place in these moments washes over me and draws me into a gentle current, pulling me towards peace. 

God is showing up this season in surprising, warm, intense, solid, lovely red.  Red Like the leaves changing on the trees, he’s appearing in the opposite colours of the season I’ve come through.  He’s showing up in freshly picked apples, clasped hands, and answered prayers. He’s showing up in a flow that is completely natural for Him, and yet stands in stark contrast to the season I’ve become accustomed to. 

The process is phenomenal.  I watch as the city changes colours. I tread carefully as I feel crunching leaves and soft ground beneath my feet.  And despite all the change, the hurdles, the doubts and the fears that sometimes take hold of me,

I’m happy.  And I’m happy to run with Him, wind in my hair, hand in His hand, knowing He’ll only choose the best path.

Time to write...but not flowing yet.

It seems like it's time to write again.
Because it's something I can do on the go
Because it's something that stretches past whatever gluck is attempting to weigh me down, and cleanses my soul.
Because there is something deeply encouraging about seeing my heart in letters, and being able to see God's faithfulness and work in my life.
Because, like four years ago, when I stepped off the plane to Ottawa, I feel like I'm getting ready for a new adventure - and perhaps a story worth writing.
And I guess because some people I love check my blog every day.

School has started.

 I can tell because my back and shoulders are tense from the weight of my book bag, loaded each day with hopefully everything I need, tossed over my shoulder with the cringe that considers when in life I'll regret wrecking my back for the sake of feeling comfortable in my skin and organized and (perhaps only in my mind), cute.

I can tell because in each moment of the day there is this clock, rattling back and forth like an ignored old-fashioned alarm, bells clanging as I begin stacking up the list of things to do an things to buy and places to go and people to talk to.

I can tell because at the end of the day, my brain is tired, and once I am able to tune out the aforementioned clock, it's so much easier to fall asleep.

This time it's a little bit different.  It feels so strange to be in the same physical space: the same room, the same apartment, the same church, the same school, the same city....but have almost entirely different people in my life. And in the whirlwind of building relationships with everyone from my new roommates to my new classmates to my new...students... it is so delightful to be feeling closer to the one constant, deep, unchanging love in my life - God, and to be surprised by the ways in which I'm finding myself drawn to him.

August (Unfinished)

I walk carefully over sun-bleached driftwood through the white pepper rock-speckled sand to the quiet sea.  These suede city shoes weren’t built for the beach.

For better or worse, my toes were.

I woke up this morning thinking about how strange it felt to be an adult in my teenage bedroom.  Wondering if it will always feel so strange coming to sleep in this room at mom and dad’s house. 

Perhaps I only write now when I’m far away from Ottawa, or when I’m dreaming about a place that speaks so much more clearly to my heart than the city lights and sounds.  The music of the west coast is softer, slower: artsy.  And somehow it feels so much easier to rest here.

Even in my quick break from zipping around the city to see friends and family, fitting visit after visit after visit into one short day, now comfy on an ancient log, toes sifting through soft cool sand, smelling the salt and gentle waves…it feels like I can actually sit down and stop here.

How do I learn to do that at home, in my different faster world of school and work and church and life in ministry? 

May (Unfinished)

They remind me of tulips. Vibrant and stunning,their vivacious colours are almost ironic as they are splashed across delicate precious petals. Its in their nature to withstand the impossible with a kind of bold and awe inspiring grace as they stretch toward the sun, perched on dainty stems that have shot up from the earth just when Spring seems to be a long lost dream. There is an unmistakable truth in the smiles that bursts forth from the painted lips and rouged cheeks of the ladies in the red hats. 

Smile

shoes, sun, and no wool coat outside today.

Sun streaming in the window as we lie on the floor laughing...

I'm so looking forward to the surprises of Spring.

Don't forget to change the clock!

Keeping in the Kelp.

A memory of a specific moment,  outside of EMCS in the covered area by the teacher's parking lot floats across my mind.  I've just come out for lunch, and we are all awkwardly, semi-silently standing there as usual, when a gust of wind comes through the trees and we look at each other, smile, and our voices leap out of us: we smell the sea.

That moment was sometime between me realizing how much I love the smell and taste and texture of the ocean air, and realizing that one day I might move away from it.

Undisturbed, the golden brown ropes of kelp sway slightly in the water.  They are enormous underwater forests, strongholds of life that reach effortlessly towards the surface, but barely touch it. They become safe havens, anchors and sanctuaries.  Or, they are filled with creatures that lurk through the slimy murky darkness and take advantage of its thickness.  Undisturbed, the giant leaves and stems weave themselves together in a world that from our boats and our beaches, and even our bodies holding breath under water - is mysterious.  It dances and sculpts and acts: art unhung, uninterpreted.  Unexperienced expression.

It's the wave; a little bigger than expected, or the waves; constantly pounding in one after another after another after another that draw up the kelp. The wind blows, the waves crash, and in a conglomerate collage, seaweed sticks the salty smell of the water to the rocks on shore.

Sometimes when waves hit me, I feel quenched, washed, renewed, refreshed.  Sometimes I look at the tangled weeds that have been pulled out of me, and left on shore, and I praise God as I taste His freedom and anticipate the new growth he has in store for me.

Sometimes I feel the water beginning to toss around me.  I brace myself for the storm, scared of what it will bring to the surface for anyone to see. I feel like I'm going to explode - I feel like I need to explode, but I search for a quiet shore, where maybe only God will see the aftermath of the storm inside of me.  And with no other hands around to pick up the pieces, I'll lie there entirely broken in His.

I picture Jesus, walking on the beach, collecting broken glass and bits of shell and jagged rocks.  I'm not the only one who thinks they've broken alone here.  He feels the broken edges against his skin, but he sees the beauty in changing what they were into what they are meant to be, and he places them gently in the Father's hands.  I picture the Spirit, exuding from the fingertips of each, swirling through them as slowly the shards soften, the stones become smooth.

I picture myself, my fingers feeling the softness of Grandma's hand through her turquoise gloves that she's put on my cold fingers.  I carry a little navy bucket that once held red jam, and now holds my treasures.  We walk up the hill from the beach to her house as the sun gets ready to go down.
Bigger, I smell the same yummy aroma I remember seeping through her door, as I look at the driftwood and shells and glass we collected years ago, still arranged there.

Sometimes I get so frustrated not knowing 

how God is shaping me, 

where He is taking me,

who'll be on the journey along side of me.  

I lose sight so easily of His bigger view.  

He doesn't leave me. 

 He didn't pick me up, put me in a bucket, and forget me when it was time for dinner.  

He still sees me. He still knows me.  He still has a plan for me. He treasures me. 

All the things and all the people I'm worried about - he holds them too. 

So much closer and so much deeper than I can. He knows what is going on in my heart.  

He knows what is going on in yours.  

And it's His breath that stirs or calms the sea.

January 28

My tired body and sore stomach temporarily revived by a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup, I remember the promise I made, and slip my keys into my pocket as I head out the door.  My little neighbour greets me, taking my hand and running with me to the couch, where he gives me a toy so that I can play while everyone else is watching tv in a language that I cant understand.

Soon, he brings out a pile of books, he and his brother sit close, and I start reading them stories. Curious George.  The Bearenstein bears. They laugh as I try different voices for the characters, and they start trying to guess who will get my "real voice." Soon, the sisters have gathered around too and I'm reading to most of the family. 

In a pause between stories, they want to know what my job will be when I'm finished school.  Guess! I say, laughing.  

A doctor? 

Nope!

A dentist? 

I laugh. Nope!

A Police Officer?

Nope!

A Firefighter (well...actually...they said a firetruck.  But I dont think that's what they meant.)

Definitely not. 

They begin to get exasperated. Which I must admit, makes me laugh more. 

In the mean time, their mother sits on the floor, her legs crossed, her scarf slowly falling off her head, her hands occupied as she peels potatoes.  She listens to the story - and I long for the day when she'll understand it like her children do.  I see her watching me with the kids piled on top of me, trying to see the pictures and read the words.  I see her smile as I smile.  My eyes meet hers, as I say

A teacher, I think.

Good Morning

I wake up this morning, and I am the only one stirring to see the dense fog that surrounds our building.  It creates  a vast blankness that I stare at as my eyes escape dreams.  Not that fog is anything new to me.  But maybe just all the weather in Ottawa amazes me.  When it snows, I'm like a child - I put on my boots and prance off the cleared path, literally leaping through the freshly fallen sparkles, grinning.

When it is foggy, I'm deeply captivated.  In place of the city that I love to watch, it gives me a blank canvas on which I can paint any world I want.

The one I choose this morning transforms the snowy park into a luscious summer.  I cover the ice with thick green grass, dandelions starting to turn to seed, colourful flowers, and trees bursting with leaves.  I erase the swimming pool and the dull cement around it with a pond and lily pads. Then I imagine putting all the colours in the wrong place.  It's not as lovely that way. Kids fly clear kites against a green sky, with purple shoes in golden grass, and they dive into pond full of blue paint.

Sometimes it is important to practice healthy imagining.

It seems like all the imagining these days is about things that are too real.  Imagining being in school again next year. Imagining living with different people.  Imagining what the clothes I'm wearing will look like after another year of use.  Imagining I had time to do all the things on my to-do list.  Imagining being studious and knowing al the answers my professors ask.  Imagining having courage to say things that need to be said.  Imagining that half of those things just didn't need to be said.  

Imaginations were much better when they created worlds with sidewalk chalk, and turned cloudy after- school playtimes into an epic adventure, spanning the real world as we knew it and twisting together fantasy time and reality time over days and weeks, until we finally completed a quest, and invented a new one.  

I want my imagination to be creative, rather than speculative.  I want my imagination to build memories, not regrets.  

I think about how God spoke things into being. Creating in His image.  Painting the world into a multi-dimensional beautiful thing that he sees, and knows, and loves. 

And it was good.

I need to learn to imagine  with His heart.  I pray that the words I say, the dreams I hold, the pictures I paint, the decisions I make would be...good.

Not good like icecream, but good like His voice when I run home to Him, and pull out of my backpack the art that I've made with my life, and He scoops me up so that we look at it together, and His eyes beam and he looks at me, saying

"Well done, my beloved daughter."