I Reckon It's a Reckoning

From My Utmost for His Highest tonight:

"And Peter...walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid." Matthew 14:29-30

The wind was actually boisterous, the waves were actually high, but Peter did not see them at first. He did not reckon with them, he simply recognized his Lord and stepped out in recognition of Him, and walked on the water. Then he began to reckon with the actual things, and down he went instantly.

I have not written anything in here for over a week not for lack of things to write about or things going on, but rather for the over-abundance of them. It has been 12 days of spiritual and emotional exhaustion. Ever have those stretches where every blessed moment feels like a revelation of some kind?

I am wiped out.

The good news about that tonight, as I sit on my bed and type, hunched over in a way that will give me a backache very shortly (but I have no desire to sit anywhere else), is that I think God worked specifically to get to me to this point in order to face this week, and this coming weekend.

This week will be crazy busy at work, for about 23 reasons that I won't take the time to list. Suffice it to say that when I even think of tomorrow, Monday morning, I want to faint dead away and have someone wake me up in three weeks. I know this week holds a list of activities and people that I cannot keep up with while maintaining an attractive attitude of patience. None of the tasks or people are bad--it's just a lot. And all of it has deadlines.

Then comes Saturday. Liann and I are hurling ourselves into a car to arrive at the airport by 5:30 a.m. to catch a flight to Boise. It's time for my home-finding trip. I have until Wednesday afternoon to find an apartment or house or condo or whatever to move into a month from now, and lots of people to connect with while I am in the area. I cannot express how grateful I am to Liann for coming to help--whew. I can't imagine doing this alone.

Liann sat with me tonight and we made a list of things I would like in my new place to live. This is no small task for someone who has forgotten how to express an opinion to the Lord about anything. In the balance of expressing my heart and wanting His will, somewhere along the line I ditched the dealings with my heart. I think it's a pretty short trip for you to figure out what that has done to my prayer life. Pppbbbtthhhhh. Dry and parched may start to cover it.

It did dawn on me last week, though, that in many of the stories that melt my heart about the Lord, people's needs were meet very specifically, and many times we know it because of what they asked for in prayer. And I know you know me better than to think I am talking about "Where's my new Hummer?" kind of prayers. I mean those that can involve real, material things, but that are really about bigger issues in our hearts.

My big issue right now is leaving. I have fought and fought over trying not to be too sad about this move, and just be brave, and it's all gonna be okay, and being afraid I am not being apologetic enough for being heart-broken for having to leave the people I love most in this fallen world when there are others it has not bugged so much to leave. Well, as my good friend Holly says when she's had enough, I'm done.

I feel sick to my stomach about leaving. It's finally here. I am pretty much incapable of talking about it for more than three sentences without crying. I confess to being a little mad that I am leaving my nephews and niece when one of the things I have wanted most in life is to be an aunt. I know it's ridiculous, but I have thought about that since I was about nine years old. I am excited about new adventure, but I am crushed at the idea of not being around the corner from a mountain-full of people I adore.

Frankly, I did not know it would be this hard. It wasn't a month ago.

Hence, the whole walkin' on water segment at the top. I love that Chambers points out that the storm was already clearly raging away, but Peter just didn't see it when he laid eyes on Jesus. He didn't reckon with water or wind; he just stepped out to follow His Lord. I think that was me in October 2004 when this relocation was announced, and has been me in many ways since then. My answer when people have asked how I feel about "the move" (I am inappropriately sick of that phrase, by the way), has been all about how He will provide, and sure it will be tough in some ways, but it's so clear that I am supposed to go, and it will be okay.

Two weeks ago, I started to "reckon with the actual things". It was time to change utilities out of my name, open a new bank account, clean out my teaching files, deliver things to Goodwill, take note of what I will have to purchase for a place by myself, send farewell letters to churches, make lists of people to invite to going away events.

Today I hit the skids about making phone calls to set appointments for apartment tours. I need to do this tomorrow. My normal thing would be to research to death the places I want to look at, and have as much information as I can possibly garner before I even call, much less visit in person. I have already spent hours and hours online and in rental magazines and talking to people at work who have made their trips. But I know there is more I could do.

"...and down he went instantly."

I can't do it. I just can't anymore. And you should envision that with a resigned shoulder-shrug and sideways head-toss. I have no more brains or energy to throw at this. I can't handle one more moment of pre-home-find-trip preparation.

I think that must mean I have my eyes turning back to Him again. I said yes to the move in the first rush of chasing Him, what Chambers says we need to do by being "reckless immediately." If it's His voice, there is no hesitation with consideration of our circumstance; we are to "fling it all out on Him."

But I confess to taking lots of time lately to consider my circumstances, weigh my options, measure my own abilities, balance my efforts with my own intelligence. It was not enveloped by nearly enough prayer and trust.

So tonight, Liann prayed--I cried. I just cried and nodded while I listened to her praise Him for the perfect love and care He has always provided, and lay before Him my heart, her heart, and a very real need I face in a week--a new home.

And after making no-brainer lists for an apartment like washer/dryer hookups, here is what I really want:

1. A place big enough for people to come stay with me
2. A place that will allow me to bring my grandmother's dining table and hutch that are currently in use at my parents' house (I know it seems silly, but I can't tell you the surge of joy and comfort it brings to think of having those pieces with me.)
   
3. Nice landlords/managers and neighbors
   
4. An address I can come home with from this trip. I truly do not want to be on a waiting list, have to be making a bunch of confirming phone calls over the next month, or wondering if an "opening" will become available before the moving company heads north with my household goods.

Do I know that He will provide a decent home in Idaho? Of course--in the big picture, He always, always provides. For me, at this moment, though, as my friend Amber said recently, sometimes you need to know He is in the small things, like a bedroom and bath for guests, and furniture that has a million memories in it.

For Cryin' Out Loud

I cried almost all the way home from work yesterday. Started at the corner of Alabama and Redlands Blvd. and went right up the mountain. No big deal in the life-scheme of things, I guess.

Except that I hate crying.

I didn't used to, but now I hate the runny nose, the goofy face, the red eyes...and the contact lenses that shrink right up and squeeze your eyeballs to death. Mostly, though, I hate that it indicates to me a loss of control on my part, especially if I am alone. In my mind, I equate loss of emotional control (water from my ocular cavities) with a lack of trust in God's care and sovereignty. This applies to only me, of course. I don't really have any hang-ups about other people sobbing. But, what am I crying about if I know Jesus is Savior and I know He is in charge and that all things work to His glory? Get a grip, Slusser!

So, whaddaya know...Jesus loves to make me cry when I am alone.

Clearly, we're at odds here. You see my dilemma.

My eyes well up the moment I ponder His goodness. His grace. His patience. When He tries to tell me He loves me, and would I hold still for just a minute so He can just say that, and could we not talk business for two seconds. When He tries to tell me that all my oughts, shoulds, and woulds are making me smaller, and draining the life out of me, and by the way, you do that because you compare yourself to everyone around you, and I, your Creator, don't see you that way.

Basically, any time I think about Him in a context other than Him wanting my obedience, I run the risk of tears.

So I often choose not to run the risk. Crying is exhausting. I don't have time for it.

I have stuff to do. Emails to send, lists to make, reports to type, people to call, an apartment to rent, people to pray for, stuff to take to Goodwill, things to think about.

I have an appearance of peace and joy to maintain, for Pete's sake! Crying makes that messy! People are watching.

The good news is, I guess, that yesterday was the first time in a long time that I cried, and let myself keep going, and didn't get mad at myself for it. I suppose that's a growth moment. A watershed moment. Get it? Watershed. Tears, wet, water--stay with me here.

That's my prayer for the moment to Him--stay with me, here. Don't let me run off. Don't let me keep everything tidy and clean, 'cause I can do it, and not in a good way. I have something ugly in me that is capable of turning emotions off and on like a faucet. I discovered it in late 1990, and I have had enough experience with it that it scares me to death. I have it in me to be a machine. I have joked that if I were not Christian, I would be so Utilitarian it would be horrid. But I'm not really kidding. It's in there, and there have been times in my life where the emotional faucet was off, and I found it was easier and easier to let it stay that way, or to flip back and forth between what I decided I would care about and what I would not, as it was convenient for me.

My keep-it-clean, emotional give-a-hoot-don't-pollute theory (actually, I think I should say, practice) does not make me a better person. It does not draw me to God. It does nothing for my soul or spirit. Except maybe shrink it.

In short, me keeping me clean and tidy and hospital-cornered makes a mess.

God in his sweet timing, let me run into the same person yesterday who prayed for me back on May 16. She's the same sister to whom I made some of my statements about dislike of crying about 3 months ago. I told her I wanted to know more about grace and be closer to Him without crying.

She laughed at me. In a good, you-gotta-be-kidding-honey kind of way. Actually, that's exactly what she said at the time. And yesterday, it was like just being able to talk with her was a reminder of that, and the tears started a couple hours later. It was a thorough mix of grief, joy, excitement, weariness, anticipation, trust, awe, release...good and messy. I told her she shakes my tidy little snow globe world every time I see her. Praise the Lord for that.

I think I decided my problem is that I am actually on the verge of tears all the time, so I don't let my heart wander over there, where that happens, 'cause I'd never do anything but cry. Never do anything but not have charge of my own responses and abilities and learning and appearance and and and...

Sounds like a "my power is perfected in weakness" life may be possible after all. I think it's not an optional approach to Him, the fullness of Him, the person of Him. If I want more than fire insurance, I have a feeling this is the only road.

Magic in the Little Things

I was told tonight (in a good way--not like, "Man, you got told!") that sharing about the simple, beautiful, pure things in life is worth it. It was in the context of why I had chosen not to blog (or, more accurately, specifically rebelled against doing it) before now. My answer mostly has to do with not wanting to contribute to the insanity of media noise already in the world. The cacaphony on the internet, radio, satellite radio, podcasts, MP3s, television, cell phones...you name it...drives me nuts, and I think in many ways is deeply unhealthy.

Plus, what the smack do I have to say that anyone gives a rat's tooie-tooie about? But that's another issue...

In response to my musings about whether small, silly things belonged on my blog, my poet-preacher friend pointed out Philippians 4:8--"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Dr. Skaggs said that in the midst of a world of "noise", sharing about the sweet and pure and everyday is magic.

I can't argue with a treasured passage of scripture (as well as the basis of one of my favorite Wes King songs, Good News), or with the value of some joy in the mundane, so here's a tidbit of magic for tonight.

Hope you're ready after this big lead in...

I have an enormous raspberry on my left knee.

It's still humongous today, Wednesday, and I got it on Sunday. It spent the first two nights under a bandage soaked in Neosporin--the kind with the pain killer, 'cause the sheets against it hurt!

Why is it pure, lovely, admirable, excellent? Did I get it rescuing people from a burning building? Did I win the softball title by sliding into home just under the touch of the catcher's glove? Did I wrestle a 500-pound gorilla away from an old lady trying to cross the street?

Nope. Got it giving horsey rides, lots of them, to Poncho, Denver, and even to Born Dancin' (with the help of Joanna propping her up and walking next to me while she rode). I was in comfy new Eddie Bauer shorts, galloping up and down the hallway and through my mom and dad's bedroom and living room on Sunday during our family Memorial Day BBQ.

Aunt Kaffie has a new rule--horsey rides when she is in jeans ONLY! I had no idea that rug burn is like sunburn and worsens as the evening goes along! Yee-ouch!

However, I have also never been prouder of a boo-boo. I think I have worn shorts every day since Sunday just to show it off ;) I feel like a cowboy. I mean, cowgirl.

Um, no. I mean, Trigger.

Common Sense

Go read My Utmost for His Highest today, 05/30. Go on, the link's at the right...go on. Scoot.

Common sense was like a law in my house growing up. "Use your common sense, Kathie." The joke most times, though, was that I had little of it. If you want me to learn something, give me a book. Then assign an essay. If you really need me to absorb it, make me diagram each sentence.

As an adult, the major times of growth in my life, and deep joy despite deep pain, have been when common sense has taken a back seat to faith. I don't mean ignoring things like not walking down the middle of a busy freeway ("You can't kneel down in the middle of a highway and live to talk about it, son."), but like all other good precepts I have been given, I have taken what should be a guide and turned it into a rule. Common sense is a rule if you don't have a God who is telling you that being Indiana Jones with him is far better.

And I like to be Indiana Jones--but my common sense tries to do it in a nice, safe, lots of rope and back-ups and rappelling gear of my own kind of way. He gets little glory in this scenario, of course, I get little joy (because I have been so busy arranging things that did not need my attention), and a thin story is told on the other side where people who don't know my Jesus can attribute the decent outcome to my abilities and talent and some serendipity.

I know better, and I know the difference. I want His stories on the other side. I read last week that Jesus did not come to preach common sense. From Oswald on May 26: The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worthwhile for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations.

I confess to spending a lot of time trying to arrange the natural and asking Jesus to sprinkle in some supernatural. Pray with me that I will stop it.

Snarfles

I love 1 Thessalonians 5, especially verses 12-28. The instructions are so succinct, and the encouragement so direct. Verse 24: "The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it." Rock on. I have hung out a lot in these verses.

But I cracked up yesterday when I had a little epiphany over verse 14:
"And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone."

Ummmmm...Guess which side of the above listed group I have always put myself on, not consciously choosing, of course, but just always landed there? Obviously, on the encourager side. ALWAYS. Clearly, though, that means there are timid, weak people out there, who need some patience. Hee hee. That means there are encouragees. Look how I am always on the "do" side and never the "receive" side! Hee hee! Kathie giggles aloud (kind of snarfully-like, almost spraying little dots of spit on the computer screen), in this small, triumphal realization. I betcha, sometimes I am in the weak, timid, needing-patience group. I betcha, sometimes I am supposed to allow myself to be ministered to.

Maybe I am renaming this the "Duh" blog :)

Kathie's Third Commandment--yikes

I think I discovered today that at some point in life I made up a third commandment for myself, to follow the two from Jesus in Matthew 22:

³⁶"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" ³⁷Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Kathie's unwritten, third, often sadly overtaking the other two, commandment:
"Thou shalt not inconvenience ANYONE, EVER. Amen."

Bummer. Just figured out today that this is probably not such a healthy idea. Been living the last 10 years or more pretty laboriously by it, though. And, for the record, I'll just put out there that I live the "mind" part of the first commandment, and since I have no desire to be particularly kind to myself, and am not my own biggest fan, number two probably doesn't get lived out in the way He intends.

As Liann pointed out, that means I am living and breathing a little over 1/3 of the things staked out as most important by the Lord I love. Plus monkeying it up with my own rules. Glad the Lord brought that to light today.

My counselor has me reading Changes That Heal, by Dr. Henry Cloud. I know people have opinions on both sides about Dr. Cloud and about such books, but I'll tell ya, for me at the moment, it's a pretty darn helpful thing to be reading. I have Liann's copy, and let her know today that I am marking the dickens out of it, and I hope she does not mind. Of course, she doesn't, and we actually spent time today comparing her underlines and starred places to mine that are getting added to the pages. Very cool and encouraging to see where she's been, how God has worked, and what He's continuing to do for both of us in this significant season of change at this house under the big oak.

Back to the inconveniencing thing. On the list of things I need to move from my head to my heart, there are many, many, many things I know, have heard, and have read. Thank God for Cloud pointing out plenty of those things just now when I will crash and burn if I don't start to get them. One that seems pretty obvious--"We are literally to draw from the love of God and others to fuel our transformation and fruit bearing."

I read that and realized that I see receiving love from others as nice, enjoyable, and pleasant. I never put it in the realm of "necessary." For me, though, it is "necessary," and my duty as well as my joy, to love others. I love you--absolutely and without doubt. You love me, God loves me--that's handy and lucky. And I'll eek out what I can without bothering you or Him too much.

Gross, I know. But that's the point. I have considered renaming this blog, "The Catalog." It's gonna be, I think, a list of things I am just starting to get, many of which make others say, "duh."

So, since I should be able to function just to care for others, without needing to be refilled (not seriously refilled, anyway), I take it to the extreme of not wanting to "bother" anyone about anything. I am happy to help bear your burdens, and I love you so much, I won't burden you with mine. Aren't I nice?

Reminds me of planning my first support-raising trip in the late summer of 2004. I kept checking with Chris and Rebekah to make sure that my staying with them was not an inconvenience or hassle or headache or bother or burden or hardship or discomfort. And, yes, I think I checked as many times as I have nouns listed there. Chris finally said, "Kathie, the only inconvenience is having to reassure you that you are not inconveniencing us." And he used his serious voice. I almost thew up, 'cause I knew I had been busted. And really, if I think about it, this broken idea in my head of not "burdening" others with anything, including struggles or worries or broken pieces of me, sounds a lot like my junior high and high school "Are you mad at me?" game, just with an adult spin on it. People will like me more if I am not messy and complicated, and can be what they want and need.

Definition of the classic codependent, you say? Ah, yes, I have a touch of it.

How could I miss that I need Him to fuel me, and that I need others in close relationship who can point me toward Him, who know when I am broken and empty, when probably my favorite verse is John 15:5, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

I need to expand my definition of fruit in my own head. My tree is pretty restricted to "task" fruit. Time for some character fruit.

Favorite quote thus far from Changes, p. 41: "The Lord accepts us fully, knowing that we will need time and experience to work out our imperfections. Our failures do not surprise him. If they surprise us, it is only because we have too high an opinion of ourselves."

Pow, right in the kisser!

More than you ever wanted to know about eagles

I just caught myself in a huge moment of geekness. Geekdom? Geekosity? Anyway...

Deuteronomy 32:11, 12
11 As an eagle stirs up its nest,
Hovers over its young,
Spreading out its wings, taking them up,
Carrying them on its wings,

12 So the LORD alone led him,
And there was no foreign god with him.

The "him" is Jacob. I can't give you a pronoun without an antecedent--sorry.

This verse is part of what was shared Sunday at church. The imagery that was put with it intrigued me, so I wanted to check to see what eagles really do when they stir up a nest and get their young going.

What else? I Googled.

Christian sites that talk about eagles tell stories about how the parent eagles start pulling all the soft stuff (rabbit fur, down, ect.) from the nest when they "stir" it, making it uncomfortable for the eaglets to stay put, so they have to get out of there and start trying to fly. The good news is, Mama and Daddy are there to help and to catch them on their wings, or pinions, which are not like the feathers of most birds, spaced further apart and softer, which a baby bird might fall through. No, eagle feathers are sturdy and so close together that a baby eagle can even use its little claws to dig in and hang on to the flying parent who protects them and causes them to soar.

Doesn't that sound nice? You can imagine all the places I wanted to go with that metaphor, about me and God, and you and God, and there's nothing to worry about as I get urged from the nest of the San Bernardino Mountains into the skies of Idaho, soraing with my Heavenly Father.

Then I checked the animal behavior sites. Hmmmm.

Mostly I found stuff about the young "moving out" regarding bald eagles; I found lots of other info on different types of eagles, just not so much on their process for getting the kiddos flying. Seems like most eagles coax their young out of the nest with food and there's some flapping and fluttering and exercising going on in the nest prior to that.

Bald eagles, some say, will keep flying back and forth with food just out of the reach of the young eaglets so that they start leaning out to get it. And it might take a LONG time for them to finally lean far enough over the edge to get somewhere. In the meantime, since the parents aren't providing any food, the eaglets are losing their baby fat and getting leaner and meaner (literally meaner and more agitated, making sour-attitude little eagles, according to some sources). Finally, out of sheer starvation, practically, the eaglet jumps out as the parent flys by with a marmoset or something plump and tasty, and gives his wings all the flap-flaps he has in them. Apparently, if the little lubbers live to screech after their crash-landing, the parents start helping to feed them again as they learn to hunt for themselves over the next 8-9 weeks.

Important data noted by Kathie on more than one site: Approximately 40% of young eagles do not survive their first flight.

What kind of metaphor is that???

Sure, in this scenario, so the animal experts say, the eaglets only learn to hunt and be all "eagley" by watching their parents patterns and practicing what they do. I can dig taking that part of the metaphor into my emulating the Lord, watching Him and practicing more Christ-likeness.

But a 40% death rate? Ouch.

I just had a conversation tonight with Liann about the fact that I am hyper-context-sensitive. This applies to Bible verses and deciding who and what they apply to, and what can be "claimed" for yourself, as people like to say, and apparently also to imagery and metaphors and what I am willing to buy into.

I think I need to chill about this and start maybe just taking the good from stuff and just enjoying or appreciating something for what it's worth.

Good topic for the counselor this week, eh?

Flap-flap.