Friends beyond time and distance

Yesterday I had a most wonderful experience. After much investigation, I was able to track down and reconnect with an amazing woman who was one of my first friends. Her name is Jen and she is one of the most lively, intelligent, beautiful, and sensitive women I have ever met. A true ball of energy and spontaneity, she is the kind of person who sparks life into every environment she walks into.

We met in a most peculiar way. I was going to college in California and enduring a particularly lonely and desperate time - feeling out of place and isolated from the Alaska wilderness and wildlife of my youth. To make a measly attempt at connecting with nature - I took my study books outside and headed to nearby meadow to do some coursework. As I was lying on my stomach, reading, Hermeneutics, a small ladybug landed on the page and seemed to just sit there, staring at me, daring me to turn the page. I sat mesmerized, feeling as though this were the most beautiful wild creature in the world - and God sent her directly to me for the bit of encouragement that I longed for.

Later that afternoon, I made my way to the campus gym and sat quietly watching a few guys shoot hoops. As I sat there, a girl I'd seen in classes, but hardly knew, came up and we began to talk about our day. I was blown away when Jen said that she was really missing the outdoor life of her Massachusetts home. She began to tell me that to cope with her frustration, early that day, she headed out for a jog, praying that God would help her reconnect with nature. As she was out for her run, she encountered a bumblebee and was immediately overwhelmed by the fact that God sent it her way. We laughed at the oddity of it all, and how strange it was that we were both in the same place, at the same time. As we sat there, a man walked up and told us that he had two tickets to a whale-watching trip scheduled for the next day. "Do you two want the tickets?" We were blown away. It was exactly the kind of nature connection we had been praying for.

The next day, we found ourselves onboard a charter boat in the Pacific Ocean, scanning the seas for sign of whale, giddy, renewed, and alive. We didn't find any whales during that trip - but we did find a new friendship. One that always seemed full of adventure.

After about four years, life took us in separate directions and we quickly lost touch. However, I never stopped thinking about our friendship and wondering where her path had taken her. While we spoke, yesterday, I was thrilled to her about her world and the joys that have come her way. I was equally hurt when I realized that she, like myself, has experienced great hurt that I never knew about.

We come across amazing people in our lives and cherish the moments that we spend with them. However, often it is easy to walk away and obliviously surrender ourselves to the whirl of life around us, never seeing the whirl in the worlds of others. I missed out on some amazing experiences and opportunities to share with her how much I valued her in my life.

Perhaps this is a lesson to us all to do what we can to maintain friendships and connections, beyond time, distance, and challenging experiences. Life is an adventure and we need all of the support we can get and give.

Icy Hot Lips and other rebellions

The other day, I was visiting my grandmother in her nursing home and had an experience that was both sad and hilarious at the same time. Grandma Yadon has always been a bit crotchety toward me, however increasingly more so as her Alzheimer’s Disease has progressed. With her heightened state of frailty and confusion, her reactions have become much like a frightened preschooler, exercising her independence and revealing her denied inadequacies at the same time.

I stepped away from her bed for just a moment, and when I turned back to her, she had grabbed a jar of Icy Hot ointment from the nearby dresser. The lid was off, and she was dabbing her thin, gnarled finger into the translucent balm and proceeding to raise her hand toward her lips. Realizing what she was doing, I quickly grabbed the jar and told her, “Grandma, this is not for your lips.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. I know what this is. See!”

“No, Grandma, this is for the pain in your knees. You use Carmex for your lips,” I said, reaching for the small, yellow jar by her bed.

Angrily, she told me I didn’t know what I was doing and quickly began rubbing a large glob of Icy Hot across her lips. Torn between laughter and horror, I wrestled the lid back on the jar, while she still held it into her hands. From the angle that she held the jar, she apparently did not realize the lid had returned, and she continued to defiantly dip her hand on the lid, and back to her lips – as if she were continuing to add more and more balm to her mouth. All the while, I tried to maintain a respectful demeanor while she glared at me as though I depriving her from the moisture her parched mouth longed for.

Finally, after three solid minutes of staring me down, rubbing her finger on the smooth plastic lid, and back to her Icy Hot coated mouth, she told me she was finished.

I didn’t have to wait for long. Within minutes, her weary eyes began to water and she started asking me if we had any ice or water. My amusement at the situation (albeit inappropriate) was overridden by the knowledge that she had to be in a horrid state of discomfort. I spent the next forty minutes wiping her lips with ice and holding the sippee cup of cool water up to her fiery mouth. I felt horrible for her, knowing the burning sensation must have been driving her crazy, but all I could do was assist her in this miserable state.

I immediately began to think of all the times, I have defiantly stood my ground against the advice of others, only to find myself in a terrible, burning predicament. More so, how many times have I pushed forward with my life, without heeding the nudging of God, only to find myself in a place of sheer pain? There, in a circumstance created by my own brash pig-headedness, I call out and beg him to ease my suffering. So many times, God has had the right to say, “I told you so”, but he never has. He lovingly begins wiping the cool ice of refreshment and healing and causes my self-induced pain to dissipate.

While I hope I will never have true Icy Hot lips, I hope this serves as a reminder to myself pause, listen, and follow. Even though he doesn’t say, “I told you so,” I don’t want to keep giving him reasons that he could.

Beth Moore, Haunts, and Freedom

Following much anticipation, I spent Friday and Saturday at a women’s Living Proof Live conference listening to Beth Moore teach the II Kings 18-19 story of Hezekiah and Sennecherib. Her amazing sense of transparency blended perfectly with well-prepared teachings, as she shared insight about the power of fear, appropriate rebelliousness, and boldness in the face of overwhelming odds.

In addition, she discussed the power of negative words that have been spoken over us and the influence they have throughout our lives; it was here that I personally gleaned the most. While I try to portray a together, carefree, happy-go-lucky life, I’ve always battled internal conflict between who I longed to be and who I seemed to be. Throughout my past, I have memories of people I looked up to, who have told me that I would never be what I dreamed of, I could not be trusted, I did not truly have a call on my life, the world would be better off without me, and that everything I’ve experienced in God was a lie, because God would not communicate with a person of my nature and character.

We all experience rejection, disappointment, or a general sense of failure at some point in our lives. However, the source and circumstances of these experiences is an indicator of how greatly we allow these events to dictate our thought processes.

While I have heard many people say great, positive words over me, I suppose it was the level of the high value that I placed on these people, that allowed their negative words to influence me so greatly. Because I trusted their judgement and respected their positions, these views of me molded my view of myself. It was here in this place of turmoil, that I found the need to recognize that the memories, words, or actions that haunt me do not dictate who I am; my core is not the sum of my experiences; they may revolve around me, but they do not define me.

This was not the first time I’ve heard this teaching – but this time I clearly had a fresh understanding of my identity in Christ, a view that stood above all my previous self-visions. This new look was welcome and freeing – an experience I’ve been longing for for quite some time.

I’ve recently been studying Biblical grace and mercy, and I’ve been overwhelmed at what I’ve found. It is through these amazing gifts from God that we are free to truly live, beyond the barriers that we or others have placed upon ourselves. By grasping to this amazing, liberating understanding that God loves us, period, my life changed. He loves us, not because of our performance, not because of adherence to rules or guidelines, not because we love him. He simply loves us, first. Period.

The thoughts that have haunted me are not who I am, nor who I was. I am, have been, and always will be God’s child, his love.

Can we be any freer?

Kodiak: A weekend to change my life

Rolling, green mountains, dotted with giant spruce, the color of dark envy rise high into the icy blue sky before plunging deep into the emerald waters. Tiny, rocky islands dance across the ocean’s surface like a velvet bag of gems poured out on a glassy mirror.

This scene of ethereal beauty is where we spent our weekend. Kodiak, Alaska: a land of enormous bears, intriguing people, and breathtaking beauty.

After our community bible study on Thursday, Toby and I flew off to Kodiak, Alaska, an hour southwest of Anchorage. Located on a majestic island, this fishing community is an amazing convergence of traditional bustling life of a fishing village and the serene calm of a coastal resort town. We traveled there to visit our friends, David and Mechelle Bradbury, who are also planting a church and starting in their home.

We had an amazing weekend walking through the forests (after which, we noticed the signs about recent bear sightings), enjoying the local restaurants’ fresh fish menus, and sea kayaking in one of the nearby bays.

As truly hospitable guests, David and Mechelle hosted a barbeque to introduce us to their friends and together we had a great time talking, laughing, and eating, eating, eating.

While there is nothing like the security and familiarity of one’s own bungalow, it is always refreshing to step away and visit the worlds of others. I feel like I learned a lot about my friends and about myself on this trip – lessons that were welcome and helped me see myself in new perspectives.

As I was paddling my kayak back into the beach, I began to glide and just paused to breathe in the surroundings. I was leading the pack, so all I saw before me were the sparkling ocean tides crashing onto the rocky beach, tall grass framing a nearby riverbed, and mountains rising high before me.

That’s when it hit me. This is how I want to spend my time. Enjoying life. I don’t want to waste my days with the mundane tasks and commitments that don’t truly fulfill me. I want each moment to feel like I’m gliding across glassy waters; each day to be filled with excitement and true enjoyment.

I don’t need to kayak every day, but I do want to learn to truly live in the moment; to learn to capture opportunities for joy; to simply live.

While I’ve been saying this for quite a while (35 years to be exact), this weekend helped emphasize this in a whole new way, and hopefully was impacting enough to give me the courage to make positive change.

It was a wonderful weekend with friends. And hopefully, it was a weekend to change my life.

A Beautiful Weekend: Love, Fishing, and Spinach Salad

This weekend was great is so many ways.

Not only was the weather unbelievably beautiful, but an open schedule allowed us to simply enjoy life. Friday and Saturday were a bit hazy due to a nearby forest fire, but the temperature was perfect for yard work, so Toby and I spent the evenings building our fence, prepping the lawn and cleaning flower beds.

By Sunday morning, our church gathering was already experiencing the typical Alaskan “summer slump”; with six months of winter behind us, people are so excited for great weather, that they literally spend all summer outside: hiking, fishing, camping, biking, kayaking, hunting, etc. Even so, we still had a full living room and great conversation about the values of God. We discussed the concept that the two most important foundations in scripture are first, to love God with no holds barred, and second, to truly love others like we would ourselves. While this seems elementary and assumed, scripture says that every commandment and concept in the Bible falls within these two categories. This simple understanding of how God sees the world should mandate how we treat God, those around us, and ourselves. It is so easy to place rules and guidelines as the identifying factors of who loves God, who is striving to be like Him, or who we identify with. Do they do this, or line up with that? But God simply asks, “Do you love me? Do you love them?”

There are guidelines in scripture that are important and have been set in place to help us live healthy and whole lives. But these principles are all founded upon maintaining proper relationships with God and others; if these guidelines are followed and the relationships are not tended – the guidelines mean nothing and our adherence to them is empty. Do we love Him? Do we love them? That’s the bottom line. That's the beginning and ending of everything.

After church, Toby loaded up the boat and canoe and headed off to the family cabin on Long Lake with four guys from our group, John, Matt, Craig, and Tony. All Sunday and Monday, they fished, swam, talked, and just hung out.

Enjoying this bit of freedom, I stayed home, worked in my yard, read, and wrote to my heart’s content. The next day I celebrated our nation’s freedom by playing with Abbey and enjoying the traditional Memorial Day grilled tuna and spinach salad.

It was a beautiful weekend – in every way.