spring break // 2018

People always say this, but I'm going to say it again because no matter how many times you say something it doesn't make it any less true: 

the Lord's plans are not our plans. His timing is not our timing, and His ways are definitely not our ways. They're higher and they will prevail every.single.freaking.time. And sometimes, in our human perception, they suck.

I've heard this all my life, and I still need to remind myself of it before I get too confident on my own high horse and think I've got control of my every move. The truth is I have zero control, and I'm pretty sure the Lord knows that the best way to drill this reality into my head is to let me experience it up-close and personal.

Nearing the middle of this semester at college, I was feeling done. (Done in this instance means any one of frustrated, exhausted, incapable, or starting to hate all my teachers, not literally finished, because unfortunately this is only my first year.) I was holding out until Easter break, when I could forget it all for a little while, and the sun would come out, and we could wear short sleeves and go places and watch movies and make cookies like I didn't have time to. Mike and I had such wonderful plans for break and all the things we could do. My sister Sadie had been sick for a week, but I was still feeling great, and in my proud head, there was no way I was getting sick.

(You see where this is going, don't you?)

I got sick. My mom got sick. Sadie stayed sick (with me, which was really nice of her.) My dad got sick. Molly came home from school, made it through Easter, went back to school and got sick. (Shocker.) So I spent my whole first week of break in bed, I had no voice to sing Easter morning, and had a nasty cough following me for the rest of my second week. Not what I had planned. At all.

Part of me was like, what the heck? Here it is Easter weekend and my whole family feels like literal crap, when we need to be celebrating the Savior! Part of me was a little mad. But I know how I am, and I know how He speaks to me. I kept thinking, Yes, Lord, I get it. I'm not happy about this but I get it.

It's humbling. That you can still worship the Lord when you do feel like literal crap -- and you should. That you can settle for less than your best, because it's not about your strengths and whatever you're capable of. Cause here's the thing, my friends, and you already know this: we are really, really weak. In fact we're useless, without the Savior in us. When we forget He's there, and edge Him out on what should be His control in us...well, He's in control in the end, and He's going to get that across. It might come on like a cool spring breeze, but more than likely it's going to come on more like a sore throat and a headache.

I didn't get to travel far and wide while I was on break, but I did learn a few things. I'm blown-away grateful for a guy who will come to my house and spoon-feed me when I look like crap just because he wants to, and for a family who can still make me laugh when we're all in the same rocking boat. 

Sara Groves, in her song called This Cup, sings about our "chasm of need" as humans. I love this phrase so much. Do you know what a chasm is? It's defined as a "deep fissure in the earth, rock, or other surface" or  "a profound difference between people, viewpoints, feelings, ect." I'm going to combine those two and call it a "profound fissure between what we need and what we can provide for ourselves." That's where our Savior comes in. That's why He was sent, worked, died, and came back -- because we have such a huuuuuuuge chasm of need that we can never, ever fill or compensate for. But that chasm is erased, and so I can stand in Christ, and run and dance and sing (even when my throat is swollen and I have no voice!) and be lacking in nothing because my spirit is full, and my need is no more.

See? I'm blown away.

Easter never disappoints. This whole past week I've been thinking about it, and slowly getting back my health, and I have gotten to do some of the things I wanted to over break. Nothing has been a mistake, about my silly little disappointments, down to the serious details of my life. I may not have wanted it that way, but I don't know. His ways are not my ways; His ways are far, far above and better.

***************

Fire and bowling and Friday the 13th

   
     One thing I love about fall is it smells so good.

     By 'it' I mean everything. The air, the soil, the pavement, the trees. Kinda woodsy and smoky...or maybe that's just because I had a fire tonight. I drove the gator down to the barn, in the path of one headlight, loaded the back full of cardboard boxes and miscellaneous pieces of the bunny hutch I tore apart when I was feeling extra angsty, and burned all of it out in the yard underneath the stars, filling the whole neighborhood with smoke right down to the stop sign at the end of the road. (It's good for the environment.)

    I always feel really good when it's all burned down, nothing left but a tiny orange crackle in a pile of coals and ashes. Burning for me has always been a form of therapy, a time to think through life's conundrums, ponder my own failings and abilities, and a chance to smear ashes on my face and feel like Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall.

    Ever just have an off-day? Or an off-couple-of-days?

    It's not necessarily that anything is going wrong; you're just off. Off your game, not killing it like you'd like to be. You drop stuff and forget what you walked into a room for. It started Wednesday, when I forgot Sally's cider and took the wrong exit off the highway. I went to bed thinking, oh well, crap happens but good thing tomorrow won't be a day like this one...then Thursday's not half over when, what do you know, I'm this-close to turning right onto a one-way in town and putting myself, my sister, and my truck in traction. (I forget what else I did that day, but it wasn't good) - then it's Friday, and I neglect to ask about the Honeycrisp apples when I go to pick up a load of produce, which is an elementary mistake that nobody of my caliber should make - or am I really that awesome? Do I have any skills at all? Should anyone trust me? Am I good for anything?!? (And did I really just turn right on red without stopping?)

     ...and on and on.

     Hence the angst, and the tearing apart of the bunny hutch. Sometimes life is just a lot of faded boards and bent nails.

     Needless to say I wasn't feeling too hot about myself. I moaned to my sister a lot, because she knows that's what she's there for. I couldn't figure out why I felt so lousy, except I tend to get like that every once in a while for no obvious reason and it usually goes away. I remembered last year, almost this exact time actually, when I bought my truck and had such an awful hard time learning how to drive it and thought for sure I was the most pathetic person who ever lived. I got over that, so I'd be okay, but I didn't know how many more Jonah days I could take before I did something with actual lasting negative effects. So Sadie and I went to Tractor Supply and that helped, smelling the cedar chips and hearing the country music and making the cute cashier laugh with our sisterly antics.

     I was feeling much better on the drive home, and didn't even think about hitting a deer, and things were looking brighter. Then the real blessing came when we arrived home: while we were gone our mother had taken a phone call, and we had been invited to go bowling. They'd meet us there in a little while. I cried, and Sadie and I, suddenly not hungry for any kind of supper, got in the truck and drove off again into the night.

    See, I really love bowling. It's a long story that started last January in an old-school bowling alley in a little town without a stoplight. I'm freaking terrible at it and I never seem to get any better, but I love bowling. I love my friends more though. And so, bowling with my best people Friday night, there was so much love going on that I stopped being miserable and let go of all the funkiness of the past three days. Even though it was Friday the 13th, for freaking fudge sakes - or maybe because of that - nothing was getting at me.

     I won't tell you my score that night because it was terrible. That's not the point. The point is, if you're having a bad day that turns into two that turns into three, there's a fix. You don't even have to work for it, because the people who love you will see it gets done.

     If you're in the middle of one of those funks right now, you took the wrong exit, or you tried to pay for your groceries with your library card, chin up. It's a beautiful time to be alive. The sky will clear and the sun will come out and shine down on all those gorgeous red and orange trees, and you'll catch a whiff of that smoky-autumn smell and it'll get right down into your soul and you won't be able to help yourself from embracing the hope that's gonna creep in there with it. My advice? Tear out some nails, if you can find them. Go buy yourself something from Tractor Supply, call up your favorite people and see if they want to go bowling. You can deal with whatever junk you've got tomorrow, it'll still be there. Have a bonfire; put on some Eric Church. Thank God for all the things going right, and you'll see just how much room there is between your problems for goodness to fill itself in.

     "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."   // Philippians 4:6-7

     "But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls."     //Hebrews 10:39


    ~Emma