Arise

10The Lord said to Joshua, "Get up! Why have you fallen on your face?"

Joshua 7

In my middle school class, we're going through the Old Testament, and we've been talking about promises and identities. We're in Judges now, but a few weeks ago it was Joshua. Time and time again we read the words, Be strong and of good courage...I will not leave you nor forsake you...the victory is yours...be not dismayed...I am with you. God shoves at Joshua in ways that we don't expect. He tells him that he has won battles that are not even glimpsed on the horizon yet, and not only that, but he tells him to believe that those things are true.
In the darkest hour, the Maker assures His creations that He redeems and He is there.
In that classroom on the upper level of the children's ministry building, I've found that I've been preaching to myself these past few weeks. I came home today after teaching on Gideon and the lies that we tell ourselves and the truth of who we really are, and I was planting irises on my back patio and I thought,
Do I really believe what I told the girls this morning?
My answer was a resounding,
No.
We took some time to write down the things that we feel about ourselves that aren't true and maybe limit us, and I put on the list "small" and "inadequate." Then we made a list of promises and truths about who the Lord says we are, and I wrote "called" and "chosen" and "designed with intention." I think I made them do that because I needed to do it. Because this morning I didn't feel like I was called or chosen or even designed intentionally, I felt small–very small, and inadequate.
I felt incapable.
And so I was honest, out there in my backyard surrounded by purple flowers. I told the Creator,
I don't. I don't think I believe everything I told them this morning. I feel unworthy and lost and less than and I don't know how to stop feeling those things. 
And He replied gently in that way that He always does with a pressing on my spirit and a hope-filled grasp at my heart,
Get up daughter. Rise up. Why are you on your face when I have lifted you from this mire?

And that was it. I repented then and there of my pettiness and doubts. Because He was right, He is right. I am meant to be a Joshua. I am to cross my Jordans. I am a repairer of the breach, a restorer of paths, a right-hand redeemer, and a bringer of grace. No matter what I feel about myself in my darkest hours and my long valleys, I am not tiny. I don't need to stop feeling like I am though, I only need to realize that it's untrue.
I only need to believe that I am His.

I am being redeemed and He is with me.

This is just a simple truth that I want you all to know.

You are His.
You are precious and cherished and cultivated daily. You are called and chosen. You are designed with meaning and purpose. It is for you that He split the seas. It is for you He gave all. You are mighty and victorious. You are peculiar and ever-loved.
You are one sheep out of one hundred, and He left the other ninety-nine to seek you out.
You matter.

So get up friends. Why lay in the dust from which you came? He has prepared a glorious position for each and all of us, and we can claim that identity with with power and certainty. We can tug at it and shake it and cry out,
I am new! I am new in Him and none can undo what He has done and promised! None can mar His intentions and perfect plan and beautiful design. I am new, I am new, I am new. 
The darkest hour always passes, and it is when we realize that we are claimed, then we can step out of the wake of our dead selves and into the calling He has for us.
We are children of the King. Royalty and a priesthood, daughters and sons, princes and princesses.

We are worth more than the irises.

7

He jutted his chin out towards her the way he used to when they were eight and she told him she could beat him to the end of the sidewalk but never did. "I can take care of myself Emma."

She rolled her eyes at him the way she used to when they were fourteen and he told her he could make anything grow and always did. "That's obvious Garland. But that's not what I'm implying."

They sat together in the dirt like they had for years and years and years, their palms pressed onto the cool ground, their fingers stained as they dug small holes and gently thrust the tulip bulbs into them. It was simple repetition for them, they had done it so many times before. 

They had done everything together before.

Emma pressed her hands against her thighs and looked directly at him. "I'm on the one who needs this. I need you to fulfill the order." 

He kept digging. "I will fulfill it Emma." Still digging. "But I will fulfill it under the rules of our contract."

"What if I want a new contract?" She looked away now. "What if I want to renegotiate?"

Garland bent over, his forearms straining as he pulled the pile of dirt forward and spread it over the bulbs. "We agreed years ago Emma. I'm not going to renegotiate just because of your conscience."
"What if you don't make the quota?"
"I will."
"What if you don't?"
"I will."
He was insufferable. She was sweeter than ever. They were facing one another, no longer digging side-by-side, but their foreheads almost touching as they leaned forward. 

"I"m just offering a little helping hand, some support," she said at the dirt, not willing to look at his face for fear of outright rejection.

"And I'm appreciative," he told her with his kindest voice, "but I don't need any help Emma."
He saw the tear slide down her cheek and fall onto her hand as she continued to dig. But these were his struggles, and though they were close as a brother a sister, his struggles were his struggles. Garland was never the sort of man who would pile his hardships on another's shoulders simply for the sake of doing so. He was a storm-weatherer, an uncanny tulip grower with tough skin. He stopped digging and pressed his hands on top of hers. "I'll be fine Emma. I promise."
She looked up at him, her hot breath on his face and silent tears leaving trails on her dirty cheeks. "I wish I could believe that."
He closed the space between their foreheads and pressed his against hers in a gentle manner. "You care too much."
It took her a moment to compose herself, he was so close to her face. Their lips so near. Never in the twenty years they had known one another had their lips been that close. She was undone. She pulled away, with a harsh movement that she knew she would regret later that night as she laid in bed and tossed, unable to sleep and thinking about his skin on hers. "I don't. Not really. I just want my order, else I'll have some very angry brides this spring." 

Garland laughed. Whether out of embarrassment or just because she couldn't be sure. "Of course." He pressed his hands back into the dirt, away from her, away from the air and the oxygen around her. He suffocated his hands in the earth the way he felt like she was suffocating him with her constant denial of his feelings. "The tulips are your greatest concern. That's why you're crying as you try to make a professional business transaction with me."
She wiped her eyes and laid down on the dirty earth, pressing her head to the ground and leaving her face upwards to the grey sky. "You're insufferable," she told the vast expanse above her.
Garland continued to dig. If he was insufferable, she was stubborn. And a heartbreaker. Laying there on his land next to the bulbs they had always planted together with her chest rising and falling angrily and dirt smeared all over her thighs, she was a heartbreaker. She did this every year, came and broke his heart and refused him.

Garland didn't know it then, as he pressed another bulb into the ground and eyed the woman laying front of him with an aching desperation that spoke of years of chasing, this year would be different.
Heartbreak would be no more.
Love was to abound. 

He couldn't know that though. After all, things looked exceptionally bleak and they sky was very grey that morning. One never suspects good things on a grey day. It's contrary.

6

We all carry weights around in our chest. Burdens of words we wish we'd never said, or didn't say at all. Things that happened to us. Regrets. Moments you want to take back. Years you feel you wasted, and even those you feel you're owed. Mistakes. Foolishness. Tragedies.
They sit, heavy, in a place quite near our hearts.

Evangeline was no exception to this all.

But she was a hardy woman, and hearty too. Her rebound rate was less than a day at the most. She had her own way of weathering the storms that blew about her. Kent knew that. He knew that because on her bad days, she would always walk past the rocking chair and go to sit in the window seat. And then she would knit. Slowly, rhythmically, with the clicking of her grandmother's needles, Evangeline would knit it all away.
Kent used to admire that. He had a respect for her calmness. He was in awe of her ease and grace while she handled any of the rough spots in her sea.

But not today.

It seemed to have all built up, and he lost it. She sat there in the corner, the sun bright and white on their walls, her hands working with a blush pink wool and purling it into a blanket for Garland's little girl, tear stains on her face from the argument and his lips still hot and full of the words he hadn't meant to say so unkindly, but maybe he had. It was then that he lost it.
He hated her.
He hated her weepy eyes. He hated her mess of hair.  He hated her sniffling. He hated her knitting. He hated her passivity, how he hated her passivity. He hated that she wouldn't sit in the rocking chair. He hated that he felt he already knew too much about her, and it had only been four years. He hated their lack of family-ness. He hated their home. He hated her sweetness. He hated her kindness. He hated how she was so patient with him, so forgiving. He hated her.
He was so out of love with her at that moment that the words that came out of his mouth next didn't really surprise him.

"I want a divorce."

She stopped knitting but didn't look at him. He stood behind the rocking chair with his hands grasping it till his knuckles were white with anger and his forearms strained from the pressure. He had built the rocking chair for her, as a wedding gift, all those years ago.
It seemed so long ago. So lost to him now. So pointless.

"I'm serious Evangeline. I don't want to be with you anymore. I want a divorce."

She bit her lip and turned to him, laid the pile of pink across her lap, gently.

"No," she said. And her voice cracked, just a little. That sound it makes and when you hear it you know that person is about to sob.

But he left anyway, and with him went his presence and anger and all the oxygen in the room. Evangeline felt her chest constrict and her throat close up as the man she loved more than anything walked out. This wasn't something she could knit away.

The weight of it crushed her.
The crack turned into the sobs.
And that blush pink?

It wasn't blushing anymore.

Three years later.

Evangeline stood there, nervous, her foot lightly tapping the dark-stained floors. She wrapped her scarf around her chest with fluttering hands and clutched the small sweater she had knitted and wrapped in white paper with a huge pink bow to herself. Kent came up behind her and put his strong arms around her. She felt his stomach tighten though, as they heard the voices in the hallway getting louder. She knew the knots in their guts matched.

"I think I'm going to throw up," Kent said, and pressed his forehead onto the back of her strawberry-colored hair and breathed. "What if she doesn't like me?"

"She's going to love you," Evangeline reassured him, her eyes still on the door.

He felt his wife's shoulders tense as the door opened and her foot stopped tapping. She had fought for this, all of this, for the last three years. And it all culminated into this one moment in this one room with this one man behind her, as he had promised he always would be.

She walked shyly into the room.
She was barely peering sideways at them. Her white dress was clean and pressed and accented by a pair of trembling hands gripping the bottom hem. Her dark hair was pulled up into a top knot and her face and arms were dappled with freckles. Evangeline heard Kent's breath catch in his throat. They had seen it in the pictures, but now it was all the more real.
Kent still had some of his own childhood freckles peppered across his nose, a remnant of his youth as a dark-haired, blue-eyed boy who was the spitting image of his mother.
Evangeline stepped forward out of her husband's grasp and approached the little girl.

"Therese?" She knelt down and pressed a hand to her chest. Perhaps to introduce herself, perhaps to still her frantic heart. "I'm Evangeline." She smiled and choked a little. "I'm going to be your mom."

Therese timidly walked the few steps towards Evangeline, but turned her gaze warily to Kent, who still stood behind. He hadn't breathed since she walked into the room.

"Who is he?"

He thought his chest was going to explode.

Evangeline smiled again. "That's my husband, Kent. He's going to be your dad."

She stared at him, considering him. Her small hands let go of her dress and she smoothed out the wrinkles in a dainty manner.

Never in his entire existence had he wanted someone to like him so much.

"Can I hug him?"

She looked at her to be sure, and all Evangeline could do was nod in reply. Kent felt himself go down on knee, as if he were proposing, which in a way, he was. He was proposing a new life to this girl. He was proposing to be her father.
He was asking her to be his daughter.
She wrapped her tiny arms around his front and he breathed.

He picked her up in his embrace and walked over to his wife and pressed Therese in-between the two of them. She turned and planted a kiss on Evangeline's cheek.

She loved them.

Of course she loved them.

Where my heart is

Aside from celebrating the Carpenter's first coming to our earth, my favorite thing about Christmas is being home.

I like being home.

I like hiking through our pacific northwest forest and chopping our tree down. I like laying in front of the wood-burning fireplace and reading Oswald Chambers. I like waking up and passing gifts into the open hands of my sisters + my brother. I like knitting with my mother. I like shooting pop cans down in the backyard and working in the shop with my dad. I like sharing tea at the table. I like the big Italian meal. I like the candles burning each night. I like the hidden stashes of chocolate. I like the cold nip in the air even when we don't get snow, because our noses get red anyway. I like the old books, everywhere, piled in piles that I may never find possible of accumulating for many more years to come. I like the china cabinet, just the fact that there is a china cabinet. I like my hens. I like the stain all over my hands because that is the one place I break the rules, I stain without gloves. I like our trees. I like the mountains.
I like it here.
I didn't used to, but now I do. This place grew into me, the marrow of my bones. And maybe it's just the people here and my family here and everyone here or maybe this is just a season that will be over in a year or so, but I'll admit it. I like the familiar. I like my hometown. I like my home. Call me a fool for the years I wasted griping when I could have been loving, but the solid truth of the matter is, hearts are fickle and mine is utterly so.
This place is where I've made my best discoveries.
And while it's true that I'm off having adventures elsewhere now, it is also true that I always want to come home for the holidays.

I am just a small person. I always will be.

5

Thrushfield Heartman was a prince who had one job that was significantly more important than all his other princely duties. He was supposed to find a wife. You might think that would be easy for a strong, handsome prince to do, especially when he can build tables, is an expert marksman with the bow, and raises small rabbits in his chest of drawers, but Thrushfield had two problems.
One, he was already in love.
Two, she did not love him back.

Eudoria Sailor was a princess who had something like ten thousand jobs and none more important than the others. She looked lovely in blue, lived in her own floor of a palace—with seventy different bedrooms, was a whiz at tennis, and had known Thrushfield since they were three.
Thrushfield was a poor tennis player.

They had always been friends though. And that was something that was never supposed to change.

At the ripe age of eight, as they sat—or rather, hid—underneath the lilac bushes, they crossed their hearts and shook hands over a foolish promise. Eudoria's oldest brother had recently taken up the crown and entered into an extremely loveless and extremely important political marriage, and his small little sister and her comrade from the neighboring kingdom had been the witness to many an argument between the husband and wife in the garden.
"Let's promise never to marry each other and only be best friends forever," Eudoria whispered to Thrushfield as pale purple buds littered her hair when her brother slapped the branches under which they were sheltered from sight while he yelled at his wife about the current border lines.
To be fair, Thrushfield didn't really have a chance to think about the proposition before agreeing. And he was quite biased about all of it anyway. They were, after all, only playmates at the time, smuggling plum cakes out into the garden to gorge themselves on as they listened to the newest rulers of Eudoria's kingdom come at each other's throats over shipping lanes and prestigious commanding officers. And when you're an eight year old prince, it's not exactly easy to imagine the girl sitting beside you with the mousy brown hair and the constellations of freckles across her face and shoulders becoming the beautiful creature that she would in five years time.
So he agreed.
As the young queen's voice reached a pitch Thrushfield wasn't even quite sure was human, he and Eudoria crossed their hearts with their pinkies and then shook hands in childish desperation as they made a pact to never belong to one another in that way.
It was then, stifling laughter as more lilac buds rained down upon them and plum juice was sticky sweet on their chins and noses, it was then that they swore.
It was then that they swore they would never marry each other.

Eudoria never forgot that moment. It was her favorite, and she lived like that pact was a code of honor, and oath, never to be broken, even under pain of death.

For Thrushfield, it was his pain of death, daily.

4

They both almost hadn't come that day.

She caught his gaze over the rows and piles of white tulips that spilled off of the tables and onto the floors. He smiled, big and real, no hesitation. She felt the edges of her lips flash upward for a brief moment, and then the heat of the blush rushing to her cheeks made her turn away.
Perhaps it was his eyes. The yes that was in them. She saw it in the fleeting moment they had connected. It was abrupt and raw and unmooring. She had even heard it in the blueness of them. Yes, they said. Yes, and yes, and yes. Again, and again, and again.
Those eyes. Gracious, those eyes were now etched into her bones. Those bluest blue eyes.
Her cheeks grew even rosier, deeper.

She wanted to crawl underneath the olive wood tables and die.

You brave fool, he thought when she caught him and turned away. He hadn't meant for her to have seen him. But she had. And his smile, he needed to remember to keep his smile in check. He knew it could very well take up half of his face if he let it.
The way her hair was knotted all loose and spilling around her chin though. It made it almost painful not to watch her. And the slightest gold that shone in it when she turned her back to the huge window, that was something else. Now he really couldn't tear himself away. She was whispering a thousand things to him. Be gold. Stay gold. Live gold. You are gold. I am gold. Kindness is gold. Life is gold. This day is absolutely gold. Gold, and gold, and golden. 
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his white apron and pressed against his thighs. How could a woman do this so easily to him?

He was the furthest thing from golden.

In an echoing studio full of natural sunlight and buckets of flowers and dozens of students waiting with impatient expectation to learn the art of floristry, those two acknowledged the presence of their kindred souls with red cheeks and nervous hands.
They fell in love underneath the dark-stained high beam ceilings in four point eight seconds precisely.

And in a certain act of desperation, he reached his hand across the olive wood table and offered it to her.

I'm Philip, he said.

She took his hand in her own.

Emma, she said.

And so, it was perfect.

3

In the tiniest tiny village, there were only two. Because one is not a village, but I suppose two is. 

There was Iris and the snake-killer. I am sure that at one time the snake-killer had a name, but I've since forgotten what it was. 

If you count the masked man, there were three in the village. But he came and went so frequently that it would be slightly unfair to include him in the population count. He was a scout, mostly for the snakes, but not really a member of the village. He didn't have a house there after all. 

It all began on a grey day. 

2

"There was once a museum full of natural and wonderful and beautiful things. Things of science and things of art and things discovered and places for things not yet discovered.
Children often visited it.
One of those children was called Trill.
You could always tell when Trill was there because he was the only person in the city who wore red wool socks and hiking boots. Even in the summer.
He was determined to be an explorer someday.
Currently he was only a discoverer of smallish things, but he was very good at it. And he loved it.

It is very important to do things that you are good at, but it is more important to do things that you love. If you find something that is both, you should probably spend all of your minutes doing it. Forever. Or until you don't love it anymore."

1

"But isn't it obvious," she said, waving her long, slim arms and spilling milky coffee on her studded black flats that spoke of long walks in the mornings and perhaps too much of said coffee. "I'm getting married in New Zealand!" 

Noah smirked, one eye getting just a little tighter than the other, wrinkling on the outside edge. But still, but still he was handsome. "Well, it might have been more apparent to me Nora if you actually had a groom." He grabbed her hand to stop it from fluttering about. She was going to spill coffee on his pants now. Why did he even suggest coffee? Nora needed something with substance, something sure. Like bagels. That was it. From now on when he took her out, they would go for bagels. "Most women don't plan weddings until they have a ring on their finger." 

She looked maybe just a small bit hurt by his words. Or maybe he was a holding her wrist a little too tightly. "You must not know many women then Noah." She had such sass sometimes. 

He let her go and ran his thick fingers over his creased brow and through his feathery blonde hair. She looked away. Nora hated it when he touched his face. He had such a firm jaw that sometimes it was hard to stop staring at it. And it was even harder when he did that thing he did when he was nervous. That touching his face with his strong hands and looking all perfect thing. Nora despised that thing. "I was only telling you my dream," she said to the dark stained oak table. 

Noah sighed. He was so heartless sometimes. "I know." When she reached down to wipe up her tiny spills of coffee on the floor, his breath caught in his throat. Her neck was white and smooth, and her long honey colored hair fell in waves around her shoulders, exposing just the smallest curve of skin. She was gorgeous. "I love your dreams." It barely came out of his mouth, before he could stop it. Noah didn't really like being romantic. Being romantic and as attractive as he was could be a little bit stifling at times. He would prefer not to drown people with goodness. He almost slapped his forehead after he said it. 

Nora blushed. 

He would marry her. Even if she wanted it in New Zealand. He would marry the life out of her. He would marry her so hard she wouldn't know what hit her. He would marry her, but he would do it right. After all, they were only just beginning. 

But goodness, the way she liked whole milk in her coffee. Something about that. 

Count your blessings.

I attempted to find a jar to make sun tea in today. I was still empty-handed by the time the sun set. I suppose I'll be scouring the thrift shops and antique stores now, because no one has what I want. A giant jar. That's it. That's all I need. I mean, I have my tea and everything, just no jar.

Today was slow and hot and my hair stuck to the sweat on the back of my neck while I made caramel over the stovetop. I began a list too, a list that I have been meaning to start for quite some time. About how to do better. How to be better. But even more simply and importantly,
how to be well.
So look forward to that. Because I was inspired down to my bones by Esther the other night and the constant ease of this June. Good things have come of her, and I'm not just talking about my sweet little peach of a niece.

I'm looking for the small things lately. The small, wonderful things.
This day was one of them.

Smallish.

Quite frankly I don't know how to put this. Summer is here, and summer is not here. I've never felt this way about May before. It's difficult to express the learning made manifest in me, the dreams budding, the experiences had, and the sweetness of waiting for what's to come. Most of it happened in May though. May was never a favorite of mine before now. Lavender colored swollen clouds, warm nights, much laughter, and long travels have all changed that for me.
Now I like May.
Maybe I even love her.