Sideways Sunrays

I'm grateful to be with my folks in Colorado, but I'm simultaneously missing my home in Germany these days. (It's a fun TCK perk to be home and homesick at the same time.) So here's a musing I wrote in April on a solo hike during one of the many 2020 quarantines. 

A shot from this day

Sideways Sunrays

Psalm 16:6

 

Perched on a bench far above Kandern, I dangle my feet and overlook the Hexenplatz. Legends abound about this place, cantering in all corners of the Black Forest. Before me lies a circle of stone, numbers etched on its octagonal sides. Next to me a memorial marks the spot of a plane crash and death of a high-profile politician. But none of the whispered myth, mystery, or murder occupies my mind right now.

I’m entranced by the dance happening straight out in front of me. Seams of light filtering through fir boughs bounce off golden flecks whipping around in the wind, a glitter parade over the Platz. In an intricate interplay of light, shadow, and color, like Fasching* confetti, the pollen falls to wash the woods clean – which of course it can’t. At home it coats cars and gutters, marring recently washed windows. And yet here in the forest, it’s a merry kind of fairy tale magic.

For a moment of atonement, in this thin place that holds horror for some and hatred for others, redemption refracts off pollen in the sideways sunrays. I look up, higher than the hills where my help fails to come from. Gilded light leaks from heaven’s throne room itself, redeeming even this place and this moment. Heaven and earth meet, marrying pleasant lines around my beautiful inheritance.

*Fasching is the German world's version of Carnival, the party before Lent starts.

"You, Katrina, follow me"

It hasn’t been what I expected - living in the same house as a cancer patient. Truth be told, I’m not sure what I expected. More nausea and not quite so many banana loaves. I’ve been impressed with Amanda’s fortitude as well as with the generosity of her neighbors and circle of friends. Within 24 hours of going live, her meal/flower train was filled up through February. People have dropped off blankets, knitted hats, pitched in to finish the kids’ fort, and even donated a limo ride to look at Christmas lights. It has been amazing! I’ve tried to help out where I can, mostly it’s been the unpopular task of making sure the kids log in to their remote classes on time and the slightly more popular one of picking up library books when they become available.

But I find myself praying a lot to God for her healing and asking why it had to be this generous young mother of two young kids. Of course there’s no “right” person to be the recipient of cancer and no good time. Still, I argue and pretend I could make a decent case for why it shouldn’t be my friend. 

That’s when, a few weeks ago, I arrived at the end of my study of the book of John, specifically the last chapter. Peter has just finished a heart-wrenching and restorative conversation with Jesus who ended it with the call to yet again “Follow me.” Instantly, Peter turns and sees his fellow disciple, John, and says “What about him?” Jesus answers, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

I see myself in Peter here, wondering about others and if Jesus will write fair stories for all of us. Regardless of whether my concern is selfish (as in: I didn’t envision my home assignment year like this) or more selfless (as in: I wish I could trade places and take your cancer for you), I’m convicted here that I spend too much time trying to patch together other people’s stories. As Aslan says it best in The Horse and His Boy, “No one is told any story but their own.” My main calling is still as simple as Peter’s. “You, Katrina, follow me without concern of the story I’m writing for Amanda.”

I also see myself in John. (And this is the part that hurts more than convicts.) He’s watching Jesus tell his friend and long-time fishing partner - the guy who was by his side on Resurrection morning - that he will die an early death, that John might not, and that Peter isn’t to worry about it. History tells us John did outlive all the other disciples by quite a bit, and if I’m honest, I fear that story a little bit. I’d rather depart first and not have to watch friends suffer through diseases and then die to leave behind a wake of sorrow. I’m not making light of the ministry I do have or the people I’ve loved well, but it’s not like I’m irreplaceable. There are other teachers and missionaries in the world. Mothers are not! That’s exactly when I sense Jesus turn from Peter/Amanda to John/Katrina and say, “If it is my will that you remain while others pass on before you, what is that to you? You follow me!”

No one is told any story but their own.

Looking at lights with Amanda and her daughter Eva

Living in Liminal Space

my homemade Advent wreath

This summer, I was introduced to the phrase “liminal space.” It refers to the in-between transition place, when you have started to leave the old but are not yet fully in the new. Your feet straddle the threshold (limen in Latin) with your heart in one room and your gaze in the other. Liminal space describes my world well, a boarding school for TCK’s, whose heart homes are across international borders and passport countries even farther away. We have learned to inhabit the tension of feeling ourselves a part of multiple worlds.

Jesus likely knew something about that, too. The Son of God and simultaneous Son of Man, creator of the universe without a place to lay his head, spent his life here living in liminal space. He, who was fully God, became fully human by spending nine months in the womb of a Jewish girl. He grew up obeying the laws of Moses and yet had come precisely to introduce a new covenant, a better one. At the culmination of his ministry, he hung suspended between heaven and earth, life and death, justice and grace. His choice to live in the in-between saved us.

2020 has felt akin to a liminal space. Somewhere between multiple quarantines, facemasks, and remote everything, it is good to remember this is temporary living. Because Jesus left heaven to wear human skin and eventually die for us, our true home has shifted to being with him. May this Advent season invite you to become comfortable living in the juxtaposition of already/not yet, whatever your liminal space looks like.

"Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

*First written for WorldVenture's 2020 Christmas Advent readings.

November 9

This may be a weird history teacher quirk, but I associate certain dates with countries near and dear to me. For example, on December 6, I think of Quito Day and the amazing gift God gave in the six months I got to live in Ecuador. On December 6, we crammed into open carriages and rode around the city blowing whistles and shouting “Viva Quito”; it was a hoot! Easter Sunday belongs to Austria in my heart as the way our church celebrated it with the best breakfast on God’s green earth made me salivate all of Holy Week. Of course I feel patriotic for the US on July 4th and pause for a moment every Chinese New Year to relive my year in Taiwan. Most of those memories stir happy thoughts and cozy feelings.

But Germany? To Germany belongs the troubled November 9. The only time this was a moment of celebration was in 1989. I was 8 and have a vivid memory of standing next to my Dad in front of the TV as we watched people dancing on the Berlin Wall before bulldozing it down. East Germans across Austria suddenly came out of hiding and rushed to the opening Iron Curtain border. But there was also that date in 1923 when an upstart politician with a mustache staged the Beer Hall Putsch and was consequently arrested and thrown in prison where he wrote the book that would launch his career and a world war. But to top them all, there was that one November 9 in 1938, the one that still makes me shudder slightly: The Night of Broken Glass. 

10 years ago today, I had the opportunity to attend the opening of an exhibit at the Lörrach museum, just 20 minutes down the road from Black Forest Academy. An archivist had discovered an undeveloped roll of film, and the pictures it contained shocked and brought Kristallnacht back to the surface in an uncomfortable way. The photographs truly moved me, and I wrote the following reflection back then, that I actually shared once before on this blog. It bears repeating if you’ll indulge and remember with me.

November 9

Today, of all days, I broke a glass. Before fate or fortune could stop it, it had slipped from my fingers and scattered into a hundred pieces, escaping even into the tiniest crevices of my floorboards. Of course I retaliated with the broom and dustbin, but there was that one shard, astoundingly wedged between floor and cupboard. The broom wasn’t enough; I had to use my hands to pry it loose. With a violent tug, the sparkling glass came free, but not before it had extracted the reddest trickle of blood from my index finger, the price of its sacrifice.

Today, of all days, I met you. I believed I was heightening my intellectuality by attending my first German lecture. Proudly was I ready to cast my critical eye over the newest museum display and talk mightily with my fellow colleagues about our superiority of compassion over people of the past. But I had barely made it past the door when you greeted me, standing there in your button-down wool coat, carpet slung over one arm and tote bag firmly clutched in the other. You floated motionless in the middle of the lively crowd, and your thoughts were a hundred miles away. No one was looking at you. Everyone was too busy staring at the guard who had just forced himself into the edge of the frame, finger outstretched, tonsils glaring at me from his open throat. Your father was scowling at him and your mother hanging on fearfully, her own bag pressed against her chest. Kids who should have been in school were congested up almost to your legs, and neighbors hung with their big bosoms over their balcony rails to watch the spectacle. You just stood there in front of the transport truck, unfazed, your smooth facial features emotionless and your lips pursed in a straight line. Yet the injustice of what was happening simmered beneath the surface. You could feel it in the pulse of your fingertips and your fiery eyes as you stared off into a distant land where no price would ever be demanded of your blood.

Today, of all days, I walked the same streets you once called home. The glass has been cleaned up along with your carpet and other possessions that were pried from your fingers seventy-two Novembers ago. Then, the people praised themselves for their purity and rational-mindedness; now, we praise ourselves for our tolerance and open-heartedness. Yet how does any of it compare to the simplicity of a young woman whose life splintered into thousands of shards in the blink of an eye? Who was asked to pay an ultimate price? And only one forgotten photographer noticed as she slipped into oblivion.

Today, of all days, I will remember your scar as I finger my own.

One of the other pictures from that roll of film, credit: Dreiläendermuseum Lörrach

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Mountains & Valleys or a New Analogy

It was too perfect how all the details of the day fell together that Sunday - the timed meetings with four friends and the conversations that were life-giving and full of dreams for the future. And yet, I fell into bed stuck in a spiral of exhausted thoughts because I didn’t think I’d have the energy to do it all again on Monday.

I could hear the frustration in my colleague’s voice as people with more authority than we have proposed changes we couldn’t understand, and I felt bad that my sympathy only reached so far because I was still excited about my new role in it all.

The house was full of balloons for the 7-year-old who would be home in an hour, and I stood in the kitchen frosting cupcakes when the text came through with two simple words that disturbed my work and my heart: “It’s cancer.”

I’m sure we’re all familiar with scenarios like these, in which life tastes bitter and sweet at the same time. We feel caught between the emotions, the ones we want to feel, those thrust upon us, and the whole gamut in between. Whichever emotion we choose to lean into, we feel guilty or possibly even offend someone for not being fully engaged in the other emotion as well. Can you relate? Or is it just me? It has felt especially exaggerated in this political climate as I’m frequently asked for the European/German/TCK perspective and know I’ll never do either side justice with my limited observations and experience; I dread this coming week when half of my friends will be jubilant and the other half devastated. And a single election can’t begin to compare to all of life with its numerous highs and lows. I’ve found myself asking the question: how can I be both in the valley and on a mountain top at the same time? Is that possible? Healthy? Can I both love being with people and just want to sleep? How in the world do I celebrate a much-anticipated birthday well yet lament my friend’s cancer at the same time?

A wise woman recently challenged my analogy of the mountains and valleys. She offered the following alternative: Instead of a hiker constantly going up or down, imagine you’re a train on its two tracks. One track is more of what we’d call the pleasant stuff like new jobs and time with friends and birthday cupcakes, which of course makes the other one the disappointments in life, rather like fatigue, frustration, and disease. At times our train may go around corners, and we’ll lean more toward one track over the other, but in general life is made up of both the gentle and the rough, the rose and the thorn, the smile and the tear. To pretend only one is true is to ignore half of the journey God has us on because there are surely lessons to be learned in being aware of both.

I’m not saying it’s easy. I rather think I must be a clumsy little steam engine at times, trying to know which emotion to focus on at any given moment, but I do like the idea that I don’t need to dread when a current high will come to an end and suddenly be a valley again. The good and the bad, they’re both present in my life. And the slats connecting the two train tracks, holding it all together and making forward motion possible? That’s Jesus.

the old Kandern steam train in Germany

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Is Gentleness Possible?

I had a pretty stark reputation as a 3-year-old: one of strong will and defiant acts of bullying, to be exact. Stories abound of how I'd take toys from other children who were too afraid to say "no" to my insistence or my attempts to take every single book off the pastor's shelf or the day I plucked all the flower heads (just the heads) that lined the meticulous Austrian driveway. The word you'd certainly never hear me described as was "gentle."

As I got older, I did develop a more compassionate heart though I wouldn’t say my roughness disappeared. I just learned to channel it into a heated debate or to plaster over it with kind smiles. I wasn’t mean-spirited, but I certainly wasn’t timid if I was passionate about something. Add to that being raised in an era when girls were being told to break the mold and be anything but soft or gentle, and you end up with a Christian woman trying to walk that line of confident boldness that came naturally to her and yet seeing in Scripture a call to gentleness. How could I possibly be both?

I’ll be honest: I spent years passing over references to “adorn myself with a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3) or the “blessings of inheritance for the meek” (Matthew 5), thinking those were calls for a different time and place. It became a little harder to ignore when the person being described as "gentle" was God himself. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus?! The same guy who drove merchants from the temple with a whip? What exactly does he mean by “gentle” then?

While in quarantine, I came across a word study of that very word and had my mind slightly blown. The source* said, “gentleness is that temper of spirit in which we accept God’s dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. It’s about those who rely on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice. … The gentle person is at peace because he is not occupied with self at all.” They make the case that the call to be gentle is less a character trait and more about relinquishing control, about turning aside from self-interest because you can be fully confident that someone greater is actually working on your behalf. 

For the first time I can see a melding of two sides of me I’ve struggled with. Trusting God more and abdicating control (when I rarely have it anyway) is indeed a sanctifying process that he leads me in - a fruit of the Spirit, if you will (Galatians 5). It also affirms that being wild, confident, and a bit on the severe side by nature doesn’t have to be a fault I need to rid myself of. I rarely have a problem standing up for myself and want to strive to work on behalf of others and for what’s right, as Jesus did, even as I keep asking the Lord to adorn me with a gentle, meek spirit, as Jesus had.

*Navpress 1 Peter study, citing Wolfgang Bauder in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 2

a gentle sunrise over Turtle Lake, Minnesota

Leaves and Death

"Tree is dying!" the young boy remarks as he, his mother, and I explore the woods behind their house. The leaves are mostly crisp, a hunt of crunch beneath our feet after the rain that just fell.

“No, honey” his mother replies gently, “the tree is just losing its leaves. That’s supposed to happen. It’s fall. The leaves turn yellow and red and fall down.”

“Oh. That tree not dying.” The young boy seems content with the answer and quickly runs off in search of the perfect stick.

I smile at the teachable moment my friend has seized upon and ponder anew the symbolism of a tree losing all its leaves in order to prepare itself for winter, and how it can look dead but not be. And then for the first time, I see the leaves. The tree may not be dying, but the leaves sure are.

It may be that I attended a funeral yesterday - the reason that death is on the mind. I didn’t know Lee well, but she was a constant presence when I came back to Grace Church and joined the Women’s Missionary Stewardship group. Having faithfully served in the Philippines for multiple decades, we developed a bond; she knew what it was like as a mom to send your children off to boarding school and entrust them to teachers like me. Her funeral was marked by the gospel message from start to finish! It became evident quickly her final wish was that her death might bring life to those family members who didn’t know Jesus. She had prayed her death would bring about life, that she might be a leaf.

An image floats into my mind of the tree of life. And perhaps I’m taking the analogy too far at this point, but just as a tree’s survival of winter means its leaves have to die, my survival depended on the death of a certain Savior of the world. He is the tree of life, but he is also the leaf that died. He allowed himself to be cut off from the source of true life so that he could die my death and I could survive winter. 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” In a way, I was promoted from being a leaf to a branch. I get to rest, being made a more permanent part of the tree as long as I abide, clinging to the trunk with its roots deeply sunk into the earth.

Have I mentioned how much I love fall? And crunchy leaves and apple crisp and cozy wrap-around sweaters? (I am a stereotypical girl, am I not?) I love my Savior more than all of those things, and I’m grateful for the daily reminders he literally drops in my path.

P.S. Here's a song called Mercy's Tree I just discovered and love.

a hike along Lake Superior last week

Pilgrimaging into His Presence

(I wrote these thoughts for a BFA newsletter last fall, but I'm reflecting on them again in my new surroundings. Enjoy.)

Psalm 84:1-2, 5

“How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.”

If you know me semi-well, you know I"m obsessed with pilgrimages. In the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to go on pilgrimage with a BFA colleague. The trail across northern Spain, the Camino to Santiago de Compostela, is a 800-km (500-mile) medieval path with historical and spiritual significance, even for a Protestant like me who doesn’t believe in the necessity of relics or indulgences. I’ll spare you the stories of blistered feet and mountain highs; instead I want to focus on two words I learned on the very first day of walking: ultreia and suseia.

Immediately when you start walking the Camino, people greet you with the standard “Buen Camino” everywhere you turn. However, back in the 1200’s, when Latin was still wide-spread as the language of the Church, the more common greeting was “Ultreia,” which translates to “onward” or “further” or “beyond.” When said to a pilgrim, it was meant as an encouragement to not give up, but to keep pushing on until one reached the desired destination, whether Santiago or some other goal. Upon hearing this cheerful greeting, the pilgrim response was to answer with “et Suseia,” which means “and upward.” Put together, the greeting becomes “onward and upward,” or - if you prefer the version of Farsight the Eagle, Jewel the Unicorn, and Reepicheep the Mouse - “further up and further in!” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle). It was a much richer, deeper encouragement over “Buen Camino,” not the least of which in that it was a call-response; it requires both parties to engage in the greeting.

What Ultreia and Suseia call to mind is that while a pilgrimage may be an external, physical journey, its ultimate purpose is one of internal, spiritual growth. I may have ended my month-long Camino in the city of Santiago, but the true mark of a pilgrim is to end up in the courts of the Lord, God’s dwelling place, as the Psalmist reminds us. According to Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, the author of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, a pilgrimage should result in the deeper sense of being a stranger on this planet, a sojourner merely passing through.

Now I grant that it isn’t possible for us to daily leave our desks, classrooms, or dorms and walk pilgrimages. And yet, since finishing one, I’ve become more mindful of the connection that does exist between physically setting myself up well and sitting in God’s presence regularly. My ultreia might be the trek to Ikea to purchase a TV tray so that my Bible, candle, and coffee coaster are within easier reach of my favorite gray chair every morning. Ultreia could be the mindful journey from my office to the classroom knowing I will encounter 15 8th graders who all bear the image of God. Ultreia is evident when someone goes out of his or her way to speak about Jesus to a fellow pilgrim so as to encourage both hearts upward. What is your “further in” so that you will be more prone to look “further up” as well?

The last thing I want to do is promote legalism or a works-based theology, saying we need to do anything to earn access into God’s presence. Never! But if I took away anything from my Camino, it’s that setting physical reminders to draw my attention heavenward and to remind me that I’m always in God’s presence … works. The yearning of my soul for the living God, whether I stop to recognize that’s what it is or not, finds its fulfillment in suseia, in recalling that with him is my home. He is the goal of our earthly pilgrimage, and in his graciousness, he gives us abundantly of himself even now. No wonder the psalmist calls the pilgrim blessed.

Matt Gilman has a song based on Psalms 42 and 84. Click here to hear it.

First Day of School

The sun comes up on this momentous morning in golden pink rays over the Rockies, and the Spirit whispers in my ear, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” I swallow the lump in my throat and thank him.

Because a second ago I’d been staring at those same Rocky Mountains, thinking how they represented another layer of geographical barriers separating me from where I want to be. Over there. Across an ocean. And in a classroom with a herd of Middle Schoolers as today is the first day of school at BFA.

And I know I’m where I should be as I grab my journal and head into Day 3 of my Debrief Retreat. It’s been good to tell stories and reflect on questions of the heart; I trust the voices of these counselors who have known me for nearly 20 years. I can lay out all the options I’m considering for my future: sunrises in the Forest, birds in flight over the Steppe, or cohorts of school leaders eager to grow. In those places, this too is the day the Lord has made.

I’m grateful that the one who holds the mountains and oceans and rivers in between also holds my placement and timing as well. Pray for me as I make decisions about what is ahead. :-)

Thick Skins, Soft Hearts

I absolutely love a good storm. I’m talking constant lighting, loud thunder, and rain so hard on the roof that all conversation has to cease. I’m sitting in one of those right this very minute. As I watch the sky darken and think about how grateful I am I did not go on my planned 5-mile walk an hour ago, it strikes me how both disruptive and non-disruptive such a storm can be.

You can’t ignore it. People are closing garage doors and kids are summoned, told to grab bikes and skateboards on the way in. Laundry is torn off the lines as quickly as possible, and everyone comments on the storm, from little Sam’s “It raining hard” to my own “Oooh, did you see that lightning bolt!?”

And yet, as twin sister Georgia says, “We come inside. We safe” in her adorable 3-year-old accent, it’s just as true that we can shelter ourselves pretty well from the impact of most kinds of deluge these days. This particular storm can’t touch us, not really. Unless hail damages the borrowed car, the threat will eventually pass, and no one will think of it again.

Insulation from the happenings of “out there” can actually be fairly healthy. If we were to be constantly exposed and vulnerable to every harmful event that came to our lives, we’d collapse from exhaustion pretty quickly. And yet (you knew this was coming), I can’t help but question the extent to which our insulation turns into isolation and we no longer let any chaos in.

There’s a whole gamut between everything and nothing. I’m struggling to learn how to talk wisely and to be informed about injustice in my country. An old friend lost her roof in the Iowa storms this week. I’ve watched with tears the aftermath of the explosion in Beirut where two little girls, who once frolicked around my house, live. The stories just beginning to pour out of Belarus fill me with a sense of foreboding dread. There are nights (like Tuesday) where my mind just won’t stay quiet. And there’s good in that, too. Don't get me wrong; nobody likes sleepless nights. But while I don’t want to get into the habit of justifying all my decisions, declaring what I keep out and what I let in to be the right choices, I do want to be mindful to never veer too far to one side. I strive not to be easily shaken by the disruptions of this world while also acknowledging them as potential life-altering events. Just because it’s not my life doesn’t make it insignificant. Thick skins and soft hearts - that’s a plea I often make to my Middle School students and sometimes need to preach back to myself.

It’s starting to get lighter outside, and the cul-de-sac is filled with puddles that I’m thinking of inviting Thorsen and Eva to go splash in with me. Time to turn off the news for this day and relinquish all the stories - even mine - to God.

an after-rain walk

Death for the sake of Life

It’s been 6 years since my last post, but amazingly I’m right where I left off in 2014: at the start of a year-long Home Assignment in the states. A major transition, such as a move to another continent, can’t help but disrupt all semblance of normal life. Add to that a global pandemic and a 14-day quarantine upon arrival, and I’ve layered the feeling of lonely staleness on top of the chaos of a trans-Atlantic move. Instead of diving into family life and an instant schedule to keep me busy, I’ve been forced to sit still and deal with the rawness.

Stale and raw are both words I’ve used with God in the past two weeks as I try to work through my emotions. But really what I’m feeling is saturated. I had planned to use quarantine to read and write a ton, listen to podcasts, and accomplish a pile of work-related projects, and while a fair amount of that has happened, I’ve felt rather robotic. Nothing I hear or read sticks, almost as if I don’t have the capacity to take in new information right now. It remains on the surface of my brain, and all too often I’m turning back pages or starting podcasts over while asking: What is wrong with me?

Oh right. Transition. The capital-T word of the missions world. The thing that encompasses so very much death. I just said farewell to a season of life with certain groupings of friends that can never be recreated. My heart knows some good-byes were spoken that will end up being final, but my head doesn't know yet which ones. Not a single student will be where I left him or her when I return - if I return. Uncertainty reigns, and I haven’t even touched on the deaths inside me: to the confident, capable teacher in her own classroom; the rhythms of work, Tuesday night Small Group, Sunday morning crepes, and walks on Black Forest trails; to the calling and oversea-living I’ve come to cherish and love. With so much dying, it’s no wonder I can’t absorb anything. Dead things don’t take in living things.

Yet I believe in a sovereign God who uses death to pave the way for new life. In fact, sometimes he kills off some old habits, the pride of control, the obsessions with things I love, precisely because he wants to make room for new growth. Perhaps reaching the end of what I can take in is exactly where he wants me so that I’ll surrender some of what fills me too full. Surrender. The capital-S word of the missions world?

In her book Looming Transitions, Amy Young writes “I want a fertile soul. I want to be the kind of person who is able to let roles or locations or seasons of life die so there is space for the new to grow” (p. 11-12). She’s singing my song! There’s a healthy pruning that needs to take place so that fruit can grow - fruit that is needed and appropriate for the new place and season. What I’m learning is that the saturation by itself isn’t bad because it’s marking something important, but I cannot cling to what’s dead. If I ever want to feel vivacity again and enjoy learning and growth, I need to let some of the old things be siphoned off. And those deaths, for Jesus’ sake, can lead to life (2 Corinthians 4:11).

So, here I am: stale and raw, ending my quarantine and about to launch into Home Assignment, palms up and open in a posture of surrender, hoping my heart will follow my body soon. I need the pruning. I want the fruit. Have mercy on me Jesus, I am yours.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

2 Corinthians 4:10-12

the new digs for the year