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.

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

the fever

    Today the sun was shining until 7 O'CLOCK PM and when I took the dogs out walking I wasn't sinking my feet into two feet of snow with every step, and the birds were talking to me, and my fingers didn't feel numb and close to falling off and I didn't get an ice cream headache with every inhale. 

    I feel like taking the whole house apart, cleaning everything down with lemon juice and baking soda, painting furniture and doors and airing my quilt outside on the line.

    I put on CELTIC WOMAN and started singing songs I haven't thought of the words to in five years.

   And I realized that no matter how busy I am, no matter what is most important to me or whatever becomes imminently important in that moment, there is one thing that will always hound me and chase me and pester me to no end if I don't do it. And that's writing.

     It's still 30 degrees outside and there's probably going to be ice on my windshield tomorrow morning, but this is the first day that I've felt Spring.

(I think Henley feels it too.)

    

     I never used to understand why people loved Friday so much and thought Friday was just the greatest and named restaurants because of this and thank goodness, it's Friday!!! Because I worked on weekends, and I didn't have that much of a workload with part-time college that it didn't make one bit of difference what day of the week it was, everything was chill. 

    Such is not the case anymore, and everything is not chill. Everything is very demanding, and exciting, but sometimes I go too fast and lose track of my priorities, my time with the Lord, and what I need to give the people I love. I am very pleased with every Wednesday that passes by; when Friday gets here, it really is time to celebrate. Especially since there is a man who is six-four and comes to pick me up in his big black truck.

   **********

     There are lots of things that make me happy. Mint ice cream makes me happy. A tank full of gas makes me happy. My guy makes me extremely happy. But when something is a gift given directly from my Father in Heaven, there's nothing better in the world, and that's what Spring is. Every single year, when the sun comes out again after six months of gray and you feel the start of warmth on your back dripping down to your shoes and seeping into your spine, that's not something a finite human being can produce. The goodness and lovingkindness of our Father is something that never ceases, and when you accept it, He never, ever leaves you wanting.

    I'm so happy right now I think I'll scream. : )

   

**********

   How was your week? I'm so happy to be back here writing! Hopefully I'll be back around more often in the next few weeks.

<3 Emma

a "flaming testament" // 2017

(that's from a song by Mark Knopfler, just so you know the truth, I'm not that creative)

A year is over! As usual I feel myself a little stunned, but not very stunned, because I don't have time to be that stunned. I feel about a hundred years older after this one.

2017, let's see what happened....

// January //

• I try to write songs, but that never really takes off. :-P

• I apply for jobs, and start working Saturdays at a little store in my neighborhood.

• Sadie, Henry and I go bowling one night, and I discover how much I love something I used to dislike.

• I watch Texas Rising. And... yeah.

• I find Wind River Ranch, fill out a big fat application, send the dang thing, and wait for awhile without breathing.

• I take the placement test for college and start my first class there, which I didn't think I would like, but as per usual, I was wrong.

• Sadie turns 16 and we go sledding, then Molly turns 21 and we go bowling. 

"I didn't know Emma was going to be this girl."

 - Mama

// February //

• I turn 18 on the 2nd, and Sadie convinces me to have a party. We finally make the red velvet armadillo cake I'd been wanting ever since I saw Steel Magnolias for the first time four years ago.

looks like an armadillo, right? Don't say a rat.

• I start another job, working as a waitress. Scared the heck out of me but I was determined to try....

• I have a phone interview with one of the directors from Wind River, and I-kid-you-not I started to cry when he prayed for me at the beginning. Over the phone.

• I spend too much time disliking school and disliking my job....

• My mom and sisters and I watch Downton Abbey on Valentine's Day.

• I wake up to the value of a dollar when I spend way too many of them on a t-shirt with a logo on it, then think about it all the way home. I vow to be a better steward with my money. (Funny part is, I don't even wear the shirt anymore.)

• The Squad - consisting of Henry, Sadie, and Emma - go to an indoor rodeo with some of our super-duper cool friends. Emma doesn't get asked out like she always hopes for (used to) when she goes to rodeos, but we have a good time. ;-)

• Sadie and I start going to a friend's youth group. Why did I have to wait till I was almost too old to find the best youth group ever?

• Henry turns 17 and we redneck out as usual.

"Consider yourself on the team."

(I got the job at the ranch!!!!!)

// March // 

• I find out that Les Mis is my history teacher's favorite musical and start to like him a lot more.

• I really don't like my job, but I stick with it...

• We go bowling with Henry's youth group, play bloody wrists and Indian wrestle with kids younger than me.

• I drive through a lotta farmland and vineyards (I really do love NY) and dream about the future.

• My mom, my sisters and I take a mini-vacation to PA, stop at my aunt's where Sadie and I see a Gold City concert at their church. Then we go to a Florida-Georgia Line at Stage College. I've never seen so many people in one place in my LIFE. 

• I kinda wish I was Mennonite. For awhile. (Blame Pennsylvania.)

• I watch The Alamo (2004) again which reinforces my faith in mankind and, well, men.

"I know how you like to write and write and write."

- my history teacher

// April //

• I buy an iPhone and joined the modern age!

• I discover Ryan Bingham, which is noteworthy.

• I sell the cap that I bought with my truck! Yay money!

• I buy (I buy a lot of things don't I???) another pair of cowboy boots from the coolest Amish guy ever. Colorado here I come!

• Easter comes and we eat a lot of mini cheesecakes. 

•  A guy leaves his number on my truck door and I tear it up and throw it out.

• I start a job driving my neighbor to therapy appointments - might not sound like it but SO much fun.

• Sadie and Henry and I win a talent show with our little band!

• We go to a Cowboy's Spring Ball and two-step the night away in cowboy boots.

"Emma's cool - she's bold."
- my cousin Henry

// May //

• We have our own annual spring ball with the dance group, and it's SO nice because I'm not crushing on anybody this year.

• I plant stuff and watch it grow! Yee yee!

• Henry, Peter, Sadie and I go on a wild goose chase to find a dance we'd heard about...finally we find it, are not impressed, leave, and laugh all the way home, harder than I had in a long time.

• I quit my job...and then quit my other job.

• Henry takes us to a horseshoeing clinic with a bunch of Amish guys. Completely lit. (But kinda weird.)

• I have a plane ticket to Denver, Colorado!

• I also have a plane ticket to San Antonio, Texas - my uncle and I go down there to visit my cousin for a week. 

I never fell in love with a land like I did with Texas.

// June //

• I catch a fish for the first time in my life!

• I graduate from high school...sort of. I kind of missed that. But at any rate I finish!

• I get recognized at church for graduating and get a brand new beautiful Bible and almost die from all the love.

• As usual, change is the only constant.

• A bunch of people come over to our barn to celebrate Molly's graduation from college and mine from high school. Again, I almost die from the love. 

• My Grandpa writes some Bible verses in my graduation card, I look them up and some of them don't exist... ;-P

• We open the stand for the season and start picking strawberries every morning, and I'm in my glory.

• My cousins and I go to the Stateline Speedway for the first time and I fall in love with the smells of rubber and dust clouds.

• Sadie starts to drive more.

• I start to get sick of picking strawberries...

"Hey - congratulations."

- New Guy

// July //

• I get to sing the National Anthem at a 4th of July festival at my aunt and uncle's church. They say 5000 people were there. 

• My truck breaks down in the middle of nowhere on the way home that very same night...

• I find out that the guy I met at the fire hall, the one who showed up uninvited to my graduation party, is actually the same age as I am and not 20-something like I thought.

• I start to like the guy I met at the fire hall, the one who showed up uninvited to my graduation party.

• I read Roy Feek's book, This Life I Live. People should read that book.

• I have blood drawn for the first time and feel like I'm gonna die (but I survive)

• Sadie, Henry, and I go to see Chris Stapleton and I almost fall asleep driving home.

• I take off for Denver...and that was an ordeal. 

• Emma Jane Anderson arrives in Colorado!

// August //

• I work as wait staff, housekeeping, and even in childcare (AHHHH!) at Wind River Ranch.

• A few girls and I go to Redrocks Church in Arvada one night, and for the first time I feel glad I came to CO.

• I miss home something terrible and try to console myself listening to Brantley Gilbert at night.

• I learn a lot about service to others, faithfulness when I'm far away from people I love, and being my own person in a strange place.

• Glen Campbell dies :-(

• I finally make friends with the other girls, and my heart actually breaks when I have to leave.

"I love you, you little noise in the other room."

- Samantha

// September //

• I GO HOME!

• Sadie and I drive to Ohio for a homeschool graduate's retreat. 

• I start going to college, and am relatively unimpressed. My English teacher doesn't give out 100s. (wtf?)

• Sadie and I go to the Mother Earth News Fair with our friends and I get to meet Joel Salatin! Also I get a hotel room in my name for the first time. Pretty weird.

• We have a bonfire at the Brown's house and cook a squirrel, play Red Rover, and roast marshmallows.

• I decide to join the fire department.

• We go bowling, and I see him again, and it's good to be home.

"I saw a strike."

- New Guy/Mike

// October //

• Tom Petty dies and I start listening to his music for the first time.

• We find a kitty living in the upstairs of our barn and I name him Casper...until I find out he's a she.

• The shooting in Las Vegas happens and Eric Church writes a song about it.

• I start blogging again.

• Molly comes home from college for a visit! 

• We have a hayride. I leave a note on his truck at school inviting him to come, and he does.

• I buy a puppy from an Amish man, and name him Henley after Don Henley. 

• We go over to Mike's house for a bonfire. He shows me his turkeys and we play sneaks in the woods and afterwards he checks my arms for scratches with a flashlight and I'm not really sure why it sticks in my mind?

• We go to a Halloween party at the Brown's house, play sneaks in the dark, I lose my pocketknife, and as we're driving away Mike flashes his blue light.  

• We close the stand for the year and I buy a huge pumpkin from an Amish kid for $10 because ours are all gone.

"Emma doesn't act weird. She laughs really loudly."

- Sadie

// November //

• We go out, and say we'll do it again.

• My mom and Sadie and I go to see Molly at school and tour the city of Rochester. I sniff out a Carhartt outlet store and spend too much money.

• I get a job at Tractor Supply.

• We have our costume ball, and I go dressed up as Mia from La La Land.

• I fly to Indiana for a few days to visit my friend Allie. We go to see Only the Brave and it's the best movie I've seen in a long, long time. I think about Veterans' Day a lot more this year than I ever have before.

• I keep going to school, working on the other days, and seeing him.

• I have a day off and Sadie and I go Christmas shopping and just drive around in the country like we used to when we had no responsibilities. 

• I become a member of the fire department.

• Mike and I go to the rodeo at Sundance and listen to Firefall and Bread all the way home.

• I take a class for first responders on drug labs and get a little freaked out because the world is a messed-up place, but reassured too because there are people who deal with it.

• Mike takes me hunting, and I shoot his 20 gauge. We use his math homework as a target.

• My head is full of numbers, cash registers, fire engines, blue lights, and puppies.

• I go to my first call, a vehicle off the road after hitting a deer. I don't do much except carry the chainsaw back to the truck.

• I go to my second call, on Christmas morning. We lose the patient, but I'm extremely proud of my guys.

• We have an unexpected and sorta weird but happy Christmas :-)

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

- Philippians 4:6-7

Happy 2018 everyone!

dancing & a very dark night

     ***the story of a very dark, scary night last June in which my sisters and I dance with old men, talk to strangers, get lost, find the holy grail (just kidding) and eventually make it back home without being kidnapped. (Warning: it's long.)

      It was early June. We went to the contra dance because Sadie was invited to play the fiddle. We might have gone anyway, just to see what it was like. We do strange things sometimes. And going to a contra dance in an old creaky building in a little college town on a Friday night, in the company of a bunch of middle-aged people who may or may not have criminal records -- I'm just saying -- could definitely classify as strange.

     The dance was held in the old city hall building. It had a tile floor and a high ceiling and pictures of prominent citizens from 100+ years ago on the walls. Most of the people there were over the age of fifty. I don't know about you, but if it's not somebody I know, dancing with a middle-aged man is not my favorite thing in the world to do. I don't believe that line "it's only awkward if you make it." That's awkward, no mistake. Far less awkward is when the little five-year-old boy there with his mom comes up and asks sweetly if you'd like to dance. I was pleased when he seemed to attach himself to me.

     We danced around in circles while the string band played Scottish reels that all sounded the same. You know when you go someplace you don't normally go, and it feels like it's not actually happening for real? Like it's just a weird dream? The later it got, the weirder the whole thing seemed -- except at the same time it seemed normal. My mom, who brought us, left to go home. We would ride back with my sister Molly. We were on our own.

     The crowd....talk about interesting characters. Everyone there could have been in a Dickens movie. There was the man wearing a t-shirt with a female country singer on it, which he told us he'd bought because she looked just like his dearly departed wife. That slippery older guy "Tom" who was giving out his 'card'....(Mama, where'd you go?) The couple with the tap shoes who seemed like they'd been dancing together since they were both a lot younger. I was a little terrified of everybody.

    The most intriguing were those two girls, about our ages. They both wore long skirts. They obviously weren't sisters. One had a cute face, hair in a ponytail and acne just like the rest of us. The other was taller and graceful, with hair way past her shoulders and a round, rosy face. She was more beautiful than any girl I'd ever seen. She was shy, but us girls introduced ourselves because we like to talk to people. I couldn't understand what she said her name was and I literally thought it was "Papaya" until I learned later what it really was.

     She was wearing a long brown skirt and ivory stockings. She was fascinating. From time to time I saw her sitting down at the edge of the room, bent over a little notebook. What was she writing? Was she a storyteller? A poet? A spy?

     It was eleven o'clock and high time to drive home. Poor Molly was exhausted. She'd been talking to the two girls, and learned neither one of them drove and they didn't have a ride home. They lived nearby, they said. I don't know if they asked or if she offered -- all I heard was we were going to take these girls home. It was past eleven. They didn't live too far.

     We got in the Jeep and it was illegal because we couldn't all buckle, but it was way too late to worry about anything like that. The only thing we worried about was Mama. She had told us to come right home. Surely she would understand, we thought, and Sadie called her just to explain what we were doing and let her know we'd be a little later.

    I almost heard her voice through the phone across the seat, she was so mad. Sadie tried to smooth it over.

     "They don't live very far," she said. And then,"Mama, they're nice girls!" All of this, while both girls were right there in hearing. The Jeep, the old Jeep, is not very big. I wanted to crawl under the seat but there wasn't room.

     Mama was livid. It was almost midnight; Molly was sleep-deprived; we didn't know where we were going, we didn't even know these people, and who knew what kind of dangerous trap it might lead to. I'm guessing there was something else wrong because on any normal day we wouldn't get that kind of flack just for giving two pleasant strangers a ride home. Finally Sadie got off the phone, but we knew we were in for it now. It made for a very heavy feeling in the air of that tiny little Jeep stuffed with six girls.

     "You turn here," the Papaya girl said.

     She said it probably twenty-five times in all. We turned off the main road onto so many smaller ones, up hills and then down again, around sharp corners, deeper into the woods, out again, until I was so dizzy and disoriented I had no clue in heck where we were. And they told us to keep going. You don't live far, hm? I thought. I'd say wherever we are is pretty far from anything in this world, and we're not even at your house yet. Maybe Mama was right. Maybe we are headed for danger. And that's when I started to be suspicious. Maybe they were luring us into a trap, and planned to kidnap us and hold us hostage. We drove farther and I felt more and more uneasy. Imagination is a terrible thing.

     "It's here," she finally said. I was sure we had come to the very ends of the earth.

     It was a place so far removed from anything that there was total darkness. The sky was clear and you could see the stars, without any light from any city pinking them out. The dark made their farmhouse fuzzy, but I saw the barn across the road, and a cat scampered across the path in front of us. I didn't feel any sense of time here, except that it was very late. It could have been the 21st century. It could have been the 19th. I looked around for men with guns and gunny sacks while the others pondered a very real problem: now how to find our way back to our home, approximately a million miles away?

     The Papaya girl said she'd ask "Mr. B." She went into the house and appeared a few moments later with a map drawn on a piece of yellow legal paper. It showed us how to get back to route 380. From there we could manage. She thanked us and dropped something on the seat. Sadie picked it up. "Hey, is this yours?"

     She didn't answer. She just went inside the house.

     We unfolded the roll and found it was money, with a note that said Thank you and the girls' names on it.

     Following the extremely rudimentary map, we made our way into the night. We were really out there. There were hardly any houses at all. Still worried about our mother, we decided it'd be good of us to call her. Nobody wanted to. I don't remember how I got nominated to do it.

    "Hi Mama," I said, trying to sound like everything was fine. "We took them home, and we're on our way back, and everything's okay, and we don't want you to worry."

    "Okay," she said. Still mad.

     It wasn't until after I pressed end that I realized, oh dear, that really sounded like a hostage call.

     "Where are we?" one of us said. I think we all took turns saying it.

      It's a terrible feeling to be lost, but it's an even worse feeling to be lost after midnight. Compound that with the unpleasant knowledge that your mom is thunderously angry with you, and you're not having that great of a night. But as bad as it is to be lost, it's that much more wonderful to see a sign and suddenly realize -- YES, I know where we are now! We're getting closer! We're almost there! I thought maybe we'd make it home by daylight, and I was ecstatic.

    By some miracle we made it home. I collapsed in bed and was dead to the world until the next morning when I had to face my mother; and it must not have been that ugly of a scene because it's funny but I don't remember it a bit now. The night before seemed now like a hazy dream, something out of a Tim Burton movie. The more the day wore on, the farther away it felt. Like we had all woken up from some kind of spell in which we all imagined the same thing, and it didn't really happen.

     But Sadie still has the thank-you note and the map, so we know that it did.

********

<3 Emma

eskimo summer

   

     There's a name for it when you get warm weather in the fall when it's supposed to be getting colder -- they call that Indian summer. So it seems like there oughta be a name for the days like these ones, when it's warm as spring and you can go outside without a jacket and it's only mid-February. It should be called Eskimo summer.

    Last Saturday my and my squad drove through sunshine to meet our awesome friends and then we went farther into the glaring orange sunset to see an indoor rodeo. We cheered for the hot cowboys like we always do, and walked around the parking lot in the dark to drool over all the dually Powerstrokes and Cummins, and we made best friends with the kids in the car next to us while we waited in traffic to leave, laughing through rolled-down windows, shivering in cold February air because it had been so warm earlier we all forgot to wear coats.

     Sunday, the church pews were covered in gold, and we threw off our long-sleeved shirts as soon as we left the building. The sun shone like a spotlight and I soaked it up like a thirsty desert flower. I filled a bucket with sudsy water and washed my truck for the first time since I've had it. It felt just like spring. It felt like waking up after a long time of living half-mast, like somebody handed me a brand new chance at everything. Spring always feels like that.

     ....but it's still only February, which is why I'm confused. Next week it'll probably snow again and I'll be all messed up. It's that Eskimo summer thing.

    You don't think about the snow that's coming next week, though, when it's like 60 frickin degrees and you're wearing a t-shirt and driving your truck down a country road with your two best friends in the world squished in the seat next to you.

     These last few days have been pretty wonderful. 

     Spring is coming, friends.

     ~Emma

     What does spring make you think of?