p.b.s.

this is why i love pearls before swine (click to make larger).

summer snapshots

it's so hot in our apartment that yesterday we left the butter out of the refrigerator for about 2 hours after breakfast and it melted. and our thermostat is most definitely maxed out at 88. but i'm pretty sure it is hotter than 88 in here.

though i was thinking about it the other morning as i was getting ready to complain about the heat and i realized that luke and i may never live in a house with ac again...or at least it may be a very, very long time before we do. so i reckon it's time to stop complaining and start getting used to it.

anthony was in town this week and whitney came over and we spent the evening cooking dinner together, laughing, playing scattergories, eating ice cream cones, talking about old memories and making new ones. i love having old friends in town! there's something so comfortable about old friends.

side-note: mint in a salad is amazing. try it. you'll love it.

we've been spending a lot of time with this one, and it has been glorious.

i honestly cannot say enough about how much i love this woman. we went to a baseball game together last t-shirt tuesday. here are some snapshots:


it rained. hard. and so we snuck here under the stairs, after the lightning called the game and forced everyone down onto the concourse. the storm was quick, but fierce. afterwords there was a lot of lightning behind the scoreboard and some beautiful clouds above the field.

we've also been gardening in our community garden, which i find incredibly delightful. i like how a guy just walked by today and handed luke some celery. and how in my garden i have swiss chard from one plot and tomato plants from another. how i know my garden neighbor will be getting married in two weeks in the mountains, how we met a neighbor in our apartment complex because her plot is diagonal from ours, and how mr. williams and i share our gardening woes when things don't grow exactly as they should (though, he humors me, his garden looks amazing...).
(the last picture is of luke spraying a bird, i kind of liked the picture...)

i guess community is the word of the day, because i realized today how much i love the unique community at our church. i walked downstairs to hear a woman speaking spanish with a new family from columbia, and a man speaking chinese to a visitor from china. i love the way that pretty much any person who is asian who visits our church will probably be able to speak their native language with someone during our community lunch after church. how pretty much any visitor from around the world would be able to find someone who has been to their home country--and it's not because it's a big church (we only have 100 members...) it's because we are lucky enough to go to a church that cares about the world and therefore attracts people who are from all around the world or who served all around the world. it's an international body of christ, right here in washington, dc.

it's vbs this week at washington international, by the way. i'm teaching 4 and 5 year olds. it should be a blast.

being real.

so i've been thinking a lot lately about blogs and facebook and life in general and how we portray ourselves. really, how i portray myself. how i don't want pictures tagged of me if i look gross, how i blog about gardening and cooking and how i like eating fresh strawberries on hot summer days. how if people ask me what i do (a question which i hate, now that i'm unemployed) i tell them that i garden, i try to run, and i babysit.

we were talking about what honesty might look like for the church in small group recently (it actually came up a couple of times while reading the great divorce by c.s. lewis). how when someone asks me what i do, i should really say how i often get frustrated with life, angry with others and how sometimes i yell at my husband, despite how much i love him. because, honestly, these things are much more likely to happen than me eating strawberries on a hot summer day (unfortunately).

so here is my attempt at being real. and it's pretty embarrassing.

this morning i was having my quiet time and i read luke 6:20-26. you know, the part where Jesus is like "blessed are the poor and the hungry, and woe to the rich and to the satisfied". i mean, those are some really convicting words. or at least they should be. but for me, this morning, for whatever reason, they weren't. rather i read them and was like "piece of cake, i got this down...man, i feel sorry for all these rich american christians who AREN'T going to live in a slum..." can we say incredibly smug and self-righteous? go ahead, say it. because it's true.

well, Jesus saw me coming from a mile (and some 2000 years) away because i continued to read through the chapter and not even 15 verses later, in luke 6:37-42 Jesus says the famous, "why look at the speck of sawdust in your brothers eye when you have a ridiculously large plank in your own eye" (italics, mine). and at this point i felt incredibly convicted that we are rich, too. we are satisfied. i have never been hungry, except by choice. and all of these things.

i've been having a hard time staying awake for my quiet times lately, so i decided to go running to think this through. as i was dying in the heat and trying to beat my running time from yesterday (i don't know why i do that to myself...) i realized that i have thought/felt/been every emotion about my calling to the urban poor than what i should be. grateful. i've felt frustrated, angry, jealous, self-righteous, unworthy, unable, you name it. but i have barely, if ever, sat down and actually thanked God that He has called me to live among the urban poor abroad. and that's what i should be doing all along. this is not a choice i have made, this is something i am called to, a blessing i have been given. i am so lucky, because i get to spend at least the next three years among the urban poor of asia, living with them, learning from them and serving amongst them. i am so privileged! and not because i earned it, or because i'm able, or because God wants to deny me the comforts of living the "american dream" but rather because He called me and He is allowing me the great privilege of being used by Him.

so that's what i need to strive for. being grateful and being honest. i'm not quite sure what this will look like...

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on another note, i may be a horrible person, but this makes me laugh.

additionally, at small group, discussing how to best care for yourself and the difference between being self-caring and selfish, this comment was made:

N: i wonder what people like mother theresa and martin luther king, jr. did to relax and be self-loving. i mean, they weren't always doing great things...
M: shane claiborne is in town this week, you should ask him what mother theresa did, since he met her.
N: i bet she was like "shane, you, me, 5 hour law and order marathon."

and, one last, unrelated, thought: has general mcchrystal ever seen almost famous? because maybe he should have before speaking with rolling stone. he might have avoided this whole mess.

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now, if you excuse me, i must go remove this plank.

cookbooks.

yesterday i spent the day helping a friend clean out her house before moving to france at the end of july. this woman is probably one of the most delightful people i've ever met, and also one of the best cooks ever (after my grandmother). she has about a bajillion cookbooks, which she is thinning out before she moves, and she offered me a couple. and by a couple i mean 10. including this wonderful beauty:


yes, my dear friends, that is over 500 pages of cookie recipes. and i plan on making all of them. maybe not all, but a lot.

she also gave me this (which i plan on making one recipe a week from in preparation for our possible future.):
now, i am aware that just owning cookbooks does not make you a delicious cook, just as owning a Bible does not make you a christian. however, i am hoping that having these cookbooks at my side will help me become a world-renouwn cook such as bertie koons or annie lienert or julia child. anyone want to come over for dinner?

(parentheses)

today was a beautiful day. it was windy and sunny and warm. it was a day where the air flowed so freely through our open windows that it didn't even matter that we don't have air conditioning.
i spent the beautiful day in the garden where the sky was blue and the dirt was brown and the plants were green. all of the plants. including the blanket of weeds that covered the garden. how is it that weeds are having no problem springing up everywhere, and yet my green beans are refusing to sprout? on a happy note, though, i do love the smell of hay. even if it doesn't help with the weeds as much as i thought it would (read: it doesn't help at all).


time in the garden is usually spent thinking. today i spent it both thinking and listening to npr. i've been restless lately. as if given the chance i could sprout wings and fly somewhere and be perfectly ready to adjust and live my life. HA. i keep saying that i can't wait to go abroad, to live in a slum where i will be forced to be dependent on God every day for everything. but today i was thinking about how God is really forcing me (emotionally) to depend on Him NOW. i need to remember that i am in desperate need of God always. and that i'm in dc right now because He still has things for me here (like learning to depend on Him, maybe?) and lots of other things too.

like whitney! whitney is here for the summer! and other friends and sister friends are visiting!

and i do love downtown dc in the night, the monuments are incredibly beautiful at night (we need to go downtown at night more).


and i have so many opportunities to serve and love the community around me here and now! and i have a billion more beautiful sunsets to witness from our bedroom window!


God is slowly teaching me to embrace this time of waiting (why is He always trying to teach me patience and why will my stubborn self never learn it?). this time of transition...i'll keep you updated. (i guess i didn't have much to say, i just realized it was halfway through june already...when did that happen?)


(this is just a picture of my weirdo husband. i don't know why, but i am still in love with him.)

i've used a lot of parentheses in this post.

barefoot in the rain.

today, as i left a vbs meeting after church and walked to the bus, i got caught in a downpour. at first, i was hoping it would let up. but as i continued to walk towards the bus, and as my shoes got increasingly harder to walk in, i slipped them off and walked barefoot. as i did that i thought about how, as a child, one of my favorite summer activities was changing into a bathing suit and running around barefoot in the rain. as i thought about those memories i gradually stopped fighting the rain, lifted my head and felt the cool drops on my cheeks and the puddles on my feet. walking through the streets calmly and happily while the world around me ran for cover. i still like playing in the rain...

in an effort to be real with my readers (and since i'm pretty sure all of you are family and friends) i will tell you this: i have been having a very hard time with self-worth lately. in an effort to preserve boundaries (and force me to seek out real relationship rather than simply confessing to my blog), i will spare you the messy details, but i will say that this is something that i've struggled with off and on since childhood, and it is something that i am not quite sure where it came from (i.e. my parents never made me feel worthless). i recently met with kristen (who was visiting dc) and she encouraged me to begin to ask God what He thinks of me instead of only listening to what i think of me.

i was thinking about this on the way home on the bus today, after walking through the rain. and the desire came upon me to be fully known by God, which is a desire that i have rarely felt, probably because i generally do not want God to know the bad parts of me (as if i can hide them...). and as i thought about this i thought about 1 corinthians 13, specifically verses 8-12, which read:

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

i have always loved these verses, but i never quite know what they mean. they always seem kind of random, like paul maybe got sidetracked and forgot what he was talking about. but today, i read them differently. especially the part that reads "now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. now i know in part; then i shall know fully, even as i am fully known."

today, i read this in the context of the rest of the chapter. in the context of love. i think that perhaps paul is saying that now we see but a poor reflection of love, as in a mirror. i believe that our total ability for love comes from God, because God is love, and because love is good and all good things come from God. but because we are humans, this view is skewed. we poorly reflect God's love, because God's love is perfect, and our love is not. but one day we will see face-to-face what real love looks like. now, we only know in part who we are. but then we shall know fully, as we see God and we see ourselves reflect His glory. the good and the bad will be revealed. i long to know fully...and to be fully known.

i'm still a little bit confused as to the child part. i have some ideas, but today all i could think of was how it's a shame that as i've grown into an adult i've held onto the tendency towards feeling worthless rather than the desire to go play barefoot in the rain...

growing.

i was catching up on perspectives homework the other day and i read this story about hudson taylor, who is one of the "fathers of modern missions". i wanted to share part of it with you.

hudson, soon after being converted was praying that God would use him for His purposes. hudson told God he was willing to do anything, or as he wrote:

...well i do remember, as in unreserved consecration i put myself, my life, my friends, my all, upon the altar, the deep solemnity that came over my soul with the assurance that my offering was accepted. the presence of God became unutterably real and blessed; and though but a child under 16, i remember stretching myself on the ground, and lying there silent before Him with the unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy. for what service i was accepted i knew not; but a deep consciousness that i was no longer my own took possession of me, which has never since been effaced...

well, God wanted hudson to go to china. at that time there was little known about inland china, little written, and very few people had gone there. it was also quite dangrous and it was possible that in accepting this calling, hudson was moving towards his death. never the less, hudson accepted this mission from God, and began looking for information on china. he learned that a local minister had a book about china, and so hudson taylor went to that pastor and asked him if he could borrow the book. this is how taylor recounts that meeting with this pastor:

...i called upon [the pastor] to ask a loan of the book [about china]. this he kindly granted, asking me why i wished to read it. i told him that God had called me to spend my life in missionary service in that land. "and how do you propose to go there?" he inquired. i answered that i did not know; that it seemed to me probably that i should need to do as the twelve and the seventy had done in judea--go without purse or scrip, relying on Him who had called me to supply all my need. kindly placing his hand upon my shoulder, the minister replied, "ah, my boy, as you grow older you will get wiser than that. such an idea would do very well in the days when Christ Himself was on earth, but not now..."

hudson, in this particular essay, then goes on to say this:

"...i have grown older since then, but not wiser. i am more than ever convinced that if we were to take the direction of our Master and the assurances He gave to His first disciples more fully as our guide, we should find them to be just as suited to our times as to those in which they were originally given..."

hudson then went on to found China Inland Mission, which is still operating as Overseas Missionary Fellowship . It was started in 1865 and is still operational today. and a pastor told him that he would grow wiser...

i think my prayer for me, and for all of us as christians, is that we would grow older but not wiser. that we would be willing to radically follow Christ in ways that seem crazy to the world, but normal if we look at them in the context of Christ. may we live in such a way that the world would ask us why, and we would then be able to point them to Christ, and they would understand because they have seen Him in us.

good.

i only blogged once in may. fail.

we just came back down from the mountains. then we came up to dc. now we're home, and it's hot. really hot. and it's the first day in june. this is going to be a long summer. luke and i were talking about the hot and i said:

"well, at least it's still at the point where i still get a little chilly at night and have to use a sheet. one day it will always be hot..."

"like when we're abroad..." luke answered.

"oh, yeah...that too. i was talking about like august..."

i forget sometimes when i'm complaining about the heat that we're going to be moving to a place where the yearly average temperatures are in the 80s...

anyways, point being we just came home. home, where it's hot and noisy and i spend most of my days gardening and talking to old Mr. Williams who gives me cold water and gardening advise and reminds me of my Pappap. i like our community garden, and the way it's green and brown and smells of hay and mulch and compost. most days, i feel like i belong here and i'm quite happy.

i wanted to share some pictures with you from our trip. mainly because the mountains make me feel closer to God, and i want to show you pictures because it reminds me of feeling closer to God. when i'm away, at the mountains or at the ocean, i have no problem waking up early to stare at the mountains and think about how awesome God is. so i spent my time this week on rocking chairs with God, hiking through the mountains with family, running/walking/exploring with sisters and watching way too many bones episodes. we played games, made s'mores, ate food, walked around, petted our dog and watched sunsets and sunrises. it was a pretty good week.

we started out the week at Christie's graduation. it was a pretty time, and they had stickers for the whole family to wear!


then we headed up to the mountains. where they had bluegrass music (that little girl totally rocked out the entire time...)

and steel drum bands from the local high school playing in the community square (kind of random, but they were awesome).

this was definitely the view from our porch (see how it's easy to worship God while looking at that?)
and this is Christie playing the uke on a rocking chair while looking at the view from our house (i seriously have the most talented sisters. ever. they played and sang on that porch like nothing else...)
then we drove/hiked to see all of boone. and it was pretty.

and the next day we went adventuring (down some pretty steep paths...) to look for waterfalls.

(don't we look like adventurers?)

and we found a lot of them (but the pictures do not do them justice).

(did i mention that the view from our porch looked like THIS?!).

we watched the sun set...




and the sun rise*...


and we went on more hikes to the very tops of mountains.





then we got all gussied up for a nice dinner.


and we watched the moon rise. (seriously, the moon was HUGE.)


and then we watched the sun rise again.

(that cloud above the sun is definitely about to catch on fire...)

and after all of that perfectness i got to go watch Abby get married.

yes, it was a good week.


*my mom and i got up wicked early to go find the perfect spot to watch the sunrise on the blue ridge parkway. we found some gorgeous photo spots, but when we got back to the house my mom realized that you could see it perfectly fine from our sun room. the second set of sunrise pictures was taken from the house. but i'm still glad i got to chase the sunrise with my mom.