Why Pain is a Good Thing

What an adventure the last few days have been! Australia is, just as the tails tell, absolutely lovely, so different than I expected and somehow exactly what I needed. The people I have met are rugged and love adventure. They are wide-eyed and observant, they work so very hard and yet will stop anytime to give you their attention for a good chat.

Emma and I bought an old Ute, which is apparently a quintessential Australian vehicle. They say a man wanted a car he could take to church on Sunday and a pickup he could take his pigs to market with on Monday, and so the Ute was born. It really is an ugly piece of machinery, though everyone drives one around here and seems to think it’s an El Camino. In any case, we now have something to use for crashing around the countryside, which is both a blessing and a necessity.

I have resumed my battle with the insect population, as the number of flies in rural Australia are both numerous and aggressive in nature. I would probably be perfectly happy to live in harmony with them, except they insist on trying to climb up my nose and take up residence in my face. I like my face, and therefore have declared war. I have only seen one creepy-crawly creature to date, but I have received a few comforting remarks from the locals such as:

“Go for a walk. But be careful of snakes. ALL of them are poisonous.”

“All you need to be afraid of is snakes and spiders and… well, just about every animal.”

Comforting. So if I see one, I’ll know not to make friends with it. I think I'm becoming paranoid, though. A chicken was exploring in the bush by our porch this morning and scared the heebie-jeebies out of me.

We drove out to the old gold mining town of Clunes yesterday and had an ice cream. We got lost on the way there. It’s very hard not to. You can drive at least half an hour before you figure out you’re going in the complete wrong direction, because everything is so far apart from each other. According to Alistair, you turn left and "go" for while, then turn right at the T-intersection and "go" for a while. Well, “going” in Australian lingo turned out to be around a 45 minute drive, and we were soon befuddled and completely lost and had to ask to borrow a phone. We will learn how to navigate the roads in time, I think. We did, however, meet someone new, which I consider a plus.

Some other lingo for the day:

“How’re you going?” – How are you doing?

“Blowie” – Fly

“Knock off” – Get off work for the day

“Dead Horse” – Ketchup (food for thought)

In all this heat and the madness of exploring a new place, the Lord remains for me a constant place of rest. I’m not going to lie, I absolutely love it here, but Australia is not all that I was expecting it to be. There remains ahead many obstacles to be overcome, many hard times when hope and joy will not come easily into my heart. The newness of adventure will fade, and the frustrations and problems of humanity from which I try to escape I will find in the people I encounter here.

And sometimes, I must admit, I’m afraid of things not going the way I had planned. I realize that despite my protestations otherwise, I am afraid of pain, of lack, of discomfort. I shudder to think of anything that would harm me, throw me off the course I set for myself. I'm afraid of getting a spider bite, of going broke, of washing pig trucks for 12 hours a day.

Isn't that the way it is with us? We are funny creatures, building up walls around ourselves to block out pain and poverty. We build an environment around us that is only for us. This eventually proves to be our spiritual demise, for we ignore the low things of the world, afraid they will hurt us. Though many would skirt the issue and mince words, we are called out of comfort, out of a conventional life, and into a life that seems to the world unstable and irresponsible. And unfortunately, even if we travel far and wide and are put in strange situations, we still hate instability with a passion, whether it’s physical, financial, or emotional.

But it’s not about us. It’s about others. Jesus himself embraced pain so that we could live a free life with Him. He spent time with people who were in pain in situations that were uncomfortable for everyone else because that's what He wants us to do. I think to avoid being lackadaisical and lazy in our pursuit of life abundant, we need to intentionally expose ourselves to pain. We need to look and see the suffering of the world, of the people around us. We need to open our eyes to see the Kingdom of God, which is often uncomfortable indeed.

What kind of a person do you want to be? I want to live without fear. But lack of fear will not come with lack of opportunity, for we can fear for any petty possession or worry in our small universe. Lack of fear comes from embracing discomfort and pain and instability. It comes when you do not know who to trust but you look to the Father and trust that He sees you and knows your every need.

I am uncomfortable. But it’s awesome. It’s character building. And He is becoming more and more my Savior, the One whom I love, the One whom I trust. And really, I said I wanted an adventure. The cool thing about Jesus is that when you ask for an adventure, He'll give you one. 

Live a little unstable today,

Beth

An Indefinite Adventure

Ernest Hemingway said to write drunk and edit sober. The purpose of this, I assume, was to unlock the blunt, the hidden thoughts in a person that are otherwise covered by soberness, politeness, or political correctness. The world loved Hemingway, and I can only help but think that his truthfulness and brute honesty assisted him in making him one of the most renowned authors in the 21st century. They say what makes a writer are not only his thoughts, but his ability to explain them to others through language. Popular writers, I have noticed, have an uncanny ability to explain the truth in layman's terms, to define the world in a comical, brutally honest straight shot to the point.

I’d really like to be that kind of writer. But let’s be honest, writer’s block is a nasty thing, and I can understand why Hemingway resorted to drink in order to overcome such a frustrating obstacle. I sit here in my hostel, and it is very late. All have gone to bed, and I am left here alone to wrestle with my thoughts. There are many of them. I might have a drink, honestly, if I could, but I am still underage here in Hawaii, and I am a snob.

So let me start simple: I have gone on an adventure.

You may wonder why. Good question. It’s good for people, at least once in their lives, to do something rash and a little bit risky.  Something unexpected where you leave your comfort zone altogether and camp out somewhere between foolhardy and irrational. I am afraid that I am in a perpetual state of hunger for adventure and I might even talk a lot about how much I love to live in awe, but I have a severe character flaw in that I talk big and never act on it. Well my friends, I have finally put my money (future, comfort, etc.) where my mouth is. It’s been a long time coming, let me tell you.

It is becoming painfully aware to me of how much the world is crying out for the truth of Jesus Christ. Yet so often I offer Him a cold kind of affection! I profess to love Him and then keep Him at arm’s length, scared that He will invade my Heart of hearts and I will be forced to change, pushed out of my sickening comfort I so laughingly call my “bubble.” For as much as I profess otherwise, I love my routine, soaking in it like a bathtub after a long day at work. But the bathwater soon becomes cold and nasty and stagnant. And still I stay there.

So I guess this trip is me getting out of the dirty bathwater and really living. Emma and I are currently in Honolulu, Hawaii. We are taking a weeklong sabbatical before heading down to the Land of Oz for a while. By a while I mean 3 months to a year to we may never come back home (Mom or Elle, if you read this, please don’t panic). We will pick some fruit, drive a few combines, take a few road trips, climb a mountain or two, and meet a varied smattering of people. I am excited to meet strange people and stretch my idea of love. I am excited to learn to abide more and more in the love of the Father so that I can give it back to the people I meet. I am excited to take each and every day at a time, savor each moment and tackle each curveball with passion and patience. I want to show people the Lord loves them by the way I live. I will be humbled and knocked over and will be challenged. I’m not saying that it will be easy, but it will be beautiful. I’m not saying I’m not afraid, I’m saying I’m afraid and I’m charging full speed ahead anyway.

I see the darkness all around me, the world in all its glory and despair. The many falsehoods of the world are slowly made apparent. I used to think that I was alone in my struggle for purpose and passion, but now I see great men and women that I have put on a pedestal stumble and I wonder if they are just as confused as I am after all. I realize just how easily persuaded I am by smooth words, and, even more importantly, how easily I am lured off the narrow way. I realize that the greatest tragedy is not only that there is darkness and many lies, but more often than not that those things are cloaked in a robe of light.

All this begs the question: Doesn't truth need to be more than something we just philosophize about? Doesn't it need to be something that we seek until we find? For if we cease to seek it, we fall prey to the confusion that reigns king in its absence. In my despair over the loss of naiveté and blissful ignorance, I cry out, “God, what shall I do?” And He replies, “Abide in my Love.”

I hurt for the world. I hurt for the addicts that spend all their money on something they hate. I hurt for the children that starve because adults can't get along. I hurt for the prostitutes who sell their bodies to feed their children. I hurt for the broken. But I cling to Him, my King. I stand on the promises of His grace and mercy.  I need His Presence more than life and I seek His face more than all the treasures of this world. In the dread of fear and desperation, He remains my sure foundation and steadfast Lover. He is my dearest friend.

And oh, how He loves the world…

And that, my friends, is just the ramblings of a beach bum.

All my love,

B

Scratching Sparks

It is as if,

I had never known You

at all

when vanity calls

I am

At once

swept away

again.

And I hate myself

for loving

myself

so much.

If there is more to You, 

what am I doing

scratching sparks

on the walls

of my cave of

self

when You are outside

in

the

Glory.

B.R. 12/13

Dark, Doubt and Darkness (...And then Light)

The winters were cold. The cold was not the kind that was a nuisance, it was the kind that invaded your core and very bones and made you wish firewood were not such a pain to find. On clear days you could see the mountain looming above, treacherous and ominous, a silent giant. The forest was dark and cold. All sorts of strange things resided within its borders. On the dry days you could layer up and walk to the river, or maybe down to the railroad tracks. The snows hadn't come yet, but when they did, it was well known that no more strangers wandered through town when the roads became white.

But it wasn't the snows or the forest or the mountain or even running out of firewood that the people feared. 

It was the fear of no escape.

Some turned to alcohol. The drink tamed the dark, numbing the emptiness of a life without sunshine. Some turned to the drugs. They were everywhere, and innocence without knowledge soon turned to a stupor that lasted until death. But no matter what they did, they knew they couldn't escape.

Mother was sick. She couldn't write anymore. She could still make a pot of coffee and a sandwich, but the doctor said soon she would lose the use of her hands. It was becoming harder to remember the days without sickness, without the dark. They seemed a far-off dream, never to return. Memories hung like doors in the fog, facets of light that flashed before my mind's eye.

Swinging on the old swing under the oak tree.

Feeding the baby chicks in the barn.

Potatoes frying in a pan in the morning.

Mother playing her guitar and singing.

Sometimes the dark grabbed me by the throat and I could do nothing but gasp in desperation. The doubt cried out against the truth that sat deep within. I could not push the evil aside or fight it with indifference. The preacher man who came to town every month said blessed was the man who trusted in The Lord. But what about the things that clutched at my soul? What about the torment I felt every night as I went to sleep? I had searched everywhere for a place to let my confusion and depression flee, but I had become numb, lost in self and routine. So many hurts deep down, and I felt fear. I could taste it.

But the old mind could only last so long before it melted before the heat of the All-Consuming Fire. It is only love that can drive out hate, light that will drive away darkness, good that will overcome evil at last. And the battle was won when a Jewish man died on a cross many centuries before.

So I threw myself into Love Himself, for I knew in my very soul of souls that Love was the only way to be whole again. The darkness would do everything in its power to keep me from being free. But He was my refuge. He was my strength. When I started to worry, and my heart became heavy with the things that plagued me, I felt His Spirit gently calling me to come away. Once I started to dwell on Him, on His great Love, all other things started to fade. All other loves, all other dark passions I could run after, they would never satisfy me as His Love did. Only His love drove out the fear in me, only His love reached into the innermost places of my heart. Only His love set me free.

I once thought that the greater the fear, the harder it was for Him to conquer. The more something tormented me, the more He was powerless to do anything. But praise be to His Holy Name, the greater the fear, the more His love triumphs!! He is capable of removing any stain, any injury, any hurt.

I began to taste what life was like without the burden of worry, of vanity. And it was glorious, this freedom! He knew my heart. He knew my every need and what I hungered for. He knew every worry and fear in my heart. He said, "My peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid."

And I yearned to be with Him, in His peace. Because I was in love with Him. I prayed he would come ever nearer, that I would forget everything else in the whole world but Him. All He ever wanted to do was take away my fear, to dwell in me. When the doubt comes, when the darkness is overwhelming, it is His Love that breaks through.

The darkness was not gone from the sky, but it was gone from my heart forever.

Do not fear,

Zion, let not your hearts be weak.

The Lord Your God is in your midst.

The Mighty One will save,

He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you with His love.

He will rejoice over you with singing.

Home

As I drove home tonight, the world was quiet. It was dark and cold and crisp. George Strait played softly on the radio, and the heater hummed happily. The brake light glared red at me, the one that never shuts off in the Ford Tempo. I smoked the last cigarette from the pack I had bought a month ago.

My mind was tired from thinking of the past, my heart stirred with memory. My home had become a crazy house overnight. People slept in every room, schoolbooks and video games were strewn hither and yon, the smell of Mom and Grandma’s cooking filled the house, and the bathroom was always occupied. I thought grimly that at least I would only have to put up with the chaos for another week.

That was a strange thought. I would miss the farm, as much as I tried to squelch the emotion of leaving. But my home wasn't what it used to be.

I had always liked the cold. Maybe it was because it made you appreciate warmth. In the farmhouse, upstairs was probably a whopping 12 degrees. I'd stand by the fire and soak up as much heat as my body could hold, then sprint for bed, hoping hypothermia wouldn't catch me in-between. And anyone who's ever complained about getting up in the morning should've experienced a winter's morn in the Reams' house. Laying there contemplating getting up to go feed the cows, I felt like Bilbo Baggins leaving the warmth and safety of Bag End to go to his probably death. Dangerous? Clearly. Life-threatening? Definitely. They made long underwear for people like us.

Winter in the Valley was a thing of its own. It was not warm and calm, but neither was it a glorious blanket of white. We succumbed to around eight months of cold, miserable constant rain and somehow, we rather liked it. The Old Barn was a beautiful, romantic place any other time of the year. In the winter, it was dark and haunted. Feeding the cows was a mad dash of fear that never took more than thirty seconds. The house was a haven of warmth and love. When we first moved into the old house in 1994, the winter came upon us rather quickly. The toilet seat cracked clean in half. To this day, I still remember putting down a few blankets by the fire and falling asleep to the slow warmth.

In the summers, Chad and Chase would come over every day. We made smoothies out of blackberries and vanilla ice cream and swam in the Luckiamute until it got too cold to stand. We had a mascot, a stuffed polar bear named Fred or something like that, who we'd throw in the water and expect to swim. We played War for hours in the barn and the six different forts we had created around the fields and the river. Chad and I were always on the same team and always won, because we were the oldest. Chad was my first crush in the second grade. I baked him a chocolate cake. I don't even think he knew what a girl was at that point, but he did eat the entire cake.

We bought a horse in 2005 and I named him Indio. He was a snarky Appaloosa with a nasty habit of running under trees when you rode him. He took it upon himself to shepherd and protect our herd of cows. He and Penny the cow became best friends and never were without each other. We often put a saddle on him and rode him around the countryside, and sometimes we rode him bareback and pretended we were Indians. He put up with it rather well, even if he did have a condescending air about him. That is, as far as horses can be condescending.

The dogs sit with me by the fire as I remember those days. They smell of rain and moldy straw. Doc is old now, and so deaf you have to scream to get his attention. Indio is gone. Chad is in Georgia now. He's happy there. Once in a while I'll give him a call, and we'll just talk. Once you've shot someone with a BB gun, I guess that makes you best friends forever.

The day draws ever nearer when I will say goodbye to the old farmhouse. It is strange and sad and a little bewildering, for I really have not known anything else. The house was always a place for people who had never had a home. The lost, the broken, the people who needed to eat. Mom would never shut her door to anyone, nor withhold her affection. It was a place where you could rest, a place where you felt like you belonged. Granted, it was hardly ever clean and never normal, but it was full of love.

But it’s changed, or maybe I have. I can’t hold onto this place, waiting for the past to somehow resurrect itself and come back. I must go on; I must live and love and breathe and move. The old house will continue to be a home for many, but I must go on to find a home of my own.  

As I sit here in the quiet, I am for a moment discomforted in my soul, for I wonder if I will ever find a home, a place where I can rest and play and eat milkshakes. A place to laugh and sleep, to be free to be completely me. If it is not here, then where shall I find it?

And then He whispers to me ever-so-gently that my home is in His heart. He is in my heart, as I rest in His. He lives in me. He walks with me, no matter where I should go. My home will not be shaken and will never change. I am always a child with Him, and the wars of my life seem like play in His place of peace. And maybe as I rest in Him, the lost and broken can find their home in Him too.

And I'm truly thankful, Lord Jesus, for that.

Beholding

The day draws near to me now,

The long-sought day of beginnings.

The day of adventure,

Or so they say, I say.

I am weak. I fear. Fading...

Are You there too, as here

In my heart, in Yours?

I have none. Strength...

Will any remember my song?

When I have fled, gone.

A hero of the faith? No.

But maybe You will know me.

Perhaps

You shall hear of One who risks

everything

to follow

And you will come down.

A weak but valient

daughter.

Crazy but never numb

to love.

Will hunger move

You?

My song is dead.

I come to find

awe.

beauty.

in You.

To behold

at last

what was passed over.

B.R. 11/13

The Problem with Dissatisfaction

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10, NKJV)

 

Have you met Alison? You should. She knows what she thinks about stuff. She likes tree houses and making coffee and walking with people. She works at Trader Joes just because she likes it. She went to Australia to learn to be a midwife and delivered babies in India, "out of the jaws of Satan," as she puts it. She is warm, inviting. You can rest in her presence, because she is not striving to be anyone she is not. She’ll tell you what she thinks about stuff, but instead of feeling put down, you feel more excited to experience life!

 

We all like people who are confident (Let me make a distinction right now between pride and confidence, they are two very different things). They know what their tastes are and what moves them and what they like and what sort of a person they are and who they want to be. Yet for all that, they never have to prove anything to anyone. People like that are attractive because of their confidence, their security. They are satisfied.  We think to ourselves that they are so assured of who they are… and then we start to wonder what the heck we're doing wrong.

 

For some reason, I used to think the Lord was separated from the part of me that obsessively exercised, always thought about looks and weight, and felt guilty about everything I did. I tried for years to wrest confidence from my unwilling brain, and with little success.  No matter how confident I tried to feel in myself, some deeper issue would always arise, leaving me empty, wondering if I would ever be that confident woman I longed to be. Instead of being warm and inviting people to experience Jesus, I was often overpowering, loud, and controlling. I stared at myself in the mirror and felt a twinge of guilt when I realized I had become vain and self-obsessed, but I didn’t even know where to start fixing it. I started to wonder why the heck I felt this way if I was supposed to be a Christian. I wondered if Jesus dying on the cross could save me from feeling like I always had to fix something about myself. Could that one act change that dissatisfaction I felt in the very core of me?

 

The thing is, it’s been whispered in our ear our whole lives that the Lord's arm only reaches so far, that there is a limit to His goodness. We think that that stuff is our own responsibility to fix. And women, let’s be honest, there are some fears deep in your chest that you don’t think anything can remedy. But the Lord was not crucified so that we could live in fear or dissatisfaction from anything. Any thing.

 

Well, it turns out there is NO limit to His goodness. Turns out that true confidence is only found when you find out who God really is (like, you know Him as your best friend) and what He thinks of you. It's found when you allow the Presence of God into your life. I've found that a lot of people I meet seem initially confident, but this emotion soon fades in the face of fear. (Being overpowering or loud or controlling are the world’s version of confidence, but in reality they are only reactions from fear). But the ones like Alison who were transparently free, the ones who truly had nothing to hide, the women who were not proud but confident, not sexy or pretty but lovely in all their ways, the men who were patient and strong, these were the people that were not just intermittently confident, but even in their worst times they were totally free.

 

He says He want to transform your life into abundant life, freeing you from anything that will hold you back from Him. That thing you think you’ll never have… that assurance you seek and you think you’ll never find, it’s only possible by allowing the Presence of God Himself into your life. By seeking Him and Him alone, for anything else will only lead to being dry and empty. 

 

People tell me I can't be free. The world tells me I am asking too much of Him. But I am assured that He is the God who Saves.  I am convinced that He is the God who Lives and sees me. I am convinced that nothing will separate me from the love of my God. I have been called out of my old life into His Light, and in that light there is NO room for fear. Darkness flees. Fear is no more. And that little nagging voice inside you telling you that you need to be something else? FORGET IT!

You are His and He is yours. You are His child, his friend, His lover. He died so you could be truly free, and have true confidence. 

 

Walk in that truth today,

 

B

 

A Treasure Well-Hidden (and Most Precious)

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. (vs. 44-46)

I can’t tell you when it happened, exactly. It was a slow, long, deep yearning that came from within, an undeniable Love that made its way known to me. It was the kind of love that consumed everything.

 

I had heard of Him from books, His renown from the lips of others, but I had not known  Him, down to my very Heart of hearts. People told me that what I had was it, where I had been was sufficient. But I was lost. I hungered, my soul was tormented, for I knew there was something more to Him than what everyone said. I had come to the end of Myself. My song had left. My Hallelujah was so very tired. I thought I had reached the end of the road and I had missed something. I had nothing left to give Him, no gift that I could offer. But I yearned for something. I knew not what, but I knew it was to be found in Him.

 

And He saw my hunger and came to me and made His home with me.

 

So I can’t tell you what happened, exactly, or when, or where. But I am irrevocably, inexplicably, totally in love with a Crucified Savior. I am obsessed with the thought of the next time I shall meet with Him, I cannot do anything without thinking of what He is doing or what He is thinking or saying. He calls me out, away from a conventional life.  When I am with Him, all other things start to fade. All other loves, all other things I could run after, they do not satisfy me as His love does. Only His love can reach the innermost places of my heart and overflow because I cannot contain it, and still leave me wanting more and more. I see now that He is beginning where I ended.

 

I can no longer be the same. He has changed everything I am, and I welcome it with outstretched arms. There can be nothing else for me. This is the treasure a man would leave everything to own. Riches beyond compare, wisdom, strength and love so high and wide and deep that it penetrates the deepest parts of me, yet still leaves me wanting more. All along, I knew He was the One for me.

 

I can't tell you the exact moment it happened, but there is now nothing else for me in the world. 

Nothing that I could desire or obtain.

Nothing that I could own or accomplish. Nothing that I could be or learn that will ever compare to the simple joy of being with Him. To rest in His glory and offer up my heart in praise to the King of Glory

 

What is the highest goal of a life with Christ? Is it to win over souls for the Kingdom? Perhaps, but something about that doesn’t sit right with me. Is it to heal the nations or perform acts of power or see the lame walk? Maybe, but that seems a little showy and slightly superficial. Is it to have comfortable lives where everything is in order and people are wowed by our pleasant demeanor? If the Bible or my natural state of frustration is any indication, that’s clearly not the case.

 

I think that the highest aim of our lives is simply to be near to God, knowing Him, maybe even to be ONE with Him.

Just some thoughts to ponder over..

Draw near to Him today.

Beth

"If we would stop proclaiming a God of information and knowledge and started experiencing His love, we would discover that there is nothing greater than knowing Christ."

-Alyssa Cagle

Why Washing Your Hands is Unimportant

One time, the Pharisees got mad at Jesus (really, what's new?) because His disciples were being slobs. They were eating bread without washing their hands, which was a tradition of the elders (see Matt. 15:2). I imagine the disciples were a ragtag bunch and following the little customs of the religious probably wasn't on the top of their to-do list. I imagine them being smelly, coarse, stand-offish and a little messy. The fact that Jesus was so well-known and yet so close to these unreligious men probably rubbed the leaders the wrong way.

So Jesus tells them that they really have no business pointing the finger at the disciples, because they had twisted more than a few laws away from what the Lord intended them to be (case in point, honoring your father and mother). What had probably started as a little harmless poking-fun turned into a calling-out that drew a multitude. Jesus probably starts to get worked up a little. I guess I would too if someone was picking on my buddies. He said that they had covered up the law of God with their tradition.  But that's another story.

He then says, "Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."(vs. 11)

And the Pharisees really get mad then. The New King James says offended. This was utterly against everything they lived for. They had made sure that their lives were full of perfection in this area. And now Jesus was flipping it upside down! But I couldn't help but think that there's a bigger issue here.

"Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”(vs. 17-20)

I was thinking this morning that there is something we can learn from this, despite the fact that we are not first century Pharisees. You see, I think it comes down to trying to control our lives. Let me explain: We obsess. We regulate. We do not touch evil with a ten-foot pole, as if it would taint us. We exercise maniacally and try desperately to control our eating habits, as if having a nice body will make us happy. We attempt to control our thought life. If only we had control over the words and actions of others, for that would make keeping our tempers so much simpler! Even the Christian culture is saturated with self-improvement slogans. Six Biblical Steps to Transforming Your Mind. How to Change Yourself: The Bible Plan for Self Improvement. Saddling Your Emotions: Biblical Counseling. You see, we are just like the Pharisees. Instead of walking with God, we try to frantically control what will eventually leave us dry. We try to control what we put in in order to be pleasing to God with what comes out.

But something about this doesn't sit right with me. If we are responsible for controlling all of this, where does trust come in? Aren't we born again when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Plato in Charmides 157, said, "For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates, as he declared, in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes; and therefore, if the head and body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul. That is the first thing."

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 2:12

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." (1 Cor. 3:18)

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
So Jesus was the cure. Is the cure. I can control what I put into myself, but all of that is irrelevant if I cannot control what comes out. I am convinced it is only through the power and the Presence of God Himself that we will become transformed from the inside out. By His Spirit. By His Way.

For nothing can satisfy my soul,
Nothing can make me whole,
Nothing but Him.

Walk with Him boldly today,

B

The Losing of Beauty

"The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him."
-Harry Emerson Fosdick

In my mad dash from the car to the house, I catch a glimpse of the stars. Quietly, humbly, the Spirit whispers in my ear to come look again and stay a while. But I am just so tired. And I have to go. He does not rebuke me for my hurry, nor does He shout at me with a loud voice. But a lone tear slips down my cheek when horrified, I realize that I ask Him everyday to change me, and then run by when He asks if I will stay for just a moment. I fill my mind with what I please, and often it is on my terms and my time that I meet with God.

It is the minute I take my eyes, my mind off Jesus that I am immediately swept up in myself, giving heed to other distractions, other voices in my head. And how easy it is to listen to things that are not the Spirit, for they shout and clamor for our attention, ready to fill in the gaps with trash and trivial things. We let first come be first served, and forget that the best things in life do not crowd. We listen to the first things that come our way, forgetting that wisdom does not seek, but must be sought. So easily we can be sucked into futile thinking that is not of the Kingdom. We get distraught so easily! Into vanity, lust, anger, the list goes on. And one day we wake up and think, "How did this get here?" There is a dead feeling. We ask, "Lord, where did you go?" Our best life with Him is being lost by being crowded out. We do not deliberately lose beauty from our lives-- we are just busy.

I am extremely grateful for a warm bed to sleep in, especially with my latest adventure on the South Sister. Being up on the mountain makes you think about what's important to you, especially when you get caught in an ice storm unprepared. Sometimes all you want is an unplanned trip. We drove Brutus the Jeep Wagoneer. He doesn't have a speedometer on him, but you can tell you're going 55 if the wind whistles through the windows and 60 if the engine makes an unusual, grinding sound. We hiked for what seemed like forever, contentedly munching on prunes and jerky. Eventually we found ourselves huddled by a fire, contentedly sipping Irish coffee (we had let most of the grounds settle to the bottom. Yes, it was gross, but oh so good...) The fog lifted away from the mountain, and one could see the stars, moon, and distant mountaintops poking through the clouds. It reminded me slightly of the peaks of Caradhras in Tolkein's novels, like I was in another world. I imagined myself reaching up and touching the face of God, hovering above me.
Then it started to ice and gust winds at 60 mph. We were saved from the brunt of the wind by a tree we had camped by, but were not saved from little pieces of ice sticking to our sleeping bags, clothes, and backpacks.

Just when we thought we couldn't stand it one more minute and we were burning our last bit of firewood, the glow of the morning shone and revealed the treacherous work of the mountain around us. Ice an inch thick covered every tree and rock, white and treacherously beautiful. It was a slow climb down. The trail was slick, and there was something other-worldly about it.

There really is no moral to that story.

I think I just needed something rugged, something out of the box, something that would make me feel alive. I needed to get away from all the other things, the things that were tormenting my mind. We all have them. Not one of us wants them. How have we missed the simplest necessity of rooting out the things in our hearts that are hindering us from Him? Of throwing everything out of the way, the sin that entangles us and running after Him? He may be everywhere, but sometimes other things shout over His ever-sweet voice.

Blaise Pascal was a French scientist and philosopher. He invented the syringe, developed the theory of vacuum and suggested that it was prudent for us to accept a belief in God. His argument, called "Pascal's Wager," goes something like this: If you embrace a belief in God, and God exists, then you are rewarded for your belief. If God does not exist, well, you haven't really lost anything important. On the other hand, if you reject a belief in God and God DOES exist, then the consequences of your unbelief could be very unpleasant. In short, if you want to play the odds, embrace a belief in God. Of course, this approach to God is completely unsatisfying. It is highly cynical, and assumes that God will reward those that make the safe bet. It assumes that God does not want a relationship with us and only a contract. Most hauntingly, it sounds like the faith of many people I know--dead.

But the plot thickens when Pascal was 31, less than eight years before his death. He had a dramatic experience of God's presence. He jotted down these notes:

In the year of Grace, 1654,
on Monday, 23 November, Feast of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr,
and others in the martyrology.
Eve of St. Chrysogonous, Martyr, and others,
from about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight

FIRE!
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob
not of philosophers and savants
Certitude. Certitude. Joy. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
"Thy God and my God..."
Grandeur of the human soul
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.


I know I will not find enlightenment in any worldly thing. Not in drink, or in beauty, or in riches. Not in any man or woman or child. Not in security or adventure or comfort. None of those things can save. But you can be certain that all of these are found in the heart of Father God. There can be no other way to feel whole again, no. Let's go back to the start, to the foundation. I don't want to survive. I want to thrive. A day without God with me is empty, it is dead. Each and every heart longs for Him. Every nation, every tongue. What is it that binds humanity together? Desperation. A frantic hope, grasping for something worth living for. And what is this hope, this life that I have found? A treasure greater than all else, a treasure a man would give everything to posses. And yet it is given freely, something so costly. 

I want to crowd everything but Him out.

God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
Lo! the hosts of evil ’round us,
Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways.
From the fears that long have bound us,
Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the living of these days,
For the living of these days.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal.

Walk in love today.

Love,
B

A Tribute to Penny the Lucky Cow

I’m going to tell you a story.

Nine years ago, a little girl with two pigtails and worn out boots walked onto a dairy farm to pick out her new show cow, one that she could use in 4-H. She was excited! She had some money in her pocket and a big grin on her face. The old farmer showed her around the barn and she looked at all the different calves that she could choose from. There were a lot. It was like trying to pick out a puppy from a litter of 200. There was just too much cuteness in the room to even start narrowing any sort of decision down.

I don’t know what it was about the little calf that drew me to her. Maybe it was her one cloudy eye as she tilted her head to look at me. Maybe it’s that my family has a history of having compassion on animals that are sickly looking. Maybe it was that I knew where she would end up if I didn’t take her. Maybe I just felt a connection with the strange creature. 

For whatever reason, I picked the saddest looking calf out of the whole bunch: a little blind Jersey named Penny.

We went through a good many years together. I know that sound strange. To make it easier on yourself, imagine that she was to me as a dog would be to a normal person. She was rather like a dog too. She practically rolled on her belly if you scratched her under her chin. She would follow me wherever I went, or as far as fences would allow. 

I started middle school, and just when the world seemed to be falling all apart (and believe me, as a middle school girl, it does that a lot), Penny would be the shoulder I would cry on, be it a hairy, semi-smelly shoulder. 

She was the luckiest little cow anybody had ever seen. The little cow that could, if you will. We defied all

odds, my cow and I. County fair proved to be a stressful time. All my peers showed top-of-the-line Holsteins. Despite their disdain at my little Jersey cow and even the cynical smirk from the cute boy from the Beef Barn every time he walked by, I stood up straight and tall (all of 5 feet), gritted my teeth, and acted like I was showing the finest cow in all the world. It was probably quite comical to watch me show my 800-lb. Jersey next to the other massive creatures, but like any good Reams, I didn’t let it get to me. I don’t think the judges even realized my cow was blind; they remained in a constant state of awe at how well-behaved she was. One judge said, “I’m just amazed at how this young lady and her cow float around the ring.” I think we ended up winning Grand Champion Showman one year. 

She had a calf in 2006, and I got off of school early. Dakota McBeth and I pulled and pulled until the calf finally popped out. It was gross. And beautiful. I was disgusted. And kind of in awe. It was a boy, and I was sad. I milked her for a total of 8 brutal months after that, morning and night lugging the 20-lb. milking machine out to the dark and cold barn. Besides instilling some form of work ethic in me, the only good thing about it was the unending supply of cheese we had, which Mother was so good at making. I remember missing a lot of late-night social events to sit by a cow’s udder, but perhaps in the end that was my parent’s evil plot… to keep me from getting into trouble. 

The year I started high school she fell into the river. We were walking back from the swimming hole on a day in early June when our horse, Indio, came rampaging across the field, almost trampling us where we stood. Indio and Penny were buddies. The closest of friends. Whenever we went out riding, Indio would strain at the bit to race back home to Penny. They were like Bonnie and Clyde. Abbott and Costello. Except, you know, they were a horse and a cow. 

Anyway, he led us over to the edge of the field, where Penny was floundering in the water. Because the field was much higher than the river, and there was no way to get her out of the muck. She had to wait until the morning, tied to an old stump. They pulled her out with a backhoe. It was really a community effort. Lee Davis, the local cattleman was there, offering vague instructions and making smart-ass comments. Phillip the old deaf farmer ran the backhoe, calmly disregarding the fact that he teetered on the edge of falling in too. Uncle Brady… well, he was just there. You know how men are.

She survived the ordeal, but was never quite the same. She couldn’t have any more calves. It was hard for her to walk up hills. I realized I couldn’t take her to fair anymore. It was saddening.  None of us had the heart to send her to the butcher, but she was a liability to the farm. So we retired her to a green pasture where she could graze peacefully. There would be no more hooking a piece of rope on her halter and letting Chad and Chase or Diana ride her across the field. No more walking her into the show ring, no more getting up early every morning  to milk her. But she remained on the farm, and the question asked me by many a houseguest we had during that time is, “Do you still have Penny?” I said yes.

Well, today I had to say goodbye to Penny. It is not an easy thing, but life is full of things that are hard. You learn growing up on a farm to expect the unexpected. Animals die, the cows eat the entire bean patch, and the hay gets rained on. Probably most influential, little girls grow up. I do not like getting attached to animals. I think they are generally for eating, but Penny will leave a little hole in my heart. Perhaps it’s because I see the transition between the little girl I was and the woman I’m becoming. 

I hope you can relate to this story. The reality is, you probably can’t, unless you shared in one of these memories or had a pet cow of your own, which is highly unlikely. Those who know of this tale already know that it is not meant to make you laugh or cry. It is simply a tribute to a legend and a season that has now passed on, something I will tell my children someday. It’s a story of a strange and unlikely friendship. And best of all, it is true.

After all we’ve been through,
Goodbye, my Penny, I will miss you.

Ponderings about Old Cigars, Being in a Hurry, and Jumping off Roofs

Due to my family's sad lack of an automatic coffee machine, we are subjected to using a ceramic, single-drip, extremely inefficient contraption, great for one person and an utter wreck of an idea when there are four people addicted to caffeine in the same household. My aunt Karen, who is visiting for an indefinite number of days, is accustomed to making coffee in a large metal kettle, dumping in half a gallon of Folgers, letting all the grounds settle to the bottom, and then drinking it. We have been forced to watch our coffee supply dwindle rapidly, and even Dad's indomitable digestive system cannot withstand the syrupy mixture.

Other than that small curse, life is chugging along quite nicely. Dad's Jeep is broken, and you can often find him under the hood on a hot summer's day, covered in engine oil, mumbling curses under his breath and throwing random parts over his shoulder as he deems fit. He took it upon himself to cut his own hair, and since he couldn't see the back to cut it, the result is a scary, adult version of a mullet from the 90's. Since Mom is working overtime, our diet has consisted mostly of hamburgers and ice cream. Since I am exiled to sleeping on the couch while my relatives are here to visit, my patience is even shorter than normal, (and it's already pretty short). I often find myself in ridiculous situations as a result.

Why, just the other night, I became so frustrated that I went upstairs and sat on the roof. It was supposed to function as an act of independence, but soon the bugs started biting me and I got cold and my iron resolve started to rust a little bit. However, my pride would not allow me to return downstairs and let the other person feel the satisfaction of being right. I felt trapped and started to panick a little, for there was nowhere to go, no way to escape humility by trudging dejectedly back downstairs.

But where there's a will and a Reams' ingenuity, there's a way.

So I strapped on a pair of my brother's Tivos and jumped off the roof.

It probably wasn't the wisest idea, and it was a lot farther down than I had suspected in the dark, but in the line of duty to protect one's freedom (pride, ego?) one will do unwise things. I went on a walk and cooled down. Once my parent's realized I had seemingly disappeared into thin air, they did what any normal parent would do: wash the dinner dishes, put Braveheart on VHS, and let me be.

I have no awesome, deep spiritual analogy to go with that story, I just thought someone might relate. Being at this stage of your life is exhausting. You have to simultaneously figure out what you're going to do for a career, what kind of people you should be hanging out with, and the most difficult, who the heck you are. Sometimes you just need to jump off a roof. And that's ok.

After a rather long day at work, I cleaned out my car (long time overdue), and what would be sitting in the back seat but an unopened cigar? I was elated. I shared it with my brother. After all, you must give freely of what you have freely received, and he needed to learn how to puff. I am probably breaking so many rules by saying this, but I am firmly convinced that the Lord knew that I needed a smoke right then. He cares about the little things, and He knows our every need. 

Speaking of little things, (really, I am so sorry for my raging ADHD), I am starting to see the Lord in everything. I realized recently that I am and have been in a hurry for quite some

time, perhaps my whole life. I am always anxious to move onto the next thing and be with the next person and the next place, but after a time of doing that people start to not want to be around you anymore. They know that you are thinking about something you deem as "more important" than they.

Then I started thinking about Jesus, and how he was never in a hurry. He was busy, that much is certain. But he was never hurried enough not to notice the people who needed him. He stopped in his tracks to talk to the Samaritan woman at the well. In a throng of people, his apostles thought he was crazy as he noticed the woman who touched the edge of his robe to be healed. He sat down the night before he was crucified and ate dinner with his beloved friends. He ate dinner with them. I’m pretty sure if he thought being in a hurry all the time was a good idea, he could have justified it. After all, he was on the way to saving the human race. Pretty important deadline, if you ask me. But He was always focused on the task at hand, the person He was with, the place He was at. 

The thought keeps crossing my mind that there may not be a harder thing in the world to do than to not be in a rush, for that is how we miss the character of God. I could go on about how our society’s mentality is to be hurried, that it has classically conditioned us to be always looking forward to the next thing, but I know that it would be dismissed immediately. After all, we’ve heard all that stuff before. I think it's more than that. I think that hurry is slowly killing us. We need to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. If we were to slow down, to be present with the person we're with, (after all, to really care about someone means first of all to be present with them), radical things would start to happen. When our hearts are at rest, it invites others to come in and to discover the source of rest... the Almighty. It makes people feel like we want to be with them, allows their hearts to be at peace and whispers that everything is ok. The Father's heart is like that, I think. No striving. You don't have to be anyone you're not nor do anything special. Just be. Live.  And it is a wonderful person to be around indeed who has grasped that concept. You start serving the Lord in the small things… and then bigger things start to happen. When you stop and be with His children, you end up stopping to be with Him. You start to find out who He really is, what real love is.

So anyway... I am starting to see God in places I never have before. He's in the simple

things, the seemingly small and insignificant things the world passes by in their rushing about. He's in good food and fellowship, awful coffee, the sunrise, the cigar that you find under the seat of a car, the muddy footprints on the floor, jumping off the roof just because you feel like it, and the chaos at the dinner table. He's in sincere conversation and the giving of your heart and your possessions freely, and in a kind word that touches the coldest parts of the heart. I am humbled by what I see when I slow down and just look at life. I see hurting people that need Jesus and I see the opportunity to speak of him, but even more than that, I often see just how much love is around me that I have ignored in my hurry. 

The air is cool tonight and smells like fresh cut hay. I think I'll just sit for a while.

With all my love,

B

Late night at the Beanery...

Day at the County Fair!