The Chronicles of Marnia

Where did the fall go?

2011-11-25T06:29:00.000-08:00

My Volleyball Team

Has it really been three months since the end of summer? Good glory. And now the holidays are here, and so before I launch into decorating my house for Christmas, time to record for posterity the events of the past few months.

The new school year brought a fun but challenging new venture: coaching volleyball! The position had been posted in the spring, but I talked myself out of applying, thinking there was no way I'd have time to do anything like that during the year. As the summer progressed and the position stayed open, I prayed more specifically about it and felt like Jesus was telling me that He was holding the door open for me. So I applied and got the job. It was glorious and overwhelming and wonderful and HARD. The schedule was enough to run me ragged, but I wouldn't change the decision to coach. These eight girls were so great -- challenging as teenage girls can definitely be, but I am hopeful that God will use the relationship built the draw them to Himself. Now that it has been a month since the end of the season, I am more prone to say that I'll do it again next season. I'm hopeful I'll cope with the schedule better now that I know more about what it entails. :)

What happens when my advisory kids bring black athletic tape to class

My fourth year at Davis is also going well. One of the BEST things is my advisory class. I've had these kids since their freshmen year, and they are getting set to graduate this spring. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE them! I will be one sad panda this spring as they all graduate (well, most of them :-/ ). There are a few kindred spirits in that group, and I'm thankful for the chance to really get to invest in their lives over these past four years.

Pier 1 fun with my YL gal Jenny

Colby K.

Young Life continues to be an important part of my life. I still struggle now and again (usually on Mondays) with not wanting to be "in charge" of anything like this, but then I get to have important conversations with kids about their lives and their faiths and I think, "it is worth it." YL allows me to add verbal proclamation to the ways I show the love of Christ to the kids at school, and while it is challenging in a LOT of ways, I am sticking with it for this year. I have three GREAT leaders working with me, and another potential leader in the wings, so I know I'm not "alone" in the ministry. Just last week, I got to share at the YL banquet about how God has changed the lives of two gals from Davis: Colby and Jeana. Colby was my first YL kid (who went on to become a YL leader with us) and Jeana was her YL kid. I took Jeana and her friends to see Colby at PLU over Veterans Day, which was such a blessing. Colby is really doing well at school and has even stepped into YL leadership at another high school! I'm so proud of her. :) I'm not sure how YL will play out this coming summer (whether or not I'll go on assignment, in particular), but for now, I'll just keep swimming. :)

And that is the report. God continues to challenge me to ask for His will in my life, not just for what I want. And with that in mind and heart, I am thankful for this season of my life.

A glorious ride

2011-08-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

What a summer it has been! I realize that technically it isn't over yet -- school doesn't start until August 31 (Happy birthday to me!) -- but the days have the feel of prepping for school: I'm meeting with potential Young Life leaders, squeezing in dates with my neices/nephews, and making lists of things I need to do so that I'm ready when my new set of English students walk through the door in two weeks. While I am so excited about this fall and its new challenges, I would be remiss if I didn't write at least one post about The Summer of 2011! Who knew so much could be packed into two months?!?!?

Young Life Assignment & Canyon Camp

A few fantastic members of my A-Team

I got to spend the first three weeks of this summer investing in the lives of Young Life leaders and campers at Washington Family Ranch's Canyon Camp. In three weeks, my team and I got to serve almost 2000 campers and more than 200 leaders as they experienced the best week of their lives. My job this year was a Head Leader, so I got to encourage and support the leaders as they walked (and ran and jumped and blobbed) with their students through the week. My Head Leader team (6 other fantastic adults who served in the same function as I did) was an absolute blessing. They were all HIGH CAPACITY people with great leadership/service experience and maturity; in fact, it was the humility and maturity that I appreciated most because -- believe it or not -- I was NOT the most outspoken person on the team. The whole thing had the potential to erupt in power struggles and ego clashes, but the Christ-like humility of each team member allowed for us all to serve in the same space. It was so great to participate with these kinds of leaders. The rest of the Assignment Team was also a BLAST to get to know. There were so many opportunities to LAUGH with this group of Jesus-loving individuals! It was also so much fun to get to serve leaders from the Northwest, many of whom I have met or served with at camp over the last two summers. I don't know what Jesus has in store for me with this Mission that is Young Life, but I am thankful for the chances I have been given to grow as a leader and as a disciple in this context. :)

The Davis Gals & The Big Ball

During the second of my three weeks at camp, the girls from Davis came with Colby and Jael, two of the college-aged ladies who've been serving at Club all year. It was so much fun to have them there, but it was also a real challenge for me. I was praying for discernment and wisdom all week long because I didn't know when I should step in to support them with the girls and when I should just let them lead without me. We lived three days in every 24 hours it seemed, especially as girls were open and honest about the pain in their lives and my leaders were experiencing their own personal challenges as well. At the end of the week, though, both of them had a good experience as leaders and the girls loved their week as well.

The Rest of July

Once Assignment finished on July 8, I spent a few days running around Oregon visiting friends and facilitating at teacher conferences. Every summer I say I don't want to do these anymore (I get SO NERVOUS), but every time I'm in the middle of presenting, I LOVE doing it!!! What a silly Marah I am.

The Smith/Hemker Fam (and me & Jaelynn)

When I got home, my family from Indiana flew in for a visit. Oh how I love love love them! Uncle Larry, Aunt Sue, Ian, Emily, and her whole family spent 10 glorious days with us in Washington. We took a day trip to attempt to see Mt Rainier (it was too cloudy) and had lots of pool time and laughter. I am so blessed to have a family that really loves each other and loves Jesus together.
Another short element of July was a 4-day fly-by trip to Canada to see Baba. Now this trip, while I'm glad I took it, was really difficult. Baba is 99, and his body is so frail. His mind is sharp, and he remembered me. I got to spend hours holding his hand and answering the same questions each day: what am I teaching, and am I married. He is my last living grandparent and my heart just aches for him to go be with Jesus. While that was challenging, I did get to have a short time to reconnect with a few of my friends in Calgary: Mike and Greg. Hurray for wings and laughter and books and music and Jesus and friendship.

Creekside Baby!!!

The other BIG event from this summer was taking six 8th & 9th grade girls to Young Life's Creekside Camp. What a RIOT!!! These girls were SO MUCH FUN!!!! The camp property is incredible, and our assignment team was BEAST!!! Water slides, mud pits, glow-in-the-dark leader hunts, and the truth about Jesus made for one incredible week. Four of the six girls will be at Davis next year, and all six of the gals want to get together every week for "cabin time". Hmmmm..... we call that Campaigners in Young Life. :) I'm excited to see what God will do with these gals during their high school years, and I'm praying for wisdom on how to lead and love and disciple them.

The Fill-In Days

My Little Tyler Joe

So those were my big events during the summer, but the fill-in days were just as glorious. I spent lots of time at The Ranch getting my tan on with Rachel and the kids. From watching Jaelynn conquer her fear of swimming without a life jacket on to being Tyler's catcher as he launched himself into the water, my auntie heart gets filled time and again by these sweet little people. I also kept up with singing and teaching at Franklin Hill, though I'll be taking a little break in September to ease the transition into school and coaching. Yep -- I said coaching! I got hired to coach C squad volleyball, and I am more than a little nervous. However, I feel like Jesus held open this door for me and I want to see what this kind of work/relationship building/ministry might hold for me. Try-outs start on Monday, so that will be the official end of my summer vacation.

In all of these endeavors, I am seeing the hand of Jesus' protection and provision for me. I've learned more about myself and about Him and am so thankful for His reminders to rest in His Presence and not freak out about the maybes in my life. Thanks to all my friends and family who have prayed me right through this summer! I have felt so carried and protected in many ways.

much love -- mj

Story Problems

2011-06-08T06:10:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the end of the school year, it's time for some math!!!

1) Davis High School is taking 14 kids to camp this summer, and it costs $395 per student. How much money does Davis Young Life need to raise?

Answer: 14 x $395 = $5530

2) Davis High School is urban (to say the least), so Young Life Urban Ministries has given them $80 per student for camp. Now how much money do they need?

Answer: $5530 - 14($80) = $4410

3) Washington Family Ranch gives $250 scholarships to students with financial need. Davis has received five of those scholarships; now how much money do they need?

Answer: $4410 - 5($250) = $3160

4) Marah Jean sent out prayer letters a few weeks ago to all her Christ-following friends and family. From that, Davis YL has received the following donation amounts: $25, $100, $150, $200 and $790. Now how much money do they need?

Answer: $3610 - $1265 = $2345

5) This morning, Marah Jean opened a letter from a family who sent one girl to camp last year. That particular girl has been a BEAST all year at inviting others to club and camp, which Marah shared about in her prayer letter. This family wants to help this gal AND HER FRIENDS get to camp, so they sent a check for two thousand three hundred seventy dollars. Now how much do they need?

Answer: $2345 - $2370 = -$15

And we haven't even done our fundraiser yet!! BOO YEAH!!!

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

Song for You

2011-04-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

I first was introduced to Jenny & Tyler with their song One Eyed Cat. So quirky and funny and fabulous. I downloaded that album and have used their songs Simple and Do Not Follow Your Heart in class discussions about Transcendentalism. Granted, some of my kids didn't quite follow me, but it was still a good idea.

Because I haven't been following the duo too closely, I had no idea that they released an album this past November. I was just putzing around yesterday morning and thought, "I need some new music. I wonder what the One Eyed Cat people have done recently." Little did I know what awaited me.

Song for You

Oh good glory. My heart just soars and aches and wants to cry and scream and sing its guts out. To think that God Himself, who suffered the brunt of the justice that I deserve, longs for me with this kind of passion and ache is overwhelming. He has loved me from the beginning and done every thing necessary for real intimacy to be had. How often do I just shut down from His love and comfort because my little world and pet adulteries are more manageable and familiar? How often do I get overwhelmed with my list of things I must get done and forget to simply enjoy and reciprocate His attention?

I don't want that to be the case. Thank you, Father, for the nudge that led me to this beautiful reminder of Your heart for us.

Pilfer and Plunder

2011-03-16T15:23:00.001-07:00

I love that God can use anything He desires to remind us of what He's already said to us. Today's case in point: somebody else's blog.

The specific someone else is Jon Acuff who writes a blog called "Stuff Christians Like." It can be pointed, sarcastic, spot on, encouraging, and many other adjectives. Today's post (particularly the last several paragraphs of it) is what I would have written had I not read it here first. :-)

Cross-training

2011-03-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Spring is springing here in Yakima. We aren't in the full-on orchard blooming phase, but rather the cold in the morning, warm and windy in the afternoon phase. But soon, the afternoons will be glorious and the world alive with new life.

It makes me want to get out there and run. I haven't had that hankering for quite sometime, seeing as the 2007 marathon was a bit of a running overdose for this former fake-an-injury-to-get-out-of-running girl. I was thinking about running recently within the context of cross-training. Should I strap on my new snazzy Asics, it would just be in addition to the other exercise I already enjoy -- weightlifting and step aerobics and the playing Michael Jackson Experience on the Wii. Running has specific benefits that can't be gleaned from scoring in the 9000's on Thriller or Wanna Be Starting Something, and if I want those specific benefits, I have to engage in that activity. Of course, there are other things that will help me run better -- lower body lifting and ab training -- but, in the end, I just need to get out and run.

Over the last couple months, Jesus has really be challenging me in some specific heart areas and, if you read the previous blog, you know I did some fasting in February. Well, now March is here and the "results" of that time weren't exactly what I expected. (That's a story for another blog, I suppose.) At any rate, I got to thinking about fasting within the scope of spiritual disciplines and how it doesn't get practiced very regularly, even though it is in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as one of the three presumed disciplines of faith: prayer, giving, and fasting. Sure, we know we should pray and read our Bibles and go to church, but the more I've thought about it, though, the more I think fasting is a valuable component of spiritual cross-training. (Just for clarification, when I say fasting, I mean not eating. I don't mean giving up coffee or avoiding sugar or not playing Angry Birds.)

I know from experience that it takes challenge to grow physically. If I want to run a faster mile, I have to actually do some sprint workouts. If I want to have stronger muscles, I have to challenge them by lifting more weight. Could that not also be true spiritually? I know I have gone through many blase seasons in my faith and my private Christian life becomes routine and boring. I do the same things and just keep moving forward but it feels so routine. I'm not saying God doesn't use the routine and mundane seasons in our lives for good things, but I'm wondering if there couldn't be more freedom, more breakthrough, more intimacy with Jesus if I would incorporate fasting into how I worship Him.

The other thought I've had along the lines of fasting and cross-training is the possible connection it might have to the virtue of self-control. I have been reading Louisa May Alcott's book Little Men (the sequel to Little Women), and in it, Jo and Freidrich run a school for boys. One of them is nicknamed Stuffy because he stuffs his face and is rather portly. One year at Christmas, Jo is discussing with the boys what sorts of character qualities they want to cultivate in the coming year. Some boys choose generosity or patience or kindness (all of which are character qualities often recognized as valuable in today's world, at least according to the Yakima School District's Character Quality of the Month list). However, Stuffy can't think of one, and so Freidrich suggests cultivating self-denial so that Stuffy won't make himself sick next Christmas.

I got to thinking about that: self-denial as a character quality. That one didn't make the school's top 12, and I doubt many people would list it as something worth cultivating. It wasn't on my radar, at least not by that name. I do know, however, that I want to exert more self-control in certain areas; the thought came to me that practicing self-denial would be like cross-training for the self-control muscle. To use weight-lifting as a metaphor, hammer curls and bicep curls work the same muscle but in different ways, and for me, bicep curls are more difficult. Sometimes I skip them because they are hard, but if I were not only to incorporate them but challenge myself in those curls, would not the other bicep exercises be easier? If I were to practice self-denial (fasting) in a regular way (not haphazardly), could I not hope that other spiritual disciplines would be strengthened?

These are all questions at this point because I'm on the front end of this journey. (Interesting that I'm teaching on "Keeping Your Prayer Life Fresh" in just a few weeks. I think these thoughts will be in there.) What do you guys think?

Keeping things Up-to-Date

2011-02-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

6:29 am on Tuesday, February 22. I realized my last blog post was at the end of December, and now we're a week away from March. For those of you who check back semi-regularly, it is time for an update. I don't have any funny stories or big broad analogies about life today, but want to share how God has been encouraging me these past weeks.

The year started out rather bleakly for me. Those of you who know me well know that I lost a fourth-grader's worth of body weight (90 lbs) after college. In the five and a half years since I've moved out of my parents' house, a third of that weight has crept back on. I've gone through several seasons of renewed efforts in addressing the issues, but in the last year, God has uncovered that, for me, this struggle isn't really about food or exercise. I know what to eat and I love to be active. For me, the issue is about control. More specifically, my heart got to the place in January where I felt out of control in this area. Maybe you can relate? Telling myself in the morning, "Today, I will make good choices", then ending up eating three bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios for dessert that night and thinking, "Tomorrow, I will make good choices." And that's a tame example of my own behavior. It got to the point where I just felt hopeless, despondent, ready to dive head-first into a dozen donuts.

But God in his infinite mercy saw me sinking in the mire of that pit, and reached down, and called me into a time of fasting. (And by fasting, I don't mean no Facebook or giving up watching Modern family. Fasting = no food.) In college, I fasted semi-regularly, but fell out of the practice and now felt rather freaked out by it. As January progressed, I had all sorts of fears and justifications for not doing it, but when it came down to it, I feel like Jesus said to do it. So, I did. But even that sentence is wrong because, in those three days, I was writhing internally, looking for ways out of this self-imposed discipline. But for each internal maneuver towards the exit door, God provided specific encouragement to stay with it. Day 1 it was the story of Hannah in the Bible: if she could literally give her son away because she said she would, can I not give my "right to eat" away because I said I would. Day 2 it was the story of Jesus clearing out the temple: He is just as vehement in his removal of the blockades in my life that keep me from experiencing God's healing and wholeness. Turning over the tables in my heart is messy and frustrating but nevertheless good. Day 3 it was just the title of the day's devotional: Getting Past Your Quitting Point.

After the fasting time has come a retraining my eating patterns time. I've been eating like a vegan for about 3.5 weeks now, and have found that I can overeat on brussel sprouts and natural almond butter (not together...I don't put almond butter on my veggies. Bleh!) as easily as I can on chips and cheese or ice cream. So now the challenge is to walk through the healing steps for addictive behaviors. I'm meeting with a friend who has been clean and sober for YEARS and we're using the 12-step curriculum. It's humbling because the word "addiction" is so incredibly charged, especially in my family when Carrie's addiction sucked her into the underworld for five years. Also the idea that I am powerless over something rankles.

But then, I read the words of Christ: I am the vine, and you are the branches. Apart from me, You can do nothing.

Nothing, Lord? Really?

Yes, Marah. Nothing that really matters.

In the midst of these weeks, I've revisited Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline, and in the fasting chapter, he talks about the worship of the will. I could see quite clearly that in this area, that is what I have been doing for the last couple years: worshiping myself and my ability to conquer this area. It took a LOT -- twisted ankles, ripped shoulders, LifeSigns, out-of-control tummy on the throne of Marah -- for me to see that I have been worshiping my own willpower.

Apart from Him, I can't do it. Praise be to our Papa Bear in Heaven that I can do all things through Christ. The new habits and patterns that will sustain change aren't enough; Jesus must be in those habits and patterns, the Holy Spirit must empower them. So I press on towards the goal, the upward call of God in Christ.

I covet your prayers as I finish out the next two vegan weeks. I don't intend to run back into the chains from which Jesus is freeing me, but I don't want to inadvertently slip into them either. :-)

Running Shoes & Peak Performance

2010-12-31T08:36:00.000-08:00

The flip in the calendar is like the passing of birthdays: cause for lots of celebration but not really a mark of change. We'll all wake up tomorrow in much the same state that we spent today, maybe a bit bloated or hung-over depending on your celebration style, but life continues on. As melancholy as this may seem, I'm not feeling that way this morning. I'm in a more reflective mood, and that is one definite perk to these time-passage-markers: it provides a culturally approved moment to take stock, set goals, all that jazz.

I was doing just that this morning. Looking over the goals from 2010, I realized I basically forgot about half of them by March, had success on one of them (hurray debt snowball) and and still battling away with the first (weight/food/body image issues). As I thought more holistically about the year, I saw two distinct analogies emerge, both from the land of health and exercise.

The Shoes & The Shoulder
I have been consistently active for the last decade of my life. After discovering my own athleticism after college, I've gone through seasons of marathon training, kickboxing, racquetball, weight-lifting, Zumba, and have loved it. During the season of marathon training (2007, I think that was), I learned the importance of good shoes, a lesson I thought it would be easy to consistently apply as I kept on with my athletic endeavors.

About 18 months ago, I began to notice that, as I walked down the hallway at the Y, my right shoe would squeak. Being from Fun Country, I would sometimes step harder to make it squeak louder or harmonize with the squeak or attempt to sing a song in time with the squeak. But not once did I stop to assess what was causing the squeak. I just kept on Zumba-ing and weight-lifting and elliptical training.

Then, about a year ago, I started not enjoying my workout classes as much because my right hip would ache afterwards. I chalked it up to all the crazy hip-swiveling required by the choreography, so I gradually stopped attending those classes. I was still doing other workouts (right shoe still squeaking, mind you) but I couldn't do what I really loved. Then, on Easter Weekend, I rolled my ankle HARD during class. There I am, flat on my ass, instruction stopped and I'm just barely not crying. I hobbled out of there, called for reinforcements, and spent the weekend with my right foot propped in the air. With aerobics out of the picture, I took about 2.5 weeks and then was back to walking every day (a major backward step in my book) and lifting weights at home. Then, one week later, I rolled it again.

Two weeks later, I ripped a shoulder muscle while wrestling with Sadie and Mason. (That was the middle of May.) Now I'm really out. I cancelled my Y subscription and try to slowly recuperate on my own, but it didn't take long for me to realize that I had no idea how to do that. After a month of pain, started physical therapy at Peak Performance. I didn't want to be squeaking in a doctor's office, so I went and bought new shoes. While trying shoes on, I thought, "I wonder what was causing that squeak." When I finally looked, I found a crack in the sole of the right shoe, just a small one, but definitely enough to squeak. I had been workout out on that crack for almost a year.

I didn't think much about it then because I was full-on into my shoulder rehabilitation. I'm so glad I sought outside help. It took weeks of lifting tiny little weights -- 1 pound, 2 pounds, 3 pounds -- and doing weird stretches, but with a very specific plan and help from an outside source, I was able throw a baseball again without wrenching pain. That happened in August.

In the midst of this part of the year, I was on Young Life Assignment at WFR and sharing the deep wounds of my story during Life Signs (see "Good Enough" from 8/13 for that story). God used that experience to bring up some issues in my heart that needed healing. Over the past four years, I have been moving forward with my life at a fairly motivated pace. Whether it was finishing a Masters Degree, starting a new job, helping to plant a church, or taking up Head Leadership of Davis Young Life, I have just been M-O-V-I-N-G. Sure, things were uber hectic and I knew the pace wasn't really sustainable, but I figured I'd slow down when I had a reason to slow down. Then A-Team and Life Signs happened, and when I slowed down enough to look at the wounds in my heart, my heart started screaming "OUCH!!! STOP TOUCHING ME!!!"

The volatility of that response was enough to get me to see that I needed to slow down. With the start of school, I dropped out of my National Boards class, lessened my commitments at church, and purposefully built more margin into my schedule. It was obvious that, for a long time, I had been moving forward in my life with this deep belief that I had to make men notice me, and if I weren't in tip-top shape (or at least headed that way), then I wouldn't be worth noticing even if I was noticed. I also saw how the pain that comes from feeling overlooked (not being overlooked, mind you, just feeling that way) was not something that I ever stopped to assess or bring to Jesus. I just kept working out and overloading my schedule so that I wouldn't have to deal with the pain of feeling overlooked or the shame attached to feeling overlookable. I kept moving forward attempting to ignore the hurt or numbing it with endorphins and sugar; all the while the shoes of my heart were squeaking but I never stopped to find out why. I never stopped to address the crack in the support system, the lie that I had begun to believe.

It took a physical injury to make me stop, and while stopping has had its benefits, I am starting to see now (after three months of trying to heal on my own from what I saw this summer) that I really don't know how to heal. This fall, I have been filling the space in my schedule with some good things (family time, reading, and the like) but when the pain rears up, I make brownies. I want to get right back to what I have been doing -- leading and going to school and teaching and everything else -- but the injuries are still there. So finally I am calling in for more specific help, people who've walked the path of healing with Jesus to help me learn how to use those muscles correctly and not overcompensate in unhealthy ways.

I want to run -- literally and figuratively -- in the wide open spaces God has for me. But life is full of squeaky shoes, turned ankles, and torn shoulders. I can only run rightly when I take the time to rest and heal, listen for guidance and receive the help I need.

May 2011 bear out the lessons of this year. Next week, I'm buying new shoes.

Every Father Knows

2010-12-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

I niether know who this Bill Mallonee is nor have I heard this song, but the lyrics -- included on the back of the Christmas letter from The Syllings -- are worth posting.

Every Father Knows

well the angels sang the sweetest song echoing refrains
the shepherds were up to something maybe drunk again
no there probably wasn't any snow on the ground at the time
though the greeting cards show that sort of thing with a warm and fuzzy rhyme
and the stable is neat and tidy the hygiene is five stars
and the planet it spins lonely as i step out of this bar

now some are lost in shopping malls and some on battlefields
and some are lost in suburbs and some on capitol hills
some are lost on terminal wards or in a nursing home
and some are equally as lost in between their headphones
but whatever your coordinates on your map of shame
rather close or far away we're all lost just the same

the birth of births was like a death
under that hallowed star
still every father know and cares
where his sons and daughters are

so you may wake up a bit confused with the ache that's in your heart
doesn't matter if you got there by choice or got there by default
and every birth shall come with tears and with youth there is a cost
Jesus what's it like to grow up in the shadow of a cross
where You take on more than You could know more than i'd want to say
i put you there a long time ago when i do it every day

Sleep, who needs it

2010-12-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

No profound thoughts this night. I'm just miffed that I can't sleep.... again.... I think it has something to do with this new mouthguard I'm supposed to wear at night. Apparently, I grind my teeth. This is one of the downsides to being single and chaste: I have never slept in close enough proximity to another person for long enough time for them to notice. Or, if I have (like on a family vacation), the noise of my grinding molars must have been drowned out by the snores of my siblings.

At any rate, now I have this plasticky thing in my mouth. But I'll wake up and it'll be on the nightstand. Doh. Also, even though I've had it for less than a week, it already has some funky cracks between the malleable plastic and the base. Oh well. I could get a custom fit guard, complete with inlaid glitter, but I'm not sure if I want to make that kind of investment. :-)

I also think I would sleep better if I go see the chiropractor. I haven't been in weeks, so I'm sure my neck is all jammed up, along with the tweaky spots in my mid and lower back. Ahhhh.... thirty-two. It isn't old, but already the body has a slightly less "hey-I-can-keep-myself-together-and-functioning" feel.

In other thoughts this sleepless night, I'm really so thankful I went on assignment last summer. It's Christmas card writing time (now that most of my holiday responsibilities have been filled), and I'm looking forward to expressing my love and thanks to those people from WFR Session 2 A-Team who've made such a wonderful and lasting impression on my life and heart. Who would have known that such a difficult experience could create such soul-healing? Oh -- Jesus knew. :-)

I'm also thankful for my local Young Life team. We had 35 kids at our YL Christmas party tonight and used every last extra present I had purchased "just in case". Kids that I have known for years are showing up because other people invite them. Last night, Miguel (who comes to buy water from me almost every day) came for the first time. He left after the talk but before the gingerbread house decorating extravaganza because he has a wrestling match tomorrow, and as he left he said, "This was legit, Miss. I'm not gonna lie. The other stuff was fun but I really like when you talked about God and stuff." Sweet.

And now I shall attempt to go to Bed-forshire. May my teeth be unground, my back unkinked, and my dreams unaffected by the amount of sugar consumed at the party.

Huh.... lots of sugar.... Wait a minute.....

Gobble (and Boo and Ho Ho Ho)

2010-11-25T07:25:00.000-08:00

The holidays? Really? The flurry of the fall hustled me through October and November, and now the holidays are here! I suppose I should stem my incredulity and just accept the fact that times really does seem to go faster every year.

The fall has been an interesting one, emotionally challenging in ways I didn't expect. Once I got my feet under me at school and remembered that I love teaching honors kids, I began to feel antsy. My antsiness manifested in researching vacations I probably won't take, looking at houses I probably won't buy, researching graduate programs that I probably won't attend, and looking for jobs in cities to which I probably won't move. I remember doing this quite a bit when I was first teaching in Sunnyside, and back then it was a manifestation of the "I don't want to do this forever" thought.

The challenge for me this time around is that the "this" that I don't want to do forever is hard articulate. "What don't you want to do forever?" I asked myself.

Teach? No, no problem there. If anything, I enjoy it more now than I have before. Sure, I'd like to get an MA in Literature so I can try my hand at teaching collegiately sometime, but I'm not chafing underneath the saddle of public education. I love my kids, my classes (even the ones that are dumber than a box of rocks), my school.

Live in Yakima? Nope -- I love living close to to my family. Wyatt actually said to me, "Our house is your house, Marah, especially during the holidays. You come over whenever. We love you." And I know my parents feel the same way. Do I wish for more cultural stuff to do here, sure, but Seattle/Portland/Spokane are not that far away. I got to see Harry Connick Junior in concert this fall and almost had a kitten about it. Fantastic!!!

Franklin Hill? They are my faith family. I love us, am planted there, am committed to staying. I have weathered the funky season of leaving ministry leadership and am confident that there are plenty of ways to stay connected, even should my involvement morph and change some more.

Young Life? Sometimes I feel that this may be the rub, the aspect of my life that gives me an emotional wedgie, but I haven't figured out if that's just spiritual attack or a real mis-fit of ministry to life. I get to tell the kids I love from school about Jesus in a way that doesn't break my contract, and for that I am so thankful. The challenge of this year in ministry is that I feel alone in it. I have four 19-year-old leaders who work with me, so that is another layer of strength and challenge. They have so much energy and creativity, so that is glorious; they are 19, though, so I get to lead them through their 19-year-old-ness. But to stop leading at YL? I'm not sure. At times I feel like I fell ass-backwards into it to begin with, but that feeling always begs the question of whether or not I believe in God's sovereignty. The aspects of YL that I feel fit best are the camp stuff in the summer, cabin leading and assignment team. Being a work crew boss was the hardest thing I've done in quite some time, but it still was just perfect. Huh.....

At any rate, all of these thoughts reached a critical point a couple weeks ago, causing quite a bit of emotional funk. I just felt oppressed by the "nothing will ever change" thought. Or maybe the thought of "my life will never change unless I make it change but the changes I want are not ones I'm willing to force." One Sunday morning in particular, I spent the pre-church time in a haze of questioning what I'm to do with this season of my life. Is this just a stepping stone to something else? I have no idea what that something else would be; I feel like Katherine in Anne of Avonlea: "Bend in the road? There's no bend in my road. I can see it stretching straight out towards the skyline."

Then I went to church. Message: the road to wholeness starts with gratitude.

This isn't spiritual rocket science, but so help me if that didn't turn me around a corner I didn't know I was at. I don't need to "figure out" the next step, what comes after "this". I can, quite fantastically, be thankful for the extra time in my schedule, the kids in my classes, the leaders in Young Life. As much as I play with ideas of doing something else, I also know -- when I'm quiet before Jesus -- it's not time for anything else.

And when I look at the past few months, they are good months. How many people can just pick up at fly across the nation to spend a weekend with a college roommate? I got to see Boston (in the fall, no less) and spend a fantastic few days with my wonderful Jayme. I spent Halloween hiking by Walden pond, wandering around the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, exploring Louise May Alcott's house, and camping in tent in Jayme's backyard. Seriously? How cool was that.

I have space in my life -- margin -- so that when stuff hits the fan, I have time to process it and deal with it and help others process it and deal with it. And there are good things on the horizon; in particular, I've been asked to be a Head Leader at YL camp next summer. As much as I loved being a work crew boss, I think the HL job may be an even better fit. Plus it's planned to be during Session One, so I'll still have six weeks of summer vacation after I get back from assignment.

All of that to say, there is so much for which to be thankful. Thank you, Father. Thanks for Davis, and Young Life, and Franklin Hill, and Bennett, Erin, Jaelynn, and Tyler, and my family, and my Hobbit House. Thanks for really good friends who drink coffee with me, watch movies with me, and text me about the latest greatest tv show episodes that I must see. Thanks for healing the piece of me that was freaking out last year about spending another holiday season "still single." Thanks for Christmas, twinkle lights, and coming for us.

You deserve so much more than thanks, so in addition to that, You can have it all.

You've Got Mail & The Tices

2010-09-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

I lead a small life.... well, valuable but small....

So says Meg Ryan in one of my favorite movies, You've Got Mail. My sweet Jayme and I used to watch that thing OVER and OVER and OVER again in our Shupe and Tuckey rooms. So sweet and quotable, and that particular line came to mind just moments ago as I finished reading the newsletter from Jeremy and Mindie Tice. They are missionaries in West Africa, and because of God's movement and their service, people in the jungles of Guinea have heard the truth of Christ and opened their lives to His Light.

It makes me cry. They are so courageous and beautiful and faithful. Their boys look like their dad, one of my closest friends in college. I'm so proud of them. I can only imagine the challenges of their daily lives. It makes me put my life into its proper perspective.

And at the same time, I feel small... petty.... introverted.... I don't have a great marriage, or two beautiful boys, or anything like that. It would be easy to succumb to the "what does this little life of mine mean anyway?"

On its own? Nothing.

On the foundation of Christ? Everything.

I guess this is faith, right? A piece of it, anyway. I choose to believe that these hours and cups of coffee and Club talks and worship songs and hard conversations and listening and following will amount to something important in God's kingdom. That is my prayer.

Jeremy & Mindie -- love you both.

Good enough...

2010-08-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

This morning, I read a little blurb about the phoenix -- a mythological bird (that did exist in literature before Harry Potter) that burned up every 500 years only to be reborn from the ashes to live again -- and I was reminded of God's very clear Word to me during Young Life Assignment. (There is so much to share about Assignment, but I only have a few minutes before I pack up the car and head to the beach with the family, so I'll just get this one posted and then I'll do more later.)

Background: From July 9 to August 2, I volunteered as a Work Crew Boss at Young Life's Washington Family Ranch. Specifically, I was teamed with a wonderful, talented, funny man from Baker City -- Mike Long, you rock my socks OFF -- to supervise the 33 high school volunteers in the Dining Hall. I do not know the specific challenges faced by the bosses in the other area; I'm sure that the Outdoor, Housekeeping, Kitchen, and Pit Crews each had their own challenges. I, however, can speak directly about the challenges of preparing for, serving, and cleaning up after 700 campers 3 times a day. Yowsers.

One of the challenges is maintaining the attention to detail necessary to make the Dining Hall look like somebody cares. There is a VERY specific way for each table to be set so that the entire hall is uniform, and while some of our crew members did attend to these details, many of us just wanted to finish the job. Not necessarily finish it well, but just get DONE so we could sit down. That's how I felt most of the time, but one of my jobs (and Mike's, and he was better at it than I was) was to see the details and get the kids to see the details and fix the missed details. And since the details are a huge element of the job itself, our challenge became how to help the kids see that they were not done with the job until it was done and done correctly.

Keep that tucked away as I explain another part of my particular Assignment experience: Life Signs. Life Signs is a 3-part presentation at camp when 5 different staff people share stories of their big issues and how Christ has dealt with those issues. Just before heading to Assignment, I had several people tell me that doing Life Signs and Dining Hall Work Crew Boss was very challenging. I was prepared to get out of doing Life Signs because I don’t want to over-extend myself while I give away my summer vacation. In fact, slowing down and not doing too much was (and is) another issue on which God has been working with me in the past months. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was supposed to do it, even though it would be hard. I took it to Jesus in prayer, and the feeling was still there. So I moved forward with it.

I was prepared to talk about feeling like I needed to perform for acceptance, but when I spoke with Brooke (the person who’s coordinating all of the participants) she told me that two other people are wanting to talk about that. She challenged me to share about not feeling beautiful or attractive, feeling like I’m not worth noticing and that there’s something intrinsically wrong with me, and feeling that if somebody really knew the real me (and the real family stuff I bring with me) they'd head for the hills.

Let me just say that I'm glad I had serious confirmation that Jesus was leading me into this because it was SO MUCH HARDER than what I had anticipated. As I attempted to tap into the "scenes" from my adolescent and collegiate years that contained those feelings, I hit a vein of emotion that I didn't know was still there. We presented Life Signs twice (once at each of the two high school camps) and the first time was unexpectedly raw, not during the presentation itself, but during rehearsal. I found myself crying as I acted out being dumped in the ninth grade, aching as I reenacted breaking my high school best friend's heart, and cowering with self-condemnation after a conversation in college about how I and my family were too much to handle. But at the end of the presentation, I got to talk with and pray with several girls who had been struggling with the very same things.

And then came Week 2. As we went into the first day of the presentation, I felt like I had a better grasp on myself and also felt like I wanted to mention a bit more of how I felt ugly. So in those two "snapshots, I veered a little more towards my feelings of being fat and ugly and that's why guys didn't stick. The LS coordinator (brooke) challenged me in that space because it was sounding like her story. While her story (not feeling beautiful) and my story are similar, I didn't really intend to get diverted. Then she asked why I thought that happened, and the emotions just started to overflow. I realized I didn't want to walk through those wounds again. I just did it last week, and I didn't want to say it all again; more than that, I didn't want to feel it all again.

So I took some time right then ti have a good cry and some journaling with Jesus. I went through and wrote down the feelings that were so raw, the lies that were fueling those, and the Truth to combat the lies. Having somewhat recomposed myself, I went back to work in the Dining Hall where Mike had been working all morning while I did Life Signs. I came back just in time for devotions, which normally we did out of the whole camp study on Luke. On this particular day, though, Mike went off the schedule and shared about the idea of a job being "good enough" even though it's not done, being specifically applicable to the kids finishing the jobs and finishing them right. But he gave the example of Jesus in the garden. He posed this question: What if Jesus had said, "the work I've done is good enough. I don't need to finish this by going to the cross. I don't want to go; this is good enough. What if He had said that?"

And BAM that was straight to my heart. I knew (and know) that God called me to do Life Signs and to walk through these experiences and emotions again, but I seriously didn't want to, so much so that I was diverting from those wounds without realizing it. But Brooke challenged me on that point, and I saw what I was doing: avoiding the work God had asked me to do, saying "I shared this once, and that was good enough." But God was saying, "Finish the work I've given you to do." So, as Mike was sharing, I prayed the same prayer Jesus prayed: But not my will, but Yours be done.

Then I thought, if Jesus had said no to the Cross, he would have missed out on the resurrection.

Resurrection. New Life. Is that not the hope to which we cling when we are experiencing death? Whether physical, emotional, spiritual or whatever kind of -al, as a Christ-follower, I can have the same hope and therefore the same courage to face and walk through any death God may ask of me.

In all honesty, I don't know what that resurrection is going to look like. I've been home for almost two weeks and feel like the crap that was dug up by Life Signs is still floating on the top of my soul. Yucky soul poop water. But I do know that Jesus did not ask me to do this so that I could just stuff those lies back down into my heart. He has led me here, He has asked me to die to my compulsion to hide and ignore these cancerous lies, and He is the Resurrection.

Love & War

2010-05-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

This morning, I got to witness something so sweet and simple and beautiful and profound. A bunch of broken people got together because of Jesus, sang together, prayed together, laughed together, and offered a sweet fragrance up to God. All because of Jesus. This is church.

And then, without any pomp and very little ceremony, two of our siblings-in-Christ stood up and vowed to live as husband and wife as long as they both shall live. As I sat there and witnessed this union -- Casey in his suit and stately bald head and Kristine in a simple flowing white dress -- I didn't expect it to move me like it did. After all, there were no flowers, no bridesmaids, no Wagner or Canon in D. Just Cesar in his Jesus/Band-Aid t-shirt and Lisa on the piano accompanying Kris as she sang a song based on the book of Ruth: Where you go, I shall go. Your God shall be my God. Your people shall be my people.

And there I sat, crying. It really is beautiful and courageous -- this whole marriage thing. The longer I'm alive, the more aware I become of how ugly and treacherous life can be when lived outside of God's love, purpose, protection, and provision. And that is the heart-rending truth of so many marriages -- they are attempted outside of God's purpose, protection, and provision, and we broken people break each other.

Not that Christians automatically get it right -- the divorce rate is the same inside of and outside of the church, is it not? But Jesus did promise us life and hope in every circumstance. And while I do not know the ins and outs of marriage, I just read a great book on this very subject by John & Stasi Eldredge: Love & War.

Now, I'll be honest, the last thing I wanted to read during this season was a book on marriage. Sometimes I get tired of having to put on the "what can I glean from this even though it's not for me" filter. But I've always LOVED books from these two fine authors -- Wild at Heart, Captivating, The Sacred Romance -- so I decided to give it a chance, and this book did not disappoint. Authentic, funny, personal, and pointed, the book covers everything from the Big Picture of God's design for marriage and Satan's attack thereon to the more practical matters of how to invite Jesus into the daily reality of marriage.

What was even better, though, was that God spoke to my reality TODAY through their writing. I was reminded of how easy it is to develop of way of approaching life that is based on my own strengths and abilities and thereby create barriers between myself and the true Life Jesus offers. I was reminded of the glorious reality that God speaks to His kids, and His kids know His voice, and He has truth to heal the deep wounds that cause all my funky yuck.

My heart hasn't felt this peace-filled in quite some time, which is particularly arresting because I didn't realize how anxious I was about the pending changes this summer will bring. But Jesus knew, and He came for me. In so many ways, He comes for me.

Be encouraged, my friends. He always comes for us.

got nothing

2010-05-08T06:09:00.001-07:00

I've got nothing by way of a pithy title for this blog. But I'm gonna give myself some grace on that. My body woke up at 5:45, even though I was up late the last two nights. Silly body. Thursday night was a 1am-er because my sweet Lyndsey was here on choir tour. We sat in the dark and talked and talked and talked; then we ate Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats and then talked and talked and talked. Then I was up late last night because I hosted a relatively impromptu movie night with the Young Lifers. They said, "Hey! can we come over on Friday and watch a movie?" Sure. I made them treats, got pizza, and let them have a pillow fight in my living room.

What's amusing me this morning is the recovery time I'm needing. I love Lyndz and I love my YL kids, and WOW do I feel like I need to do some serious recharging today. It wasn't just those two events that wiped me. On Wednesday, one of my favorite juniors (he's in my 6th period class) stayed a bit after class to tell me that he has a court date, might be sent to juvi, and get a felony put on his record. I didn't ask for a ton of details because, as I sat there, I got all choked up. This kid isn't one of those rough, hard, cynical boys; deep down, he's a poet, an artist, and smart as a whip.... a whip that has grown up in abject poverty with an alcoholic/absent father. I'm glad this kid's best bud stuck around in class that day to work on vocab and that earlier this year they had both been to Young Life, because I felt The Nudge, took his hand, and started praying. I prayed for favor with judges, comfort and courage in the middle of this, but most of all, I prayed against the lie that this is a death sentence for this kid's hopes and dreams. I prayed that God would take this and make it into something powerful and good. By the end, we were both crying.

Two days later, I'm still wiped from it. I know... the lack of sleep probably hasn't helped. :-)

But as I've been thinking about this week -- praying with this kid that I love, listening to and loving Lyndsey, the kids in my hobbit house on a Friday night -- I was reminded of how Jesus loved. He entered our world, He knew who He was and what God had called him to do, and He hung in the tension between the two. As His follower, I've been asked to do the same. To enter somebody else's word -- really listen and empathize and ask questions; To know who I am in Christ and what He has asked of me -- draw boundaries so I'm not trying to be things I'm not (I'm not so good at this, but I'm working on it); To hang in the tension -- be misunderstood or disappoint those who think I should do more or less than what I'm doing, not run away from relationships that are hard, not self-medicate to ease the pain of these realities. I guess, in some minuscule way, I'm feeling the side-effects of loving how Jesus loved.

And in the middle of this week, the Bethel College Choir came to town. It would've been a great event for any person, but for me, it was exquisite. The glorious mixture of incredible music, overwhelming Truth, and sweet sweet memories made those concerts float over and cover my soul like a cosmic bear hug. There's something about Beauty that simply brings peace and rest. For me, this Beauty also brought great encouragement -- the John Rutter song I posted last has such stirring images...

The journey may be long: no end in sight;
There may be hills to climb, or giants to fight:
But if you’ll take my hand, we’ll walk together t’ward the land of freedom.

Yeah - I'm feeling that. How glad I am for the people God has brought into my life who take my hand and help me up the hill, who pick up the sword when I am cowering behind my shield. The hills are steep and the giants tall, but not unclimbable, not undefeatable. And just when my soul is all encouraged and ready to engage, the song goes on....

I touch a distant hand and feel its glow,
the Hand I hoped was there: at last I know.

Oh my soul.... I'm aching for that day right now. Sometimes I skip merrily along through my life, but after this week, I just want Jesus to be here... really be here.... or me be there.... sometimes the ache is pretty strong, you know? I want my kids to have what they need. I want my sweet cousin to have her hopes fulfilled. I want my Young Lifers to get Jesus. And when those realities seem so far away, I long for Home.

Oh the paradoxical experience of being human! :-) All of these emotions and perspectives and whatnot! I'm not even sure what to do with it all.

So I just say.... Thanks God. Thanks for the privilege and pain of being Your light and love at Davis. Thanks for friends and family and the glory of having those two things be embodied in the same people. And thanks for hope that doesn't disappoint, not because life is perfect, but because You are.

Choir Concert... post 1

2010-05-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

As indicated by the title, I intend to share more about yesterday's Bethel concerts. But for now, here's a link to some other group singing my favorite new song:

Distant Land by John Rutter.

I see a distant land: it shines so clear.
Sometimes it seems so far, sometimes so near.
Come, join together, take the dusty road;
Help one another: share the heavy load.

The journey may be long: no end in sight;
There may be hills to climb, or giants to fight:
But if you’ll take my hand, we’ll walk together
t’ward the land of freedom.

I hear the distant song: it fills the air.
I hear it, deep and strong, rise up in prayer:
O Lord, we are many; help us to be one.
Heal our divisions: Let thy will be done.

I know the time will come when war must cease:
A time of truth and love, a time of peace.
The people cry, ‘How long till all the world can
join the song of freedom.’

I touch a distant hand and feel its glow,
the hand I hoped was there: at last I know.
Swords into ploughshares: can it all come true?
Friends out of strangers: start with me and you.

I see another time, another place
where we can all be one, one human race.
The walls will melt away,
we’ll come together on the day of freedom.

Never thought of it that way....

2010-05-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

My cousin Nathaniel got married yesterday. Funny.... I remember when he was born. I remember calling him Bug (you know... like "Nat" but funnier). I remember him climbing up the stairs at my grandparents' house/antique store calling for my brother: "Bon COOOOOO la!" And now he's married.... like, with a wife and everything.

Facebook is an interesting thing. It opens windows into people's lives that would normally be closed not by volition but by time and distance. I was just thinking today of how many of my former students have gotten married in the last year or so, and the only reason I know this is because of Facebook. While I do not begrudge them their marital bliss, it stings a bit.

I was journaling this morning about this and the other "issues" in my life (i.e. being in Weight Watchers for a year and never once having a week when I actually stay within my allotted points. What the frosting?) and I felt like God said, "Marah, Marah. You are worried about many things, but only one thing is necessary."

So I stopped, and just sat with Jesus for a while. The ouchie of the "everybody else is getting married" thought surfaced and I had a very clear picture of me and Jesus standing beside a rollercoaster. Now, I stinking LOVE rollercoasters and would love the chance to go on some more great ones. But in that picture, all my newly married friends were on the rollercoaster and I was standing there watching them with Jesus. And He didn't say "it's not your turn" or anything like that. The feeling was more like, Marah, I'm not making you wait in some line of indeterminable length for this 'ride' that you want to go on but you haven't met the growth requirement. It isn't like that at all -- that's just the wrong metaphor. And when you allow yourself to think about marriage that way, it'll lead to jealousy and discontentment.

Holy Reframe, Batman. It's the oldest lie in the book -- God is holding out on you. Better get for yourself because you can't trust Him.

(Insert German accent here) LIES! ALL LIES!!!

Truth: I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you. Plans to give you HOPE and a future.

Truth: My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches and glory.

Truth: No good thing will God withhold from those who do what is right...... oh, let's get the whole thing in here:

Psalm 84:10-12 (New Living Translation)

¹⁰ A single day in your courts
is better than a thousand anywhere else!
I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God
than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.
¹¹ For the Lord God is our sun and our shield.
He gives us grace and glory.
The Lord will withhold no good thing
from those who do what is right.
¹² O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
what joy for those who trust in you.

Song on repeat

2010-04-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

I love mornings. The cool breath of air, the colors painted in the East, the lyrical birds in the hedges. And even when the evening before contained frustration, emotional funkiness, and too many french fries, the new day brings new mercies, new perspective, new chances.

This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. His mercies are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.

I have no idea if that's how the Bible verse goes, but I have a movie in my head starring my mother, and those are her lines. How many times over the past 31 (almost 32?!?!?) years have I watched that film, both live and in my mind? Thank you, Father, for parents who love you. And thank you for music that stirs the soul, encourages the heart, and strengthens the will to follow.

He's Always Been Faithful
By Sara Groves

Morning by morning I wake up to find
The power and comfort of God's hand in mine.
Season by season I watch him amazed,
In awe of the mystery of his perfect ways

All I have need of his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me

I can't remember a trial or a pain
He did not recycle to bring me gain.
I can't remember one single regret
In serving God only and trusting his hand

All I have need of his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me.

This is my anthem, this is my song,
The theme of the stories I've heard for so long.
God has been faithful; He will be again.
His loving compassion, it knows no end.

All I have need of his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me.

End of March

2010-03-25T10:45:00.001-07:00

I have discovered Mobile Blogging. Sweet! So as my American Lit students are doing a websearch on the Jazz Age (Capone, Prohibition, the Black Sox Scandal), I can blog! Nice.

March has... well, marched steadily on. The beginning of the month was crazy busy but wonderful. As things slowed down a bit externally, internal tensions began to rise. I think these tensions really started with the Franklin Hill church-wide focus on Love & Respect, a marriage DVD teaching that can also be applied to any male-female relationship. During that study, I realized some of the things I sometimes really miss by not having a husband. Part of the teaching explains the strengths/needs of men, and I realized that these are the very things I could get from my dad, if my relationship with him were healthier. Specifically, I saw in me the desire for a man to provide protection, leading, and counsel. There have been times in the past few years I've allowed my dad to provide those things for me, but more often than not, I try to figure it out on my own. I'm thankful for Jesus' ability to provide that directly and for my God-fearing male friends who offer that to me in friendship, but I still want the husband, you know?

Then good ol' Franklin Hill started a new series: Lost & Found. This is based on the ideas in The Emotionally Healthy Church, a stinking AWESOME book about how spiritual maturity cannot be experienced apart from emotional health. One of the challenges in the book is to take a solid, honest look at your family of origin and your extended family to see what relational patterns exist and ask how those are influencing your present. Not if they are influencing your present, but how.

This isn't necessarily a new thought for me. During different seasons of my life, I've pondered how my mom's food/eating issues have repeated in my life, how my father's bi-polar created an absent-dad-syndrome that influenced my desire to draw attention from the men around me, how my sibling relationships and dynamics have made me a peace-maker (and sometimes a conflict avoider).

So this last weekend, I had an epiphany. I realized that, while I really want a healthy equal-yoked marriage, I have a model for how to be the wife in an unequal marriage. I'm not trying to belittle my parents' relationship, but rather observe that, because of my dad's illness, my mom was often in the lead at home and at church. I have a curriculum, if you will, for how to be the wife to an ill husband. And y'all know I thrive in curriculum. But figure something out that's brand new? Freakin' SCARY!!!

Holy crap. There are other layers and implications to this epiphany for sure, but right now, I'm just trying to settle into this insight and hear from Jesus about what to do with it. The inward journey, I'm finding, can be just as scary as any new external venture. Hurray for the safety net of God's UNCONDITIONAL love and acceptance. He knows all this stuff and still loves and accepts me. I don't have to pretend these patterns aren't there. And I don't have to figure out what it is going to mean. Whew.

The middle of things....

2010-02-16T07:31:00.000-08:00

February 16 -- just past the middle of the month. February was supposed to be the month that slapped me about the head and shoulders -- so many things on the To Do list and only so much Marah to go around. Then, last week, I found out that my anticipated trip to Collingwood, Ontario for the only Link Crew Conference I could work this year was to be cancelled. After I traversed the subsequent disappointment, I found myself quite thankful not to have to get on a plane this past Sunday. Do I miss my friends? Yes. I knoweth not when I shall see this particular group of friends again. But it is amusing to me how Jesus takes care of me sometimes. When I got the e-mail asking about being a coach this year, I heard fairly clearly from the Lord, not that I couldn't go, but that I wouldn't have the energy to go. So I declined the position for the year, but made the caveat that I could go to the Canada conference because it was over my mid-winter break. It wasn't a point of disobedience -- I don't think :-/ -- but God has once again saved me from myself. While the friend time and paycheck would have been great, I would have come back EXHAUSTED, and as anybody who knows me knows, tired Marah is no fun.

At any rate, all that to say, I'm sitting in Lisa Jean's house on this very quiet Tuesday morning so thankful for the rest and love and productivity of the past few days. Friday was V-day at Davis. I'm so glad I'm not a student anymore. I don't remember Valentine's Day being a big deal when I was at WA-HI, but now each year the courtyard is a sea of red and pink mylar and the whole place smells like small mailmen. (tee hee) I had a moment with Jesus that morning when I decided to embrace the love He had provided for me instead of focusing on the lack of boyfriend/husband romantic love. So I wore pink, did my hair all sassy, and went to school smiling.

What happened in fourth period was unexpected. One of my sweetest girls (and I think she's Catholic) asked me point blank if I liked Valentine's Day. A few other kids echoed her question, so I took advantage of a relatively captive audience. I put a 3x5 card up on the document camera with the words God, Family, Friends and Romance written on the four corners. I told them I don't have a problem with the day itself, but I don't like what our culture has done. "It has taken these loves, and" I zoomed in on the word Romance, "it paints the picture that if I don't have some guy buying me flowers today, then I don't have love. I think that's bullshit. That's right. I said 'bullshit.'" I went on to tie it to Romeo and Juliet, which we have just finished reading in class. I reminded them that these two kids dove into what they were doing because that is what the culture told them real love was. Romeo thought real love was poetic and passionate, whereas Juliet thought real love was getting married STAT. They couldn't see the other love in their lives, and their warped perspective motivated them to do drastic things. I reminded them that we can choose our perspective, choose to be aware of our culture's messages, and stand on the Truth.

It was good for me to articulate all of that; I want to believe it encouraged some of my sweet girls who are lovely but not being pursued right now. Does it kinda sting sometimes? Sure. But is it the be-all-end-all? Nope.

All of that was just Friday. The weekend has continued to be restful and productive. I got a draft of my National Boards written, spent some great time with the family watching the Olympics, found some more stuff for Lisa's wedding, and cheered for our Pirates as they defeated Ike in the District Tournament. They play Richland tonight, and I'm to sing the National Anthem for that game. :-)

So I'm thankful for the extra margin that God saw fit to give back to me. Ahhhh.... room to breathe.... blessedness....

Brief update

2010-02-07T08:17:00.001-08:00

No deep thoughts, pithy comments, or profound insights this morning. Just want to thank Jesus for His provision.

1) I've got my video for National Boards, and in a demonstration of our Lord's sense of humor and irony, the BEST video came from my MOST challenging class. They are often rowdy, sugared up, off-task, and spastic. But Monday, they were brilliant. I'm actually looking forward to writing the 11 page analysis b/c there is so much to say about this group, this lesson, this challenge.

2) The YL conference was fantastic. I loved sharing it with my friends from Franklin Hill -- Cesar, Susie, Sid and Debbie -- and from my area -- Kathy, Brandon, Ken, Joyce, Doug. And I made some new friends -- Katie and Sarah and Tracy. AND -- get this -- two of my former students and a former camper from WAY back in my Missionary Church days are now Young Life leaders in Sunnyside. Sweet sassy.

3 Chords and Jesus

2010-01-31T20:10:00.000-08:00

Tonight, for the first time ever, I successfully played chords on a guitar! The G I got on my own. I shouted my exultation through the vent, and the Eggies responded with much cheering. Then Jonathan came downstairs and showed me how to play a C chord and a D chord! And an E minor, but I didn't take to that one very well.

This might seem insignificant, but as my last blog so fervently ranted, there is quite a bit going on over the next few weeks. There are things that need to get done but that I can't make happen any faster; I've also realized in the last day or two that the vague discontent I've been bemoaning is actually anxiety. I'm not sure how things are going to play out over the next few weeks, and while I want to hope for the best, I also don't want to be disappointed. I want to believe that 4.5 hours of video recording over the next two days will result in 15 minutes of quality video for my National Boards. But past sessions didn't accomplish this, so I'm going in a little jaded. I want to believe that the Young Life conference this weekend will be inspiring and edifying; I have no reason to think it WON'T be, but I don't want to go in expecting Gandalf's fireworks and end up with those little pop-its that are only fun when you put them under the toilet seat and wait for somebody to go in and sit down. I want to hope that going on Young Life Assignment will actually be a quality investment of my time and talent and treasure, but I'm afraid I'll spend the entire month missing my little people and distracted by the cute guys who love Jesus and aren't interested in me. (There. I said it. Now, let me earnestly insist that I'm NOT going on assignment to find a husband, but so help me if THAT isn't the button the Enemy pushes to distract and discourage me. Rat bastard.)

But tonight, with my three chords that could have passed for music (5th grade band music, but music nonetheless), I was reminded that good things come all the time. Whether through the application of my own choice or the open windows of Heaven, there IS good stuff in this season of "I'm not sure" if I have the eyes to see it. Like the orange lilies one of my Young Lifers brought me last Monday that have been blooming and wilting all week -- each blossom quite independent of the others -- there are blessings and challenges and losses, all in their seasons. May I have the grace to accept the beauty of today, deal with the challenges of today, recognize the losses of today, and do all of that with hope.

And, as my dear Elisa reminded me, hope does not disappoint.

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:2-5

1 Month Down

2010-01-29T05:28:00.000-08:00

January. ¿A donde vas? The paradox of time seems so much more real to me this year. Each of the past few weeks has seemed both to crawl and sprint. February will probably follow suit, which is great because then spring will arrive and I won't have to cajole myself to find restorative beauty around me. The color grey serves its purpose, and I like it as a background for a good hoodie sweatshirt, but when it is the backdrop of almost every day's weather, it gets to me.

Another thing I've noticed about myself is my propensity to make lists and calendars when I'm feeling overwhelmed and crunched. In the past two weeks, I think I've made six or seven of them. In fact, I'm compelled to make another one right here on this very blog. I won't.... maybe. But I will say that, far from being depressed, February's schedule looks a bit manic: there is one weekend that wasn't scheduled "out", and I decided to host a Games Night that Friday.

Even as I write, though, I am reminded of a week this fall that, at its start, caused me to say "holy crap! How will this week ever work out?" That very mindset created stress that did not need to be there, thereby making what could have been a great week seem tense. Let me NOT do that for the WHOLE of February!!!! Is the month full and busy? Yes. Is it too much? Well, that has yet to be seen.

And I can't quite keep myself from doing this.......

Regular life: sit and listen and chat with God, plan and prep for English 9 and American Literature, plan and prep for weekly Young Life Club on Mondays, attend Worship Team practice and have morning coffee with Debbie on Wednesdays, have weekly friend times with Rachel/Susie/Lisa, hit the YMCA 4-5 times, attend Weight Watchers on Saturday and Franklin Hill on Sunday

In addition to my regular life the next five weeks:
This weekend: house sit
Feb Week 1: video tape for National Boards (AGAIN!!!!), Love & Respect Small Group starts
Feb weekend 1: Young Life Regional Conference (Fri-Sun)
Feb Week 2: National Board Meeting (at which I will show the video from Week 1 if it ends up capturing what I need to capture)
Feb Weekend 2/Week 3: Ontario Link Crew Conference (Sun-Wed)
Feb Weekend 3/Week 4: Regular Life
March Week 1: Assignment Team Training
March Weekend 1: Lisa's wedding

Okay -- so here's the thing. I love my life -- my regular routine. I have the margin I need to do it well. I can plan for Young Life, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, make good food choices. But when I squeeze out the margin by packing out the weekends and adding extra things during the week, YL becomes a stress, I skip my workouts, stay up late reading, eat bowls of cereal and ice cream ad nauseum.

But the kicker is, I seem to do this in cycles: once or twice a year, I create a schedule like this for myself. Like a dog returning to his vomit, so a fool returns to her folly. The challenge for me is that this is all GOOD stuff. I could back out of some of it, but I don't really want to. I want to get my Nat Boards, attend the YL conference and the Link Crew conference, be in Lisa's wedding, all that jazz.

Okay -- I'm not getting anywhere with all of this reflection on my life. I have nothing pithy or insightful to say about it. I'm glad it's Friday. I'm glad I have friends who GET that I do this every now and then and will let me spew my emotions at them. I'm glad for a job I love and that this too shall pass.

OH! But I don't want it to merely "pass". I want to be IN IT -- to be real and present and aware and a blessing to those I encounter, which I find difficult to be when my head is all wrapped up in how much I have to do.

So, here is my insight.... Thanks, Jesus, for songs that remind me of my heart's cry:

Jesus, be the center
Be my source be my light, Jesus
Jesus, be the center
Be my song, Jesus

Be the fire in my heart
Be the wind in my sails
Be the reason that I live
Jesus Jesus

Jesus, be my vision
Be my help
Be my guide Jesus

Resolutions? We don't need no resolutions...

2010-01-18T14:28:00.000-08:00

The new year has been a flurry!!! Good glory -- I can't believe January is half-way over. I meant to sit down and reflect upon 2009 before heading back to work, but (obviously) that didn't happen. I was inspired to do it when I ran across a file during my yearly computer cleanse: 2009 Goals. I'm not a big resolution maker; unmet goals offer a chance to try again, while unkept resolutions smack of a deeper character flaw. Me no likey that conotation.

So, I set goals instead, and they were to do the following:

1) Live in food/weight/body image FREEDOM. Not apathy or licentiousness – freedom. That will mean weight loss, but because of obedience and grace.
a. Eat when I’m hungry.
b. Exercise responsibly.

Reflection: Well, that didn't start out to well as the first half of the year included weight gain. But I joined Weight Watchers at the start of the summer, have kept up my activity level (thank you, YMCA), and have submitted myself to real accountability with Susie. Not the commiserating over bad food choices, but the gut honest this is what I ate and WHY. Dude -- so helpful. 2009 saw a 15 pound drop. Sweet.

2) Half marathon... if the foot holds up.

Reflection: The foot didn't hold up. I got up to 4 miles at one point but then the metatarsal started to ache. I may have used up all my running in 2006.

3) Pay off Car and ½ of Grad School

Reflection: Did it! BAM!!! Thank you, Dave Ramsey and the debt snowball plan!

4) 5 dates (real dates – not just eating dinner with friends)

Reflection: This one happened too. I made it because I was tired of having NO dating life of which to speak. This goal changed that, created the title of my blog (thanks to my small group that started using it as code for my romantic life) and is tied with goal 1 for producing the most angst, frustration, and learning.

When I found my 2009 goals, I thought "BRILLIANT! 3 out of 4 ain't bad! Let's set some 2010 goals!" And, ladies and gentlemen, here they are!

1) Live in food/weight/body image FREEDOM. Not apathy or licentiousness – freedom. That will mean weight loss, but because of obedience and grace. Utilize WW and Susie!
2) Successfully complete Take One by March 31
3) Pay off Grad School by September 1 and part of BC loan
4) Learn to play the guitar (well enough to lead music at YL, maybe even church!)

And the progress thus far is encouraging. I've got a video done for Take One, and I've purchased a beginner guitar and put new strings on it (thank you, Cesar!) The date goal is non-existent this year because I want to be done trying. If somebody wants to set me up, okay. If somebody asks me out, okay. But I understand now how great it feels to be pursued, and that's a feeling that's worth the wait. There are a few places in my life where the rubber meets the road in terms of my faith, and this is the one that recurs most often and with the most intensity.

So, then, let me bring to the forefront the biggest "goal" for the year and for life: to know Jesus more fully, to follow Him more closely, and to listen more intently. Being a physically healthy, Nationally Board certified, debt-free, guitar playing gal won't mean jack squat without His Presence in it all.

The Gift

2009-12-13T16:53:00.000-08:00

I had a profound experience today... a moment I wasn't expecting, one that has caused me to feel a deep, sweet contentment...

Today at church, Cesar was sharing about the gifts of God (the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of health, financial, and relational blessing, etc.), and he related a story from one Christmas at his house. They had started the season assuming there weren't going to be many presents under the tree, so they didn't put gift tags on them. By Christmas day, there were many presents, and they had to go through the somewhat awkward process of opening random gifts and trying to remember who bought it and for whom. He remarked that part of the joy on Christmas morning isn't just for those who receive, but for those who give as well. We who take time to select thoughtful meaningful gifts bubble with anticipation and expand with joy when our loved ones open their presents.

Then Cesar wondered aloud if we sometimes treat the gifts we receive in our life as if they have lost the gift tag. We attribute the gift, whatever it might be, to some source other than its true Source. All the while God is waiting with anticipation for us to recognize it's really from Him. "We are glad for our gifts," Cesar concluded, "and all the while we say, 'I wish my Dad would have gotten me something.'"

For some reason, that image stopped me. For some reason, I have never quite thought of it exactly that way. For some reason, I think my heart finally reached out and took hold of the reality of the gift of my current season of life.

So often in the past 13 years, I have grappled with the whole "gift of singleness" idea. Usually, my responses to this gift landed in one of two camps: accepting it but only as a coping mechanism for the pain caused by the deferred desire of being truly married, or just diving into being royally honked at whatever well-meaning but emotionally ignorant person who was using it to console me in my singleness. (Seriously, I had a 19-year-old tell me that I just had to stop looking and then the person would show up. She's lucky she left that conversation with all her appendages still attached.)

Today, though, Cesar's words plunged me into cataloging the various aspects of my life, and I saw more fully how beautifully tailored those things are to my heart.

I love learning and getting better at what I do. As a single person, I've had the time and money to get my MA and start my National Board Certification.
I love my family. As a single person, I've had the time to build foundational relationships with my little people that will be a source of joy and strength in the years to come.
I love being active. As a single person, I can just GO to the gym when it fits! Fabulous!
I love high schoolers. As a single person, I have the time and space to teach well and lead Young Life.
I love blessing others financially. As a single person, I get to set the budget. I'm just starting to see how challenging it is for two adults to have a healthy financial plan together.

Don't get me wrong; I know these things can be done within the context of marriage, but not in the way I get to do them now. I still want to get married, and I'll be a kick-ass wife (once I learn to cook), full of respect and encouragement and playfulness and Marahness. But until then.... wow!!! Thank you, God, for this gift!!!

Vida Joven

2009-12-02T21:07:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the hobbit house, and it kinda smells.... like Spam.... and it's my own fault....

Let me explain.

Wednesday night is Young Life night. Tonight's talk -- The Work of Christ. So what did we do to lead up to it? First, we played On The Mark. Everybody has a partner and the standing partner takes a straw, sucks up an M&M, and then tries to drop it in a cup.... that is being held by his partner.... who is laying on the ground... and has the cup in his mouth. My partner? Rick.... aka Coach Clark.... best known around school as the head football coach and our newest potential Young Life leader. The results are in, and I stink at that game.

And then we played Eat That Food -- which is like Name That Tune but with hidden food items. Some highlights were Jose and The Jalepeño (2 bites... he didn't make it), Jackie and The Jelly Donut (2 bites... and she made it), and Andy and The Tomato -- one bite. One glorious, squishy, juicy bite from the kid that HATES tomatoes but did it so his team would score a point. So funny. (The house smells like Spam because of Justin and The Spam -- 3 bites... he didn't get 1/6 of the way done before he caved.... insert evil laugh here...)

And then, I got to talk about Jesus, and I mean really talk about Jesus. Not in the vague way that I sometimes do in class when the topics of purity or faith come up, but in the He-is-God's-Son-and-He-died-so-we-don't-have-to way. Just like On the Mark, we all try to live a good life the best way we know how, but more often than not, we miss the mark. And sometimes we make a choice (I can eat that food in e bites) that leads to us having to deal with more than we can handle (I have to eat WHAT?). Are the metaphors perfect? Not even close. But the Truth was here, and the seed of His Truth was scattered.

Man, what a privilege. What a night. I don't know how the talk landed with any of them, but I do know my God. He is standing at the door knocking. I'm contentedly blissful that He lets me be involved in letting these beautiful, powerful, glorious young people know Who it is that is asking to be introduced to them.

Random left-over spam smells.... a small price to pay.

I'm Not Sorry...

2009-11-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, I confess. I'm a die hard fan of So You Think You Can Dance. I know the contestants' names, have favorites (Russell!), and watch every week. In addition to the great dancing, I also love the music. Last year's favorite was "Falling Slowly" by The Frames, and this year's (so far anyway) is "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by Star. There is a sweet cello line (or maybe an upright bass?) and the lyrics.... great story, great imagery, just plain good...

"Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"

Guy:

God, that was strange to see you again

Introduced by a friend of a friend

Smiled and said "yes I think we've met before"

In that instant it started to pour.

Captured a taxi despite all the rain

We drove in silence across Pont Champlain

And all of the time you thought I was sad

I was trying to remember your name...

Girl:

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin

Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in

Now you're outside me

You see all the beauty

Repent all your sin

Together:

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose

I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose

I'll write you a postcard

I'll send you the news

From a house down the road from real love...

Live through this, and you won't look back...

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave

You were what I wanted

I gave what I gave

I'm not sorry I met you

I'm not sorry it's over

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save

Hydrate

2009-11-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

On the journey towards health, I have often marveled at the wonder that is water. Sometimes all I need when I'm tired mid-day and feel like falling into bed for an extended nap is a glass of ice water. And when I'm cold deep down in my brisket, a couple cups of hot water fix me right up. When my post-lunch brain threatens to shut down, a sip or two from the water fountain next to the cafeteria can make all the difference!

I've also noticed that just as often as not, I substitute something else for water. In the morning, coffee. In the early afternoon, a frost DP. In the evening, apple cider. Now, according to Weight Watchers, any type of liquid counts for hydration purposes (other than alcohol); however, I know how much better my body feels when it gets the real water it needs.

Today, Cesar brought up this idea and pointed out that God in His wisdom and knowledge of our nature hides water in other things that are good for us. Fruits and vegetables, for example, are often 60-80% water and chock full of good stuff we need to be healthy. We may avoid drinking a glass of water but fully enjoy a juicy apple or some crunchy lettuce.

The spiritual applications are obvious. Jesus said that the water He gives (umm.... Himself? His Spirit) would be a spring of water welling up to eternal life. There is a thirst in my soul for this Water, and when I quench that thirst by spending time with Him, I find that eternal quality in my life. And I thought today as Cesar munched on an apple during his sermon that there are other good things in my life that help to quench the God-thirst. Franklin Hill, my small group, and Young Life are all places for me to serve and teach and give. I am edified and nourished and loved in ways that simply don't happen in other contexts.

But even as Cesar was making his point, I couldn't help but think of the time when I was training for the marathon and got dehydrated on a run. My body became ridiculously unable to do the simplest functions, like eliminate waste, all because I didn't drink enough water. I didn't need an orange at mile 15. I needed water. Just water.

In the lives of those of us who not only believe in Jesus but seek to follow Him, and serve Him by serving, leading, and teaching others, the need for straight Water becomes even greater. This type of spiritual training requires proper spiritual hydration. If we are gonna lead, we gotta follow Jesus personally and closely. Church, small group, and service all provide a different nutrient to our souls, but in the marathon of spiritual leadership, often we just need Water.

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14

When you give Marah a cookie...

2009-11-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

She'll probably eat more than one. And if she has skipped dinner, she'll definitely eat more than two....three....four.... is there any milk in the fridge? NO? Okay, then.... let's leave it at four. That's what happened tonight, and that's why I'm still awake at 9:57. I am, indeed, that sensitive to the enlivening effects of chocolate. And so, since I'm up, I'm gonna throw a few reflections on today out into the cosmic void.

My first thought is, freakin' A, I love my life. Even though I was sick the past four days and in the throws of some serious snotty nastiness, I am so aware of how much I love where I am and whom I'm with and what I'm doing. This morning I had coffee with Debbie Paganelli (she's Pagariffic!), and it is so beautiful to walk with her through life. She is so full of pizazz and humor and love. Just fill my heart right up she does! Then I had coffee with Richie Perez, whom I've known for 15 years. We were GREAT friends in high school, and now he's working at Davis, and he loves kids, loves Jesus, and is considering being a Young Life Leader with me and Susie. I really hope that works out, but even if it doesn't, it is so great to have people like him around.

Then I got to chat with Kjell, a fellow English teacher and Boomerang Coach whom I've known for seven years. She's nationally certified, so we got to chat about tons of great ideas as I start on the National Board Certification process. While I am still a bit bewildered by the whole thing at times, I'm excited to be so purposeful in reflecting on my teaching and potentially to be rewarded quite well for that time and reflection. Can we say 2012 trip to Europe?

Then I worked out. I am so grateful to be in a healthy space with my body image and food issues. By the grace of God and the accountability of a great friend, I'm making better choices and have a healthier perspective on food and activity than I've had in a long while.

And then I putzed about the house while The Return of the King played in the background. I haven't watched that movie in a while, but I'm glad I did today. So many resonating themes. There are battles that need fighting. Robed in glorious white, I'm standing right where God has placed me, defending the harvest from the coordinated attack of the enemy. I am no man. Nor need I be. Kazah!

And then Helen came over. She's a new Young Life kid this year, and I think she's my little sister from another mister. We made banana bread and chocolate chip cookies and watched Up. Such a sweet film, and such a sweet girl. Then the Young Lifers arrived. We were small in number this week (I'm blaming it on not having school today) but there was still LOTS of laughter. I don't know where this whole Young Life thing is going, but I know this is a good thing for this season. I've been asked to go on Summer Assignment in July, which means that more than a month of my summer will be spent at Washington Family Ranch. I'm not sure how I'll cope without seeing my little people for that amount of time, but I'm excited nonetheless.

And I'm really thankful for the passage of time and the healing that has come the past couple weeks. October was not easy. But I think I can say, with thanksgiving and hope in my heart, that my feet are back under me, which is interesting because I didn't realize at the time that they had been swept from me. What I sense more now is the traction in my life -- moving forward in what God has given me. And that, my friends, is so good.

love to you (because I'm assuming if you're reading this, you know me) -- marah jean

Ending chapters...

2009-10-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

I sometimes wish I could pull an Emma Dinsmore on my life. She would always read the last chapter of a book first so that she could decide whether or not to read the whole thing: "If I like the ending, I know I'll like getting there, whereas if I don't like the ending, I know not to waste my time."

But even as I sit here, pondering the quote I just pulled from memory (what is it with me and random movie quotes??), I wish to retract that wish. Just because I don't like how a story ends doesn't mean the journey to that end was without value, merit, adventure, and love. Of course I would like every story to end with the destruction of the Ring, the ultimate defeat of the enemy, the coronation of the rightful king, and the joining of the two long-separated lovers, but that isn't life. Well, it is life in the BROADEST sense because Jesus is going to ultimately conquer death when he returns and is crowned and we are joined with Him for eternity. Pause for a moment and let's just GLORY in that! THAT is the dominant story line of life, and because of that, I can have lots of hope when, in times like right now, the subplots aren't tying up with happy bows.

I'm in a season of ending subplots, the most permanent of which is my grandmother's passing. And I'm walking through the cognitive and emotional paradox of the situation: though it is right and good for my Gramma to be with Jesus now, it still hurts. Though I am glad she isn't in anymore physical pain and that she'll get a new body someday, I still ache. I guess it just takes time for one's heart to catch up with one's head.

The dissonance of that paradox is also echoing in the professional and personal chapters that are also closing during this time. After five years with the Boomerang Project, I won't be coaching this spring. The work itself I won't particularly miss, but the people.... oh, my soul loves them, longs to see them, aches already knowing I will miss them. I know God has His protective and providing hand on my life, but saying good-bye still hurts. He has promised good things to those who love and obey him, but, still, I'm experiencing some ouchies.

And, you know what, it's okay. Even though I am currently experiencing the pain of the less-than-happy elements in the "ends" of these subplots, I would still have chosen to read them. The pain of the ending has not diminished the value, merit, adventure, or love I have experienced in them. And I take encouragement and hope from the fact that Jesus and I are moving forward together and that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

My life.... definitely worth the read.

Loss

2009-10-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not usually one to ascribe to Murphy's Law. I'm not usually a glass-half-empty gal. I'm not usually overshadowed by gray gloomy clouds. But today wasn't a usual day. It seems that all of the pain and loss of the last month have made alliances with one another, and they are now descending upon me en masse. I was cognitively aware of all the various losses yesterday, but today the emotions kicked in.

I hate that my grandma is dead and my grandpa is alone. I hate that one of my most favorite students got in a car accident and is now in a coma in Seattle. I hate that I probably won't be coaching for Link Crew this year, which basically means goodbye to that whole group of people that has been so pivotal in my life. I hate that the loss of the CRP still hurts so badly. I hate that I won't get to spend as much time with my friends in Calgary as I would like.

And so this afternoon I'm faced with what to do with all of this. I feel like a burden to others when I'm like this... mascara running, nose running, thoughts running. Oi. I usually am quite good at reframing days like today and lifting my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help. But I'm wondering if it might not be a bit more helpful to just let myself feel this for a bit.

...okay, get this..... Just as I typed that 30 minutes ago, Rissa came downstairs to change the laundry. I love the random provision of God that brought the friend, the compassion, and the hug I so desperately need right now.

And I love her wisdom: with grief coming at me from so many angles, distraction techniques aren't all bad. There's only so long one can look these things full in the face. So I'm gonna wash my face and head to the Y for step aerobics, hopefully have a long chat with a dear friend tonight, go on a road trip with Susie to see Colby tomorrow.

And, in a truly poetic life element, "Details in the Fabric" by Jason Mraz was playing while all this was being typed...

Calm down
Deep breaths
And get yourself dressed instead
Of running around
And pulling all your threads saying
Breaking yourself up

If it's a broken part, replace it
But, if it's a broken arm then brace it
If it's a broken heart then face it

And hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
And everything will be fine
Everything will be fine

Hang on
Help is on the way
Stay strong
I'm doing everything

Cake Inspired Thoughts

2009-10-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about teaching at Davis is the brilliance of my coworkers, particularly the ones in the English Department. We've got actors (ones who've been in real movies, not just the movies on public access cable), published authors, and classical composers. One of these gems teaches two doors down from me, and I love the randomness of our interactions. Sometimes we just holler at each other... "COOPER!!" "TRAUB!" Sometimes he brings in culinary delights... pumpkin scones, cupcakes, and this year's favorite: apple-pear cheesecake, made from scratch. Oh baby. And sometimes, he brings by copies of his newly written poetry. He wrote one a month ago that I found yesterday as I was organizing my desk.

I'm a baker by hobby.
I have this kick-ass cake recipe
That is made up of the usual dry ingredients
And then nothing but whipped cream.
The tricky part is folding the dry ingredients into the whipped cream
Gently enough, slowly enough, knowing when
Enough is enough.
White on white. Dry on wet.
Oddly, it works
Like mixing cement for a post-hole:
Without much effort, the ingredients blend
And hold.

I trust that my spirit is like that--
All the unresolveds, the irreconcilables
Sit on the surface and then, later
After you've not thought about them awhile
They are still unresolved, but mixed in
A part of you
And it's okay -- not it's not okay,
It has become fertile ground for wisdom.

The poem continues, but that part just stops me every time. I love the prosaic first stanza, the pluralization of the adjective unresolved, the fact that it starts with cake. But most of all, I love the hope it offers, the hope that the things that sit on my life-- that are in it but don't quite fit in it-- that those things will get worked in somehow. While I am an advocate of self-awareness, there are some things that I simply can't perceive right away; it takes some time to see the lines, to learn the lessons.

The last season of my life has been challenging, with ministry stuff and relationship stuff and health stuff. And while I always want to be open to receive fresh insight about old things, I also feel like God has given some wisdom in the last few weeks: clearer directions about vocation and calling, clearer perceptions of what resonates within my own heart, clearer invitations towards Him and away from the things that I would use to replace Him.

Some of the unresolveds are mixing in, and the blend of circumstance and Providence is looking less like a confusing smattering of ingredients and more like a sweet something that can be tasted and seen as evidence that the Lord is good. It might not be all frosted and decorated just yet, but it's ridiculously good nonetheless.

Let's hear it for cake.

Hoodies, pillows, and my big red couch

2009-09-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

I love fall. I love the coziness of it... the glorious, crisp mornings and evenings that make me head to the closet for a fuzzy hoody sweatshirt. I'm a walking billboard for all manner of things these days: Leadership Staff, Oregon State, Evergreen Girls State, Breakaway Lodge, Pirate Baseball. I even have a red one with Mickey Mouse's face floating on it. I like the snuggliness of them, the way I am dwarfed by them.

My giraffe pillow and big red couch make me feel the same way. Lori made me the pillow for my birthday, and I bought the couches two years ago in a flurry of "I'm a grown-up now! I shall have non-collegiate furniture." Again, it's the snuggliness that gets me. I'm a sucker for a good snuggle.

It's the same feeling I get when my brother lets me really hug him or when Bennett says he wants to sit by me or when Erin stands by my side and expectantly says, "Up!" There's something about being held (or doing the holding) that quiets me. And, along these lines, the Life Journal reading for today was Psalm 130, but it was a short one so I kept reading through Psalm 131:

Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty.
I don't concern myself with matters too great for me.
But I have stilled and quieted myself, just as a small child is quiet with its mother.
Yes, like a small child is my soul within me.

It made me think of holding Erin when she and I are focused on the same thing. We just sit there, but she leans into me. Such trust and love and peace, and I'm not even her mom!

But this psalm isn't just about quietness and peace; it is also a recognition of limitations and declaration of choice: "I have stilled and quieted myself." In the midst of life's big challenges, both external and internal, I choose to slow down.... stop.... reframe.... breathe....

This psalm is perfectly timed for me today. There are matters in my life right now that are too great for me... big picture/trajectory stuff about which I have some strong opinions and preferences... ministry stuff... relationship stuff... career stuff...

And this morning I choose to crawl up on my Papa's lap and say, "I don't 'got this.' This is too big for me. And so, in light of Your enduring love and faithfulness, Your promises that have been thoroughly tested, and Your invitation to trust, I choose to still and quiet myself. I may not get what I want, but Your presence is more important than all of that. I want to stay with You through each season, each radar blip, each bend in the road, and I choose to follow You, not my own way or wisdom."

The embrace of God.... that's pretty damn cozy.

By heart....

2009-09-03T19:24:00.000-07:00

My friend Anne preached at Franklin Hill last week. A former fundamentalist turned female pastor who says "kick ass" from the pulpit, she is so great! While the whole teaching was packed with solid theology and pointed challenge, she used one particular phrase that has been rolling in my head and heart all week. Anne said that part of Israel's problem was that they began to think that what God wanted them to do was ascribe to a set of beliefs and practices instead of learning to know Him by heart.

That's the phrase.... to know God by heart. It's like a parfait, that phrase. Layer after intriguing layer has been unfolding in my soul this week.

The most obvious layer is the one Anne certainly intended: that God desires us to know Him at a heart level. Throughout history, God has been revealing Himself to humanity. His wildly passionately good heart whispers at twilight and shouts in thunder. He wants us to understand His incredible love for us so that when circumstances seem to indicate His lack of proximity and care, we can reinterpret them accurately because we know His heart. When we know God's heart, we can discover the roots of a particular attitude or belief and identify them as True because they line up with His heart or as (insert shrill German lady voice here) "Lies! All lies!" because they do not align with His heart. This layer, in and of itself, is so encouraging and challenging!!

But then I thought of the other way to know thing by heart: memorization and recitation. I know lots of things by heart: The Star Spangled Banner, the first 45 minutes of Robin Hood, my parents' phone number, sections of Goonies and sections of John. I know these things by heart because I've encountered them so often. But this kind of knowing doesn't necessarily indicate I've given much true consideration to the meaning of these things.

It reminded me of Friar Laurence's chastisement of Romeo's infatuation for Rosaline: "Thy love did read by rote that could not spell." Yeah Romeo "loved" Rosaline but he was just "reciting" what he thought love should be. He didn't really know her, so he couldn't really love her. I've done that with God. Having grown up in church, I know how my "love" for God is supposed to look, but I didn't really know Him. Could I then really love Him? How glad am I that God is a pursuer and didn't leave me in my mimicking.

I'm thinking living the "Christian life" is like memorizing poetry. If I haven't taken the time to figure out what the poem actually means, my recitation might sound good, but it is actually hollow and meaningless. However, if I've spent some time with the poem, gazed at its angles and texture, grappled with its imagery and implications, then and only then do the words I speak have true meaning. Others might be impressed by either, but I can only communicate with the latter.

Isn't the same true for how I live? Others might be impressed by my life, but if all the exterior doesn't come from a heart that knows and loves God, then it doesn't mean a whole lot.... not really. But if I'm learning to know Him more, then my life is what I want it to be: a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him.

What a heart He has... one that pursues and invites and corrects and comforts. This love of His is a poem worth memorizing...

John & Sam

2009-08-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

I've been spending time recently in the Gospel of John. I think this might be my favorite of the four Gospels for so many reasons: his use of the light/dark motif, his blending of Hebrew and Greek ideas, the fact that one of my clearest memories of God opening up His truth to me during individual study was whilst I was reading John 1.

But I'm not in the happy part of John right now; I'm in John 18 and 19, the account of Jesus' betrayal, arrest, and trial. I didn't read much because I got sidetracked after chapter 19 verses 12-16:

The Pilate tried to release him, but the Jewish leaders shouted, "If you release this man, you are no 'friend of Caesar.' Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar."
When they said this, Pilate brought Jesus out to them again....and said to the people "Look, here is your king!"
"Away with him" they yelled. "Away with him! Crucify him!"
"What? Crucify your king?" Pilate asked.
"We have no king but Caesar," the leading priests shouted back.
Then Pilate turned Jesus over to them to be crucified.

Okay, so I know these guys were royally pissed at Jesus for claiming to be God's Son, the epitome of blasphemy and heresy. But "We have no king but Caesar"? Caesar? Really guys? This distant pagan whose rule was typified by violence and war? The man whose empire squashed the Jewish people? You chose him over a man who preached the real and present Kingdom of God?

Then what came to mind was an event that happened 1000 years before hand, recorded in 1 Samuel 8. Samuel is aging, his sons aren't leading with integrity, so the leaders of Israel ask Samuel to give them a king so they can be like all the other nations. Sam is upset, goes to God, and God tells him to give them what they want; "It is me they are rejecting," God explains to Sam. "They don't want me to be their king any longer."

Is it presumptuous to think I can feel empathy towards God? But ouch!! Here is this group of people that He freed, protected, provisioned, empowered, guided, and loved for generations, and they are now saying, "It isn't enough to have a King we can't see, a King we have to take on faith. God, you aren't enough for us anymore."

I doubt they had any clue that their descendants would do more than reject God's leadership by actually screaming for His death, but it boggles my mind to think that the deep root of Jesus' crucifixion was the Israelites' insistence of having a person step into God's role. "We have no king but Caesar" started with "Give us a king so we can be like other nations."

How easy it is to sit here in 2009 and pass judgment on these people. But aren't I just as prone to this kind of insistence? Aren't I just as tempted to doubt His desire and ability to free me, protect me, provide for me, empower me, guide me, and love me? Isn't it just as difficult for me to move forward with a God/Friend/Love that I can't see as it was for them to do what they needed to do without a physical king?

Yeah -- I see it in my heart. It lurks there -- this desire to supplant the intangible God with a finite being that I can at least see and touch. My prayer this morning is that, for today, I would have the faith and courage to let God be what He wants to be in my heart and thus receive the blessing of being one of those who has not seen and still believes (John 20:29).

143D... aka Marah vs The Wall-of-Nothing

2009-08-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

In less than one week, I will start my second year at Davis High School. I am really looking forward to a great year; I'm uber stoked to no longer be the new girl, to have another shot at the American Literature curriculum, and to get Young Life going again. However, there is one pill in the jam: my classroom walls are depressing.... off-white, but dirty off-white, paint chunks missing, dirty smudges that won't wash off. Last year I made due by focusing my creative energies on the one bulletin board in the room. I ignored the 15-foot wall of nothing, that wall's extension onto the front wall, the empty brick wall in the back. My plan for this year was to paint the room, but I discovered that doing so would create a union mess for my administrators.

So I sat with the space for a while and came up with a plan. A huge Ikea picture of Paris on the back brick wall was Phase One. Phase Two consisted of buying three 12"x36" posters that I matted on deep red tagboard: Paris, London, and Venice. And as lovely as these were, I still had the problem of the 15-foot wall of nothing, which seemed worse when juxtaposed with the now lovely front and back walls.

And then, inspiration struck! I fashioned a bulletin board out of cardboard, craft supplies, and butcher paper in the middle of the wall-of-nothing for Davis information and plan to hang four different posters around the board. I bought the first two yesterday. The first I chose for the picture, but the saying is decent too: "The block of granite which was an obstacle on the path of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong." The Action poster says, "It only takes a single thought to move the world." Excellent sentiments. Very "Hey, let's make the most of the one and only life each of us has been given."

And while these two posters do line up with my "Yes, And", "Go Big", "Total Support" life philosophy, I couldn't quite make myself buy much more inspiration and motivation. Instead, for the students who pay attention (and, let's be honest, for the days when I need a laugh), I have purchased these:

Wishes: When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Priorities: Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction.

Bring on the new school year.

The Return of the CongaMama

2009-08-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

My friend Jaymie recently asked for video footage of the CongaMama in action. So, even though I'm playing a djembe and not a conga, the sound check from worship team this morning will have to suffice.

Pack your bags, something small...

2009-08-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

I was putting a new check register in my wallet today and found a post-it note from a couple years ago. On it I had drawn a map from Halee's apartment in London to Piccadilly Circus and written the times that Louvre tours were given in English. Funny how something as small as a post-it can bring back a flood of memories and renew a desire to get up and go!

I'd love to go back to London and go to Vesper's at St. Paul's Cathedral, take a couple days and go to Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon, follow through on Halee's idea of having tea at The Ritz or The Savoy. I'd love to go back to Paris and stay for longer than 24 hours. I'd go to the Louvre, to Sacré-Couer, and to the Eiffel Tower again (and again and again and again... oh wait... that's what I did last time... but I'd do it again, especially at night when it's all lit up and sparkly).

And yet, as great as Paris and London would be, there are so many places I haven't been, things I would love to see. A friend told me recently that we only get this version Earth one time through because God's going to make a new one, and there's no guarantee of there being any repeat wonders. And while I'm confident God's got some great things planned for us, I can't help but agree.

So... Italy, anyone? Egypt? China? Ireland?

Wanna pack your bags, Something small
Take what you need and we disappear
Without a trace we'll be gone, gone
The moon and the stars can follow the car
And then when we get to the ocean
We gonna take a boat to the end of the world
All the way to the end of the world
"You & Me" Dave Matthews Band

Late night thanksgiving

2009-08-20T22:19:00.001-07:00

It is 10:21pm and, no, I'm not eating leftover turkey and sweet potatoes (though now that I've written that, those do sound right tasty just now. Mmmmmm.....) I realize in the lives of many people, this is not late. But I was hoping sleep would come at 9, which it probably would have had I not eaten chocolate ice cream at 8. Silly Marah. So, before I try to re-enter the Gates of Sleepland, I want to send some reflections about today out into the void.

1) I spent some time in my classroom today, revised the syllabi for this year's classes, set up my computer and stereo system, figured out how not to hang the big Paris picture, and got to sweep into the office singing "Maria" to our receptionist. I am thankful for a job I love and for no longer being the new girl. Then....

2) I spent the late morning/early afternoon with Elisa Briesmeister. Warm bevs, great chats, and some unexpected finds for back-to-school clothes. She bought me the cutest dress for my birthday, and then we found a little pink sweater to go with it so that I won't break the dress code when I wear it to school. I am thankful for the joy of feeling feminine and my gal pals who get that. Then...

3) I went to the Y a little later than normal, did a quick shoulder workout, and went to Turbo Kickboxing. For part of the class, Dani (the instructor) previewed this fall's Zumba class. I freakin' LOVE IT!!! I'm thankful for a healthy body, coordination, and the joy of choreography. Then...

4) I attended the first part of the Yakima Area Young Life Committee meeting. I got to share about Franklin Hill's vision for partnering with Young Life, how last year went, my camp experience, and our hopes for this year. Craig (Area director) and Ken (established leader with whom I've served a bit this year) shared with the committee how impressed they have been with me and how thankful they are for my leadership at Davis. Wow. Unexpected and so good to hear. I'm thankful for such an incredible community of Christ-followers with whom to serve, lead, love, and live. Then...

5) I came home, did some laundry, and tried to go to sleep, but couldn't. My heart is a little tender these days, wondering and hopeful, timid and unsure. I have surges of confidence, believing that I really am in a good space because I'm following Christ and allowing my community to spur me on towards wisdom, but the heart still aches, you know? So, instead of diving into the peanut butter (which, let's face it, has been my modus operandi for a while), I prayed, cried, and called Susie. I'm thankful for the present-tense grace of Christ and friends who hit their knees when I call for help.

You turned my wailing into dancing;
You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
Psalm 30:11-12

Epic and Intimate

2009-08-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

I just got back from 2.5 days on the Oregon Coast with my dear friend Lisa Jean. Going into it, my focus was to give Lisa as much blessing as I could heap upon her. She and Cesar have been kicking ass (and subsequently having their asses kicked) for the last few months with Church @ the Park and the new building. Sunday started their vacation time, so I stole her from her hubby and kids and away we whisked to Cannon Beach.

This was my third trip to the Oregon Coast this summer and it was by far the best. The first was with middle school camp, so my focus was on serving them and leading them. The second was a solo venture to visit some newly made friends in Seaside, but they were all working at camp so we had a great time, but something was missing. Thankfully, this trip was different. There is so much I could share about my time with Lisa Jean. We laughed a ton (thanks to literal videos, the Target Lady, and the fact that we spent a good portion of time watching a whale that turned out to be a rock) and talked about this particular season of my life and of hers. We ate clam chowder three different times (The Driftwood Inn was the best), took a long walk to Haystack (aka Goonie Rock), and watched He's Just Not that Into You and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

But upon further reflection, the pieces of the trip that spoke most clearly to my heart were things that mirrored what John Eldredge (author of Wild at Heart and The Sacred Romance) recently described in the Ransomed Heart newsletter: The Epic and the Intimate. And as fabulous as it was to share this trip with my friend, these sweet moments were experienced while Lisa was off doing something else....

~the glory of a majestic sunset that riotously changed colors as the Pacific swallowed up the light... Epic.

~the stillness of the early morning when the sun's rays turned the dew on the spider webs all sparkly and diamond-like... Intimate.

~the surprising power asserted by Haystack Rock as the incoming tide pounded against it... Epic.

~the cool tingle of the rolling fog on my face.... Intimate.

That's the kind of beauty that both calls up my soul into the amazing grandeur of God and calms my heart to a place of contented stillness...

And now I'm home with the school year coming at me with more speed than I care to acknowledge. Soon my life will be much more structured, much more demanding. My prayer is that I can, in the midst of all the newness and sameness, the structure and the spontaneity, the job and the joy, have eyes to see and a heart to receive both the encouragement that comes from being a part of God's Epic story and the peace that comes from being loved so Intimately.

Taken

2009-08-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen the movie Taken starring Liam Neeson and you intend to do so, you may want to watch it first before reading this. But if you've already seen it or have no intention of doing so, read on!

Last night, I hosted a pizza and movie night with some of my Young Life gals. Three of the four of them went to camp together, and this is the first time it has actually worked out for us to get together again. We baked pizza and cookies and laughed a ton, and then settled down to watch the movie. They had all seen it before, but it was my first time. It is suspenseful, but not scary.

The basic premise is Liam Neeson's character has given up his life as an international security spy type person to attempt to rebuild a relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, Kim. She wants to go to Paris with a friend for a few weeks and, after setting some guidelines, he gives his permission. Right before she leaves, though, he discovers that she hasn't told the whole truth; she and her pal intend to spend their time, not at the Louvre, but following U2 on their European tour. As soon as they land in Paris, they are marked by a prostitution trafficking ring and, while the daughter is on the phone with her father, men arrive at the Paris flat and abduct them.

The rest of the story follows Neeson's efforts to reclaim his daughter. He stops at nothing to track down Kim, ends up discovering the ring is deeply woven into the Parisian government, and after overcoming a myriad of obstacles, he finds her and saves her. The scene that just stopped me was, fittingly, the climax of the story. With the last villain shot in the head, Kim leans into her father and says, "You came for me. You came for me," to which Neeson replies, "I told you I would."

Now I know that there is a time to speak and a time to be still, and quite honestly I didn't really think about which kind of moment was happening in the room. I just said, "Holy crap! That is such a picture of what Jesus does for us. We get in situations -- sometimes by our own choices and sometimes because of things we could not see coming -- situations that are death to us. And Jesus just BUSTS through EVERYTHING to get us back. He said he would come for us and he does! DANG!!!"

Who knows what the girls were thinking, but I know what a timely reminder this is for me. There are places in my life that I didn't expect to be, areas of brokenness that haven't been healed, areas of longing that haven't been fulfilled. Jesus never said I would never royally blow it, but He did say that he came to heal the brokenhearted and to set captives free. He has not promised to give me everything I want, buy He has promised to provide all my needs according to his riches and glory. So I am not doomed to stay in my pit of dysfunction and death. Nor do I need to fret, worry, freak out, stress, or grab grab grab at what I think is best for me. Instead, I can be honest about where I am, confess my sin if my own choices got me here, and ask for Him to come get me; I can look at His abundant provision for my present-tense life and trust Him for the future. Amazing. Really.

Father, may I have the courage to follow as You lead me home.

Joe + Marah + Helium

2009-08-13T07:09:00.000-07:00

I love my brother. Love might not be a strong enough word. He is such a fantastic person -- really smart but in a completely non-Marah kind of way, playful enough to buy dollar store costumes and chase cousins for hours on end, compassionate towards my dad and Carrie in a way that it quite beyond me, hard working both at his job and on the Ranch, and so hilariously funny that I wheeze like a tea kettle when the two of us get going. He's not a clown as he lacks the performance bug that us Traub gals have, but when the mood strikes, hilarity ensues. Plus he lets me tackle him, hug him, and/or hold his hand during church if I need to do so. What a guy!

So when I said, "Hey, Joe! Take this balloon and we're gonna sing for the camera," there was a bit of a push back. But he relented. And now, for the two people who read this (Hi Nat! Hi Anne!), I proudly present Marah Jean Traub and Bankunle Joseph Alvin Traub with their impromptu performance of Roll On, Columbia.

Other Summer Pics

2009-08-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

The summer started with a short but sweet visit with Jayme and Scott! We got to spend an afternoon/evening together meandering through the Columbia River Gorge and my heart resonated with hers as if we hadn't spent the last several years on opposite sides of the country. Love you, J!!!

The fun continued with two weeks of Young Life Camp! I took six gals from Davis to high school camp and five girls from Franklin Hill to middle school camp. What a RIOT!!!! I laughed so hard so many times! What a blessing to be in the lives of these girls!

And the kicks keep on coming throughout the summer with random get togethers with my small group! One pool party turned into a "who can run the farthest on the inflatable dragon" contest! Susie rocked the competition!

Another short but fantastic visit was with Miss Kriste!! She and I taught together in Sunnyside for five years, and she now lives in Hawaii. I hadn't seen her since she had her son, Alexander who is now 1. So much laughter!! What a blessing!

Most recently, I took a trip to Calgary, Alberta to visit Mike & Tricia Swalm and their three fantastic girls! We spent days just putzing around Calgary, evenings watching Seinfeld, and then took a day and went to Banff, which was so incredibly beautiful. It was a too-short visit, to be sure!

Hope & Liberation

2009-07-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

Those of you in YakTown know that Franklin Hill has been undergoing some MAJOR transitions the last couple months. From staff cuts to building relocation, this faithful gathering of folks is moving forward together through an incredible time of challenge and blessing. Fitting, isn't it, that the sermon series the Teaching Team had planned was on The Exodus. I love it when a plan comes together! And I love it even more when God chooses to interface with me so personally through the topics I've known were to come! We're still technically in the middle of the series as it is planned to last through to the end of August, but today's was so good that I gotta share!

The series started a couple weeks ago with the story of Moses and how God stirred in him a holy discontent with the situation of things. By saying yes to God's vision for his life, Moses made a covenant with destiny that allowed him to fulfill the purposes God had for him. The next week, Anne taught on God's directions, using the Passover Story as the first example of God giving people directions that did not make sense, but when they obeyed these directions, they made a covenant with faith that allowed them to be safe from death. (AND we get the same offer through Christ! GLORY! I love that story -- as an English teacher, there is so much subtext and connotation in when Jesus did what he did! Oh, I could go on and on and on!!) On July 19, I taught about the protection that comes when we follow the directions we receive from God. Just as the Israelites were protected from the forces from their past as they moved forward, so we too have a covenant with love that manifests as God takes His position as our rear guard while simultaneously opening up the way before us.

This week's message, though, spoke straight to my little heart. The topic was Provision: a Covenant with Hope. Oi -- such good stuff! Here are the big ideas:

~As Christ followers, we often focus on faith and love and can forget about the amazing power of hope until it wanes. If we lose hope, then we can easily lose our sense of faith and love. We start wandering in the desert, and if we forget Him in whom we place our hope, we start to wonder about if He really loves us. It was when the Israelites were out of Egypt that they started to doubt God's ability and desire to meet their needs. They didn't know the time in the desert was necessary.

~God could have taken them on a 7-day trek from Egypt to Palestine, but that would not have been enough time for them to develop the character they would need to thrive in the Promised Land. You can't take slaves into wide open spaces without first transforming the way they see themselves, each other, and God. If they hadn't had time to experience God and His faithfulness, they would have arrived in the Promised Land but they'd still be carrying the chains of the past.

~One way God shows His faithfulness to the Israelites as they are just beginning to get to know Him is by meeting their needs on a daily basis. I knew Cesar was going to use the passage about the manna and quail, a passage with which I am very familiar, but I had never thought of the Israelites' propensity to gather more than they needed as a matter of hope. They were tempted to gather more than they needed because they didn't have the hope that God would provide tomorrow just as He had for that day. Another temptation is to look at how God has provided for us today and pine away for the thing He hasn't given us yet. If we lose hope, we will start to grab things for ourselves because we think God has forgotten about that desire. (Can I hear an amen!) But just as the extra manna the Israelites gathered became maggot-infested, the very things we grab at in our hopelessness become poisonous and foul.

~Finally, to get around this, we need to make a covenant with hope. Saying YES to hope means choosing not to despair and moving forward when the promise of God that we thought was for yesterday hasn't shown up yet.

The applications for me during this season are deep and powerful. From ministry to work to food issues to personal needs, God has provided so much for me during this season of my life -- nearby family that will snuggle me like crazy, an awesome and authentic community to live my life with, a great job that I love doing, the opportunity to travel, and a bunch of other stuff. But the desire I have to be married is still unmet and it is easy, as I live in the desert that Yakima can seem to be, to lose hope and doubt that God is still aware of me in this space. But God is building some serious character in me and some serious community around me so that when a potential relationship surfaces, I will have the resources to make wise choices and navigate the challenges of any deep relationship with patience, love, hope, and all that other good stuff.

Cesar's final point was another deep thought. We often think of Genesis as the first book of the Bible (duh -- genesis = beginning) but in reality, Genesis was written by Moses, who obviously didn't enter the story until the time of the Exodus. Then, after God had shown Himself to be both loving and powerful enough to be Israel's Liberator, He was able to reveal Himself as creator. What a powerful idea! Jesus saves us first -- pulls us out of the crap of our lives, perceptions, and beliefs. Then He can begin to show us more of the depth and breadth and texture of who He is and who we are in Him, but if we stay in our bondage, we can neither clearly see these sides of who He is nor accurately appropriate what that means for our own lives.

Thank you, Father, for liberating us and teaching us to say "yes" to your offer of direction, protection, and provision through faith, love, and hope.

Young Life Camp

2009-07-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

The room is quiet, as I quiet as I could imagine 700 high schoolers could be, as I stand behind the stage curtains with a piece of cardboard in my hand and the smell of permanent marker lingering in the air. After five days of zip lines, blobbing, and shaving cream, I’m about to participate in Cardboard Testimonies – a simple event that allows people to sum up in a few words the transformative power Christ has had in their lives. Thirty other leaders are with me backstage and we check out each other’s boards. Even before the session begins, I’m misty-eyed at the awesome power and love that Christ offers us, a power that breaks addictions and emboldens the fearful, a love that fathers orphans and calls wayward children home.

As I step to the blue tape mark on the stage, I scan the room and lock eyes with my girls: six Davis High School students whom I have known all year. They know a lot of my story, but they do not know this part: “Bipolar Dad, Unwanted, Unlovely.” That was my reality before I truly encountered the power and love of God. Then I smile and flip the board: “Eternal Father, Chosen, Beautiful.”

Moments like these are what camp is about – giving kids opportunities to interface with the life-changing Truth of God and what He can do in and through lives that are devoted to Him. What we first-time leaders experience so exquisitely is how the Holy Spirit can use any element of camp to draw kids to Himself. For Juanita, the Cardboard Testimonies demonstrated so clearly how powerfully God could change her life. For Colby, it was the ropes course – a terrifying experience that created a metaphor for her about the challenges of trusting Christ, a challenge that she accepted. For Jael, cabin time moved her to ask questions and receive Christ. For Silvia, Club provided a clear presentation of the Gospel and what it means to follow Jesus that reaffirmed her faith and helped her recognize how God’s hand had already been guiding her life.

As a leader, I got to experience each of these pieces of camp with my gals. Together with my campers, I got to laugh and play and sing at Club time, clip into the ropes course and climb Communication Hill, fly down the zip line and plummet on the swing. These experiences strengthened the relational foundation with these kids, and that happened because of the service of the Assignment Team, Summer Staff, and Work Crew. The sheer volume of volunteers who gave tirelessly of their time and energy for weeks at a time amazed me.

On a personal level, camp served as a reminder that this life I live as a follower of Christ simply is not about me. It seems like an elementary idea, something I should have mastered years ago when I was first getting to know Jesus. But the longer I follow Christ, the more He peels back the layers of my heart and reveals how deeply that vein of self-reliance runs and how that keeps me from experiencing His divine provision and grace. Praise God for that very grace that reveals our weaknesses and covers them, convicts us of our sin and cleanses us. I left camp refocused on the larger picture of God’s amazing story and honored to play a small part in that ongoing epic tale.

2009-06-07T05:16:00.000-07:00

(Insert lame apology for lack of blogging here)

The spring and end of the school year have passed in a blaze of activity and challenge. I have 2.5 days of school left and am amazed at what a challenging and wonderful year it has been. I am already excited for next year and getting things more right than this year. I WILL teach my American Lit kids how to write a coherent essay. I will NOT let tardies slide, especially after lunch. I WILL keep on loving my ghetto kids even when they stop coming to school and make me worry about them. :-)

It really has be an extraordinary year. Part of that has been all the work with Davis Young Life, which isn't over yet. Kurtis and I are taking 12 kids to camp this year, and we leave on June 20. It should be a GREAT time and I am really excited. Nervous -- I've never been to Young Life Camp before -- but excited. I get back from high school camp on the 26th, am home for 2 days, and then turn around and go to Middle School camp on the OR coast. Pray, pray, pray for me, for the kids, for Kurtis (who's never been to camp before).

In addition to all of that, I've got some great mini-trips lined up this summer. TODAY I am headed to Seattle to see Jayme! Score! Then in August, I'm hoping to head to Calgary to see Mike and Tricia and the girls. So excited am I! I have a couple of speaking engagements this summer as well, so I won't be bored. But oh baby am I looking forward to some free time! Free time that will mostly be spent with the fams -- both biological and Franklin Hill.

That's the update from here. Sorry I'm not wittier. It is 5:25 in the morning. I REALLY need to get shades on my east bedroom window.

Baby Tyler

2009-05-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

On May 19, Rachel and Wyatt welcomed Tyler into our expectant and joyful family! Everything went well, and mom and baby are home.

T-man's middle name is Joseph, named for his Uncle Joe. Joe is such a natural with all of his little relatives, be they neice, nephew, or second-cousin, so none of us are surprised by how much Joe loves TJ. When I showed this picture to my students, one kid said, "Whoa!! Either that's one tiny baby or that's one BIG guy!" He was right on both counts!

I got to take a couple days off from work to watch Bennett and Erin while Rachel was in the hospital. What a riot! We had dancing parties (of course), and then Erin and I made a cake for mom and baby brother during the early morning hours. We also had the celebratory hats, which Bennett enjoyed to the fifth degree, and helium balloons, which provided much entertainment.

And, of course, Auntie Marah couldn't say no to Erin's request for tasty treats, even though it was quite early. She shares my sweet tooth; what can I say?

The following weekend (Memorial Day) provided the time for Wyatt's family to come visit the newest edition to the family. Rachel and Wyatt took advantage of the timing and had Tyler dedicated that weekend. What a profound blessing to have both sides of the family there for this event! Hurray!!!

(And, on a side note, the layout of this page is KILLING ME!!! But I don't want to delete the picture of Bennett and upload it again with a different format just to satisfy to aesthetic senses.)

Lenten

2009-02-28T14:15:00.000-08:00

When I think of Lent, I think of the cafeteria menu in Wapato -- fish sandwiches on Fridays during the six weeks before Easter. I don't remember any significance to the season before Easter until just a few years ago. It has never been a big deal to me. This year, I decided to give up peanut butter. This may sound silly, but I eat quite a bit of it... in my oatmeal at breakfast, with some celery for lunch, on my ice cream at night. I was going to give up sweets too, but didn't want to take away every good and tasty thing.

Then, this morning, I was reading Lauren Winner's "Girl Meets God" and came across her reflections on Lenten. She writes that her pastor "had spoken of the need to give up something that was truly important to you. To give something that was really truly yourself. He had encouraged us to remember what it was like to receive gifts from friends. So much of what made the gift meaningful...was not the gift itself, but the spirit in which it was given. Say your friend has a beautiful green sundress. You have liked and admired that sundress for months. She gives it to you. If it's just a castoff -- she has eighteen others just like it, so giving it to you is no real sacrifice -- the whole exchange feels a little anticlimactic. But if your friend loves that dress too, loves it dearly but wants you to have it because she knows it will make you happen, then you are thrilled. The dress takes on a whole new meaning. 'I want to encourage you to give something to God that really matters. Something you really love. Something that is hard to do without' (he said)."

She then goes on to tell of his challenge to her to give up reading -- a pastime that was much more than a pastime for her. As I read that, I got one of those deep-in-my-gut ideas that is more than idea. It is the voice of God. I don't want to sound overly spiritual about it -- it could have been just an idea, but I had a fairly volatile response to the idea. Tried to write it off as me being over-zealous. Thought of all the things that could happen if I actually followed through on the idea. Tried to justify reasons to ignore the idea. But after sitting with the idea, I feel it is something I need to do between now and Easter.

I need to give up going to the Y.

I know that seems silly. Many people would look at NOT going to the gym as anything but a sacrifice. I'm not trying to say I'm some sort of super fit athlete, but as I pondered this Lenten decision, I realized just how much value I place in that slice of my life. How much justification I derive from the amount of calories I burn, how much affirmation from the guys who make a point to talk to me on the fourth floor, how much time I spend there in a given week. I'm sure there are more reasons why God has asked this of me during this season; I don't know what they all are, but I hope to understand more by mid-April. Nevertheless, I won't be Y-ing for a while. I still have a training plan for the 10K I'm running at the end of April. I confess I am very afraid that I will gain a bunch of weight if I don't go to the Y. So I lay that fear at the feet of Jesus and walk forward into this season.

And maybe I'll lay off the cookies too.....

maybe

The end of February

2009-02-24T16:52:00.000-08:00

I was scanning through my list of regularly checked blogs and mentally berating those who haven't posted since December 10th (...mmm...cesar) when I realized -- Sweet Sassy! -- I haven't posted since November! Hello, pot? It's me, the kettle. You're black. So I shall take a few of the minutes I have this afternoon (as I have skipped the Y and am realizing how much time I would have if I simply didn't work out) and update the blog!

2009 so far is one consistently moving river of mostly goodness. Christmas was fabi (how could it not be with a hat like this one?), New Years vomitous (I had the stomach flu on December 31, so no ringing in the new year for me), and I had a date on Valentine's Day. (Now now now, everybody, don't get too excited -- it didn't go well as he spent most of the time talking, hardly asked me anything, and had a bull-esque nose ring... I don't mind body piercings in general, but when you're pushing 40, take them out.)

I still love my job, though I am in the part of the year when I always say to myself, "I gotta be more strict in September." But every September comes and I'm still a jolly lass and I create another set of classroom climates that are wonderfully affirming and delightful but sometimes less than academically productive. What do I teach these high school yahoos anyway? Well, by now they should know that some adult loves them, even if that adult is their somewhat random English teacher. We are finishing up the 2nd trimester, which means Romeo & Juliet for freshmen and Mark Twain for juniors. I'm looking forward to next year, when I will have some more experience with the American Lit curriculum. I've gone through it all chronologically this year and may try thematic units next year. Hmmmmm..... who knows? Not me. One season at a time -- I can barely think past Finals in two weeks.

Franklin Hill Foursquare Church continues to move forward. (The picture below if of our "Revivify" skit that Lisa Jean wrote. It was SO HILARIOUS!!! My character -- Lola Tina Nataturlova -- loved the Revivify Yogurt, even though it had some negative side effects. We had fart noises and everything!) Our middle school ministry team has both shifted and grown -- shifted in that Tracy (the guy who was originally hired to be the youth dude) has been transitioned into other areas leaving me in charge of middle school club (GULP!). But we've grown too, as two of my high school kids help out every week and my friend Jeanne has started helping too. I also volunteer at high school club on Wednesday nights, and thankfully Cesar runs that bad boy. I just show up, give kids rides, and run an activity or two. We had twelve kids last week after a month of averaging six. It is a faith-building/testing thing to be sure because I can get very caught up or distracted or discouraged throughout the whole process. I don't really like being in charge as I don't remember details, am not great at delegating, and am constantly afraid that I am going to screw up the whole operation to high heaven. But I'm dealing with it. I'm still on the teaching team, though my times "on the mound" only come up once every twelve weeks. I really enjoy serving in that way, though I do have to remind myself that I enjoy it. :-) My last topic: Is Jesus the Only Way? Yeah -- cover that in 30 minutes.

Hmmmm..... what else.... oh! Spring means Boomerang travel, though this year it is decidedly less than every year past. I'm only working two conferences this year; the least I've ever done before is four. It is quite bittersweet. I had a great time in California at coaches weekend. How I LOVE my Boom Boom peeps. The WA conference was small and wonderful, but it was hard for me to be away. I missed my students, my club kids, and the stability of my regular life. However, I also miss seeing lots of the coaches throughout the spring, but I am glad I am not getting on lots of planes anymore. The allure of solo travel was driven from me during the Year of Nine Conferences. :-)

Travel with others, though, is very much on the horizon. Joe and I are planning a trip back to Indiana over spring break. I am stoked! We'll get to see Lyndsey in a musical and I plan on visiting tons with Yemi and Becca and Jeremy and Mindie and my family and the Michigan/Illinois Boom Boom peeps. Oh good times! And it really is almost upon us. I planned out the weeks between then and now for my advisory kids and was amazed at how little time is left.

I could go on and on about the other details of my life: the joy of getting invited to wrestling matches by my students, the utter contentment of Erin Lindsay falling asleep in my arms, the challenge of maintaining a faith-filled, faithful heart-attitude about the size of my hiney and my perpetual singleness. But it is 5:30... I gotta go pick up some kids and hang out with some middle schoolers.

with love and joy and the promise of spring -- marah jean

Observations on 2008

2008-12-24T14:18:00.000-08:00

1. The only thing better than road trips to visit one’s precious relatives is having them live three miles away.

2. It is always best to receive one’s actual diploma, rather than just a commencement program with one’s name in it, before one solicits and receives graduation gifts.

3. One should not doubt the power of racquetball to create friends from acquaintances. One should also not doubt its power to make one feel like a complete and total athletic imbecile.

4. Asking God to makes one’s life count is noble; walking out the process by which He chooses to answer that request is like riding The Aftershock at Silverwood. Google it, people, and you’ll get what I mean.

5. Just because one visits Mt. Rainier in July does not mean one can wear tennis shoes to climb the trails. Snow, apparently, does not care what month it may be and will think nothing of making one fall flat on one’s hiney in front of attractive hikers who also happen to know what they are doing.

6. One should not allow visions of Olympic glory to delude one into thinking one can actually execute a Forward Roll Magic Hands. One should especially avoid this delusion whilst video cameras are rolling.

7. Spending a week with high school students and teaching them about the love of God is one of the sweetest ways to invest one’s summer vacation.

8. Turning 30 isn't all that bad, especially when the day includes a 10K, all of Yakima Foursquare singing "Happy Birthday", and an extravagant princess party.

9. Starting a new job is never easy, but can be made easier by being gregarious and having a pocketful of pirate jokes.

10. When spreading peanut butter on a middle schooler’s face so that they can catch mini-marshmallows, better use creamy.

11. Wrapping all the classroom desks in white butcher paper is actually NOT a good way to discourage graffiti. It actually has the opposite effect.

12. When one can congregate with 32 extended family members and thoroughly enjoy each moment, one is truly blessed.

What is with me?

2008-11-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

Once again an entire month has passed without a post from me. Yowser yibby yanks! What gives? So this evening I am listening to some wonderful Christmas music by Fernando Ortega (thanks, Mike!) and am a little hopped up on sugar (Costco brownie bites), so here's my update!

School is going well. How I love my job and adore my students. Even the annoying ones. :-) The trimester ends tomorrow, so my freshmen are getting their first taste of finals. And I am the nice teacher that gives them all the info included on the test and let's them use their notes. Despite my extravagant efforts, many of them are still not doing so hot. What they don't know is that I am a softy through and through. They could tank the final and still be okay.

Franklin Hill is also going well. I am moving forward with my pastor's license after a slight hiccup in my own personal feelings about it. I really love the work I'm doing at church, from teaching to student ministries. I used to get so nervous about Tuesday night middle school club and now I LOVE IT. The girls are SO FANTASTIC and even the squirrelly boys bring me joy. One young guy has decided to speak to me in a British accent, which of course is FABULOUS! Today we talked about the chasm that our bad attitudes and actions create and how there is no way for us to get ourselves out of it. One kid seemed pretty concerned about his chasm. Pretty cool. I'm excited for him and the conversations that are forthcoming.

Pretty soon we'll be starting our high school ministry, and I'm both excited and nervous about that. I really want it to be good so that the kids will want to keep coming -- I have a list of kids in my mind whom I can't wait to invite. I like them so much and want to hang with them in a fun environment that has no academic expectations. I want to wait until January to get it started, just to give myself some space of prepare internally.

Family stuff -- Rachel Lynn is pregnant!! Hurray!!! The baby is due at the end of May, and the kids are so excited. Bennett asked Rachel a while back if he could take the baby out to play with it and then it could go back inside. Tee hee! How cute are they!! I love having them so close by. Erin invited me over for a sleepover last week and we had a Christmas sleepover... went to bed watching Elf and woke up to watch The Christmas Story. She's even more excited for Christmas than I am! I'm very excited for Thanksgiving as Uncle Chet is coming from Indiana and Lisa Ann is home for the holidays. Sounds great to me.

And that is it from here. I'm soon to work on my 2008 Christmas letter. If any of you blog stalkers want a real-life copy, shoot me your mailing addresses.

signing off -- marah jean

Ch...Ch..Changes

2008-10-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

Over a month since my last blog. Dang. That is paltry at best. I so love blog stalking other people; how can I deny others the same pleasure? The inherent problem in this situation is that SO MUCH has happened since September 10. Where do I start?

I'll start with tonight. I am having a random and wonderful evening at home. Wednesdays are soon to be Young Life nights, but this evening laundry was beckoning. Well... actually... laundry doesn't beckon. It sounds the alarm and harangues from the corners of my hobbit house whence it was discarded. In either case, I needed to do laundry because tomorrow I leave for Iowa for my grandmother's memorial. It'll be interesting as the whole fam damily is going -- 10 total -- thus making this trip a far cry from my normal galavants where I sit alone in the food court reading People, listening to my iPod and devouring a second Cinnabon all at once. I think I'm looking forward to it, mostly because B-man, Erin, and Baby Jae are included in the traveling party. I'll probably have some fun pictures to post upon my return.

The other thing that is amusing me tonight is what happens when a person sorts her iTunes library by song title in reverse alphabetical order. The playlist of the last 10 minutes has gone from The Supremes (You Can't Hurry Love) to DC Talk (You Consume ME) to Harry Connick Junior (You Didn't Know Me When) to Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand (You Don't Send me Flowers) and a little Bon Jovi (You Give Love a Bad Name). Now 100 Portraits are reminding me that "You (God) have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness." Just strikes me as fun.

So -- the past six weeks -- the biggest news is Franklin Hill Foursquare has officially launched, and we are our own church now! I'm on staff as a volunteer soon-to-be pastor and serve on the teaching, worship, and student teams. Yee haw. I'll be teaching from the front (I don't like to call it preaching) on November 2 if anybody wants to come to visit. :-) The biggest challenge for me is the Tuesday night Middle School Club. We've got a solid group of kids coming and I'm in charge of planning the activities and talks each week. Satan likes to derail me through isolation and doubt. Wicked monkey. I had a major freak out yesterday, but thankfully I chatted with Lisa Jean and she helped me reframe some stuff and put the enemy where he belongs -- under my feet by the power and authority of Christ. I do love those kids and by focusing on them now, we'll have a rockin' high school group in a couple of years. One step at a time, though.

Other random news -- my Lisa Ann (marathon running, warm bev drinking, weight lifting and general joy giving friend from my childhood) moved to Michigan. Talk about rocking my world. I miss her like crazy and can't wait for Christmas even more than what is normal for me because she'll be home and all will be as it should be... on the fourth floor of the Y at any rate.

Let's see... what else... there was a small blip on the man radar for about a week and a half. But that has subsided, mostly through my own decision. Nice guy -- just not enough of fit to be more than friends. Maintain the hope, the dream, though indeed it has gone through most of the stages good ol' Langston described.

Other than that, I'm glad to have my weekly dose of The Office and Survivor. I'm still watching Grey's Anatomy, but the jury is now out on the level of my dedication thereto.

And with that, it's time to fold the now-dry laundry and finish packing. My students are watching Seabiscuit and writing essays in my absence. It'll be interesting. :-)

Turning 30

2008-09-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

On August 31, I reached a new decade marker! Despite what the boys at the Y think, I indeed am 30. (They all think I'm 23 or 24... that's why I like them!) I had a most glorious weekend of Marah.

It actually started on Thursday when I went to 80's night with Lisa Ann. She made the evening glorious by rocking a Butt-Rock style mullet wig. Good glory! I about peed my pants when she came sauntering in! We danced and sang along and LAUGHED! Man, it was awesome. The only problem is that -- well -- I'm THIRTY, so it took me the rest of the weekend to get my feet back under me!

But did that stop the weekend of Marah? Absolutely not! Friday night, Janice and Rocky and Justin and Barb all convened at Rachel's house. Joe came up and Johnny and Meghann came over and, again, more laughter and glorious awesomeness. They stayed up really late most of the weekend, but because of my Thursday night extravaganza, I copped out early a couple of nights. :( There is just something fabulous about being with friends who've known you since middle school.

On Saturday, the entire entourage went to my parents' house for swimming and horsie rides.I just watched as they all galavanted in the pool. There was a relay race that made me laugh HARD and just a general joy of being together.

Of course, one of the most amusing aspects was the kids. Bennett, Erin, Jaelynn, Andrew, Katelynn, and Luke make up one solid pack of energy, especially when there is so much to entertain. They picked apples to throw to the goats, begged for rides on the horse and four-wheeler, and were generally fantastic. I could think of no better context in which to celebrate my 30th birthday. And that was all before the 31st!

On the 31st, I started my birthday by participating the The Human Race, Nike's 25-city 10K. Because of my iPod sensor, I ran it on the Greenway at 5:45 am. It was quite the feat, not physically necessarily, but just getting myself out the door because I was SO TIRED from the weekend!!!! But I did it and now I can wear my race shirt with pride! After that, I played the congas and church before heading to Rachel's house for THE PARTY! Rachel and my dear friend Rissa planned and prepped and made me feel CELEBRATED! I had a princess party, complete with pink balloons, tiaras, and a teal Greet-the-Guests frock that I had to wear. Thankfully, Justin stole it part-way through the celebration; he looks better in it than I did. Riss and Rach made a quiz about me, had prizes for participants, and...well... it was just GREAT!!! After that, I headed over to church for a small bit before coming back to Rachel's for pizza and general grand hanging out together.

All in all, the weekend was absolutely wonderful. I couldn't have asked to feel more loved, more celebrated, more ready to be in my 30's. Good times, peeps. Good times.

Collide

2008-08-09T09:52:00.001-07:00

Collide -- that was the theme of the week-long senior high camp from which I returned yesterday. Talk about a mountain top experience, both literally as the camp was held at Mt. Schweitzer Ski Resort and figuratively as God totally made Himself real to us during the week. As I sit here in my hobbit house and reflect on the last seven days, I'm thinking I might be unable to truly articulate the glory and challenge and uber-greatness of the week! But for all my blog stalkers out there (welcome to Tiffanie, my newest blog stalker), I'm gonna try!!!!

My Girls

First of all, the time with my girls was fantastic! I had seven girls from Yakima Foursquare in my "cabin" (since we were staying in a hotel, we simply split a suite) and I loved getting to get to know them better. Most of them I've known for years because of Yak4. Two of them I have teenager sat before when the parents were gone, and another two I've known since I showed up at Yak4 seven years ago. This week I got to really get to know them and have some DEEP chats about life and God and beauty and guys. Good stuff.

Getting to Teach

One of the cool things for me was getting to teach an elective. Normally at camp, there's morning chapel and evening chapel, and each has its own speaker. This year, instead of having a morning speaker, David (camp director from LifeCenter in Spokane) had four people teach on different topics. Mine was on the Holy Spirit. Last year at camp, there were a few evening sessions where the Holy Spirit was referenced but there hadn't been any teaching about He/She/It (what pronoun does one use when referencing the Holy Spirit? Hmmm?). So I planned a talk that had some participative parts and some history and some application, but I hadn't figured out how to fit it all in half an hour. Thankfully, I had a chance to chat with another cabin leader (Hurray for Eric Olsen!) on our prep day and in that conversation, I realized I should do a series! So I had a three-part dealy.

Monday I was gonna talk about how God talks with us. For some reason, though, I felt completely OFF!!!! Like I was driving a manual car without using the clutch. ICK!! It completely threw me for an emotional loop. I felt incompetent and yucky. I was reminded by Eric that it's the Holy Spirit's job to make connections in people's hearts; ironic that I should get so caught up in my own assessment of my performance. What tripped me further up was the idea that I had two more sessions to teach. Yikes! So I decided to call my dad. I figured that he is still my spiritual cover since I'm not married and I'd be able to talk through this stuff with him. So I called him Tuesday morning and am SO GLAD I did! Not only did I get to talk through and pray about stuff with him, but I was reminded that my Heavenly Father loves me even more than my Papa Bear and that my "performance" isn't what is important to Him.

Then Tuesday came and the number of kids who chose my breakout doubled. The information was primarily about the difference between the Holy Spirit's role in the Old Testament and New Testament. It felt so much more fluid, like I was making sense and the kids were engaged! SWEET!!!!! I didn't present on Wednesday (that was the day we went to Silverwood Theme Park -- more on that later...), but on Wednesday night, the evening speaker taught about the Holy Spirit! It was so cool because I felt like the kids who were in my session on Tuesday had a good foundation to build on! But I started to wonder if I should change what I was going to talk about on Thursday. I felt led to go with what I had planned, which was a conversation about the gifts of the Holy Spirit as discussed in 1 Corinthians 12-14. That talk also went well! Several cabin leaders commented on how it continued the conversation that the previous evening had started and gave them a foundation from which they could build with their students! I even had some girls seek me out to talk about about what I shared. SO GREAT!!!!!!!!!

Me and Jesus
I went into the week with the focus on serving the girls in my cabin and speaking to them from God's heart. And while I did that, I also got my socks blessed off by Jesus. I had never been to Schweitzer before, so when we arrived on Saturday and I was looking around, I thought it would be so cool to see the sun rise over the mountains at some point, but I didn't actually plan to get up. On Wednesday morning, though, my body woke up at 5:20am. I kept thinking, "Go to sleep, Marah Jean!" But I couldn't! And then I remembered the sunrise thing, so I got dressed and went outside. It was pretty chilly and breezy, so I went to the lookout spot and admired the view. The sun hadn't crested over the hills yet, so I walked around and took in some different vistas. Then I came back to the lookout and decided I didn't actually want to wait, that is was cold and I was tired and wanted to go back to bed. But then I felt compelled to wait, so I got a chair from a nearby table and sat to watch and wait. After a few minutes, I thought "come on! Let's go! Hurry up!" And I felt God say to me, "You can't rush the dawn. It'll happen at the appointed time." That gave me pause. Then I heard Him say "Enjoy the beauty of the process," so I took note of how the light shifted over the valley and how the colors were morphing from hazy purple to blue to pink. Then all of these worship songs about morning started to come to mind, so I sang some. And then I heard God say "There is beauty that I'm bringing into your life, and just like this sunrise, you can't rush it -- it'll happen at my appointed time -- but you can enjoy the beauty of the process." DANG!!!!!!! How sweet is that!!?!?!?!?!? I felt like there was specific application to the whole husband issue (couldn't get through a blog without bringing that up) and it was very cool to hear that during this specific week.

So that was Wednesday morning. Wednesday night was another sweet deal. David taught on the Holy Spirit and called the cabin leaders up to pray for our students. What was so cool was that, not only did five of my girls come up, but God was giving me specific prayers and pictures and all sorts of good stuff. SWEET!!!! I found out afterward from them that I was speaking DIRECTLY to specific issues that were going on for them! Hurray for following the leading of the Holy Spirit!!! So that went on for some time. When all my girls were done, I moved toward the back of the room to sing and was just completely overwhelmed. At first it was the good kind of overwhelmed coming from how good God is and what an HONOR it is to get to be led by Him and work with Him. And then, somehow, it shifted into the bad kind of overwhelmed. I started thinking about Franklin Hill and how scared I have been and still can get about planting the church and being a youth pastor. I was sitting on the floor by Mark Grange (the Yak4 youth pastor), so I just leaned into him and CRIED. I felt like, as cool as it was to speak God's words to my girls, I really needed to hear some words from Him about my own situation. And then the words came: "Marah, everything you prayed over those girls, my Spirit prays over you." WHOA!!!!!! I started to think about what I prayed for the girls -- that God is equipping them to do what He's asked of them, that their beauty doesn't need to hide, that they aren't doing this faith thing wrong and they don't need to strive to get it right but simply respond to God -- and I was overwhelmed again but in the good way!! How sweet to get that kind of confirmation at this time.

Then I thought about rollercoaster I had gone on that day -- the Aftershock. This thing was NUTS, and it provided a good picture for how I'm feeling right now about the church plant: at the start of the ride, you strap in with a chest harness and your feet are free. Then, the ride ratchets back until you're perpendicular to the ground and just hanging there with all of your weight pressing into the shoulder harness. Then you PLUNGE forward and race around the thing. It's phenomenal and SCARY!!! But once you get going, talk about EXHILARATION! Then I realized this is how I feel right now -- I'm strapped into this Franklin Hill thing, I'm not going to get off the ride, but we haven't started yet! We're just getting ratcheted back and I feel like we're just hanging in the air! SO SCARY -- but once we are released, it is going to be WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO good!

New Friends
And if all of this weren't cool enough, I had a chance to reconnect with some of the folks I met last year at camp and meet a whole crew of new people! I met Tiffanie and James on the first day and felt a Three Amigos type of camaraderie! They both go to Moody, so we have the Bible college thing in common, and that just opened up all sorts of cool similarities!! Then there were the gals from Clarkston -- Shawna and Jordan -- and I got to have some great volleyball with Jordan and some great chats with Shawna! Then I had my bus buddy Brice, who kept me thoroughly engaged and entertained on the various bus rides. There is just such a sweet connection that happens when people gather around a common purpose, specifically when that purpose is serving others.

And, believe it or not, that is just the tip of the iceberg! So many other fun and sweet and meaningful things happened this last week. I'm thanking Jesus for the encouragement and refreshment. Hurray for summer camp!

July 31

2008-07-31T15:41:00.001-07:00

I had the somewhat startling thought today that July is over. Tomorrow is August. Deep breaths. Wow! August is going to have some great stuff (senior high camp, family trip to the beach, Josh's wedding, starting my new job at Davis, and my 30th birthday), but July wasn't too bad either.

Looking back at the calendar, I think I spent most of my month at the YMCA! Ha! That's kinda funny. Lisa Kloster and I have a standing daily Y date during the week and have had the utmost pleasure in meeting and conversing with the wide assortment of interesting folks who also happen to be on the 4th floor between the hours of 10 and 1. (Don't be too impressed with the three hour time bracket -- a great deal of that is spent chatting.) Just today we met Alex, a short Hispanic guy with the most perfect teeth I have ever seen. And get this -- all three of his kids have braces. It amuses me to no end that I know that -- who has these kinds of conversations at the gym?!?! Well... I do!!

In the realm of activity, July has also seen the reappearance of yogging on the workout plan. I'm up to 4 miles now, which seems so long and yet I remember when a 5-miler was my short run. I'm training for The Human Race -- Nike's 10K that is being held in 25 different cities and, for me, in Yakima thanks to my Nike+ iPod sensor. It is on August 31 -- yep! I'm celebrating my 30th year by running 6.some odd miles. Bring it on. What makes it even more enjoyable for me is that I used the video converter from church to upload onto my computer the audio tracks from my favorite movies (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, Peter Pan, Robin Hood, and Annie) so now my runs are very diverting. I'm glad I don't have an audience when I run because I sometime have to perform choreography or play the jingle bells. Heh heh heh.

July also brought a great day at Mt. Rainier with my friend Susie. The trails were quite snowy and I was unprepared (as isn't very surprising) so my feet were SOAKED by the time we came down from the mountain. But it was gorgeous and she is such a fabulous friend.

July has also given lots of time to spend with the little people. Erin is quite the swimmer and Bennett took soccer and golf lessons this summer. They just make my heart bubble with affection!! I LOVE BEING AN AUNT!!! Even when they're being stinky. :-)

And that is the report for the month. Hard to believe that in one month more, so much will be different. Ch...Ch..Changes! Let us enjoy the rest of the summer!!

sunshine and smiles -- marah jean

A reminder from Wayne

2008-07-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I attended an afternoon leadership seminar at Life Center Church in Spokane that featured Wayne Cordeiro from New Hope Church in Honolulu, HI. I've heard this pastor speak before at the Leadership Summit Simulcast that Willow Creek Church broadcasts each summer. I'm so glad that I went -- totally worth the seven hours in the car that day. Not only did I get to see a few of my friends that I made at senior high camp last summer, but I was challenged and encouraged in a few fundamentals that will be invaluable as I move through the summer and into this next season of my life.

Before I left for Spokane, I had been reading Uprising by Erwin McManus as we are in the middle of a sermon series based on that book, and I'm preaching this Sunday. In it, he uses the Parable of the Talents as evidence that we must be faithful in the small things if we want to hear God say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." As we are faithful and as we persevere through the pressure cooker of life, we will gain wisdom. The strongest message I received from the afternoon in Spokane resonated with that same idea.

Pastor C. shared this idea:

85% of what I do could be done by anybody.
10% of what I do could be done by anybody who has had some training.
5% of what I do can be done ONLY by ME.

Yet our lives are so often taken up with the 85% and the 5% gets neglected. When we do that, though, we are not fulfilling God's best for our lives. And God is not going to hold us accountable for what we do; He's going to hold us accountable for what He's asked us to do that we've done. When Pastor C. said that, I had one of those spiritual whiplash moments. Yeah -- God's asked me to do some specific things, and when I don't do those, it doesn't matter how good of a racquetball player I am or how many movie lines I can quote.

So here are some things in my 5%:
~maintaining a vibrant and growing relationship with Christ: nobody else can spend time with or obey God for me
~being Auntie Marah to Bennett, Erin, and Jae; sister to Rachel, Carrie, and Joe; middle daughter to Marlyn and Jaurene: this is my family; to ignore them is to neglect the health of my foundation
~Getting and staying physically in shape: if I'm gonna live the life I've been called to, I need to have the energy to do so.
~Enjoying life and beauty with family and friends: nobody else can do that for me.

Part of me says, "Well, duh, Marah. That idea isn't rocket science." But it is easy to gloss over because 95% is a big number, but how I take care of the 5% will determine the kind of life I end up having.

The reminder is also good because it lines up with sermon stuff for Sunday! Hurray!! I'm really excited about this Sunday. Sometimes when I preach, I just dread it. I get all nervous and second guess myself. Not this time. I'm jazzed for it. I just don't want to overplan and try to fit 3 sermons into one. That's not good either.

And those are my thoughts this morning. much love to all my faithful readers... (which is maybe Jayme and Colin... love you two!!!)

My week on the road

2008-06-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

I can hear the rumblings of the traffic on I-90 as I sit here by my hotel window in Spokane. I've spent the last five days traveling around the state making presentations at various Summer Institutes, and on the whole it was been very good. The presentations have gone well with the participants smiling and laughing and getting to know each other. I've been able to get Boomerang Project's name "out there" a little more as I tie what I have done with them to what the participants are experiencing. Excellent.

And made some great contacts that may open up further opportunities to do this sort of thing in the future. First I finally met the guy who hired me to do all these presentations; he was at the site in Montesano (which is about an hour west of Olympia) and was very impressed. That's good news if I want to do this again next summer. Then (and this one is more exciting for me) there was a participant at yesterday's site in Wenatchee that trains teachers on how to use various low ropes elements in their classrooms. I didn't know this until after I was done and he asked if I'd like to do lunch. Now, I'll be honest, at first I was saying, "Boo Yeah! Cute guy wants to have lunch with me!" And while that was true, his motives were sans romance. Instead he invited me to come watch him and his buddy present at the OSPI conference at the end of July, and if I'm interested, start presenting and facilitating with them! SWEETNESS!!!

AND -- if the week weren't good enough because of these things, I also found out on Tuesday that I am gonna be a Pirate!! Ahoy!!!!!! I will be teaching ninth and eleventh grade English
at Davis High School! I'm really excited! Next week, I'll go in a fill out all my paperwork and get on the school mailing list and all that good stuff. I'm sure my nerves will kick in pretty soon, but for right now, I'm very glad to have a job! NO MORE SUBBING!!!

I find it difficult to believe that it is almost July. Wowsers. Except for a few small day trips, I don't have anything to do in July. Well, that's not true. Franklin Hill stuff will certainly take center stage over the next weeks. And I fully intend to enjoy some serious pool time with Bennett and Erin and Jaelynn. And I will continue my love affair with Twitch, Joshua, and Will on So You Think You Can Dance. And who knows what else the summer will hold!! Allow me to modify Mr. Magorium -- one summer, well used, is a lifetime.

When the dog bites... when the bee stings...

2008-05-31T09:01:00.000-07:00

While the last two weeks have been very challenging, there have been some wonderful things as well. And so I am happy to report on these happy things:

1) Michael and Tricia Swalm -- along with their two beautiful girls -- came to visit their grandparents, so I got to spend an evening with them. So wonderful. We reminisced about Bethel and choir and Greek; discussed being a pastor, being married, being single; and we ate lots of El Porton chips and salsa. Good times. I'm hoping to go see them this fall as their third little one should arrive in October.

2) Bennett Matthew turned five last weekend, and the entire Wood clan (who also happen to be my closest high-school-time friends from camp) came for the festivities. The kids just get cuter and Auntie Marah gets to read and play and paint toes and all manner of lovely things.

3) Davis High School posted an English position, and I applied the very next day. While I haven't received a call for an interview yet, I'm simply glad that I didn't have to wait until July to find out whether or not a job would even be available at Davis. So I'll keep you all posted on how that goes.

4) I designed and facilitated a Mid-level leadership conference. So it was me and 150 middle school ASB kids. I was wigging out (as usual) but it went very well. Hurray!!

5) And I've got nine days of school left. Fabulous. I haven't found a summer job yet, but I'm not overly concerned. My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches and glory. That's a good promise, right there.

lots of love -- marah jean

The Shadow of Death

2008-05-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

Don't be overly alarmed by the subject... I and my immediate family are alive and well. But in the past ten days, I and many of my good friends have been plunged into unexpected grief and bewilderment. Our friend Michael Arreola decided last Tuesday to end his own life. He is one of the people who is deeply woven into the fabric that is Wapato -- he is from an extensive family, married into a prominent family, and is thus in-lawed to another extensive family. More specifically, his sister-in-law is Johnny Gomez's wife, and Johnny is my brother's closest childhood friend.

The memorial service was last Saturday, and it was such a dichotomous and emotionally draining affair. There was lots of laughter as Mike was a regular card, but it was other-wordly to be laughing and to be happy to see people I haven't seen in years only to be hit by a wave of shock and soul-wrenching ache to think of why we had all gathered -- all 1500 of us... the church was PACKED.

The hardest thing for me in this has been walking beside people who were much closer to him... my students especially. I am very thankful for my small group who has been praying for me and for his widow, whom I saw yesterday and got to chat with a bit.

Then I got a call yesterday from Lisa Jean, who told me that our friend Kyle, who has been battling brain cancer for several years, is in his last days and so I should give his wife a call so that I can go out to their house (he's been on hospice) to say goodbye. My gut reaction is to flee... to Cold Stone. But that won't actually help.

So while I was hoping for a better weekend this week, it seems that this one will have its own set of emotional challenges.

My sincerest thanks to those of you who've encouraged and prayed for me these past weeks.

love -- marah jean

Hiccups in the Final Round

2008-05-03T09:29:00.001-07:00

Well, I've been reticent about one HUGE thing that has been going on these past two months because, well, it's embarrassing. But today, it took on a grand irony that is just too funny, so I must share.

In mid-March, I was in the process of applying for jobs at the local community college and trying to figure out how much I will get paid for the long-term sub jobs that I was (and am) doing in Wapato. I hadn't heard back from the district office, so I called over there to check on things. I was told that my recently arrived transcript from Gonzaga did not have the "Degree Completed" dealy. I figured that was a mistake at the university, so I called to get things straightened out.

When I spoke with a person, they transfered me to "Degree Evaluation." Hmmmm.... ominous. And it turned out that I was NOT done with my degree in December as I thought I was. No, apparently one needs more than a commencement program and gifts from friends to actually graduate. I needed one more elective. When I was researching the program at GU, it was 33 credits. When I enrolled that fall, it had increased to 36, but I never got the memo. And apparently I was sent a letter informing me of this delinquency in January, but again, I didn't get the memo.

So, thankfully, the folks over there quickly got me enrolled in Transformative Leadership, which had started the previous week. I got all my books and got to work one more time. I even plotted out the various due dates for all the papers and have been quite excited these last few days as MY LAST PAPER is due on Tuesday. I was glad to have caught this because normally the papers have been due on Saturday.

Last night, I was quite impressed with myself as I wrote most of this paper before heading over to Rachel's for dinner. But this morning, as I was checking out the website, I caught an odd thing: the description for the last paper that is due on Tuesday was not about the same thing that I thought the "last paper" was supposed to be about. Huh.... curious.

Yeah -- upon further research, the paper I wrote last night and finished this morning was actually due YESTERDAY, and my REAL last paper -- that I haven't started and didn't realize was necessary -- is due Tuesday.

Apparently, I have issues with reading the "final requirements." It's just funny at this point.

And now, though I am off to write the REALLY I MEAN IT THIS TIME LAST paper

much love -- marah jean

Faith and marathons

2008-04-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Well things have been an emotional whirlwind these last weeks. While I've been moving forward with what it means to operate as a pastor with Franklin Hill, my emotions and spirit have been BOMBARDED with discouragement and doubt about ever getting married. It so bugs me that THIS is the button that gets pushed when I start moving forward in other areas of my life. But I guess I shouldn't really be surprised since this is the one area where I am really just holding on to hope.

Fittingly, we're in the middle a church-wide fast and the readings that go along with it the stories from Hebrews 11. Lots of reminders that faith is moving forward based on God's promises, not on our understanding of things. And today's reading for me posed a difficult question: will I still move forward knowing that I -- like many faithful people before me -- may not see the fulfillment of what I hope for. God promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations, but he never actually saw that.

I had another thought today as I was reading, brought on by a little side study in my Bible. It asks, "Why do people punish their bodies to run a grueling marathon race? Most runners name two reasons: the sense of personal reward they get and the physical benefits of exercise." I would add to that the camaraderie of training with somebody. I looked forward to the runs I got to do last spring with Lisa. We talked about everything, solved the problems of the world, and spurred each other forward. How thankful am I for my small group and the FHF family that is serving a similar purpose as I am hitting a sort of wall in this area of my life. But what happens when you hit the wall is what you have decided will happen when you hit the wall. And I'm gonna keep moving forward.

The article went on to say, "The same two rewards apply in the spiritual realm: great prizes await those who persevere, and the very process of living by faith builds strong character. In this race, no one loses. If you finish, you get the reward."

That lines up with the encouragement I received from my friend Steve last night. As I shared the process of the last week, he said, "This may seem like poor consolation, but you are storing up for yourself treasures in heaven. There will be a reward for following Jesus." Yes. That is good for me to remember.

Happiness

2008-03-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Josh called today to share some fantastic news. He and Sarah are engaged!!!

And, I gotta say, that as a woman, I was UBER proud of him and all the thought he put into how he proposed. Walk on the beach -- fantastic. But even better was that he facilitated a surprise dinner with both of their entire families (folks arriving in Seattle from Montana and California). DANG!!!!

Congratulations, you two fabulous folks. I'm so happy for you!!!

Specific Direction....

2008-03-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

It's actually April 21, but for the sake of calendar accuracy, I'm backdating this blog. :-)

Rissa and I had a great prayer time Wednesday, most of which focused around the question of whether or not I should be a pastor at Franklin Hill Foursquare. The direction was pretty cool. The first two thoughts I had after we cleared the space for God to speak were "I knit you together" (Psalm 139) and "good works created ahead of time for you to do" (Ephesians 2:10). Then came the campfire image from months back when Riss and I were praying about job and career stuff. At that time, I saw a picture of me hanging out with young adults around a campfire and had the distinct impression that it wasn't Link Crew or school related. Finally a thought about my "unique soul" from the Parker Palmer book I'm reading came to mind, along with the thought that God's direction and calling aren't always through trumpets, but that we as humans co-create reality.

Then Riss shifted to the specific question of whether or not I should accept the offered youth pastor position, being the female counterpart to the already selected male youth pastor. No red flags, but rather further confirmation: the first thought was "authority has been given you" and the second... "you're set apart... I have set you apart for this." WOW!!!

I feel that this is in specific reference to marriage (or lack thereof). God was guiding me HERE! SWEET!!! Rissa's next two thoughts were "move forward" and a verse that didn't quite fit: Proverbs 16:25. We actually landed on Proverbs 16:9 (In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.) as we were looking for the other verse, and I was encouraged by God determining the steps of my heart's course. It's like I have in my heart this picture of the life God has for me and God tells me where to step next. Very cool.

Then we found the verse we were originally looking for: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." While this didn't make sense to Riss, I knew immediately that it was referencing my stint as a traveling presenter. Eighteen months ago, I was all about traveling and being a speaker and all of that, but I see know that path did not lead me to life and health.

As we prayed about moving forward in this direction, I was having all sorts of hesitation, like jumping off a cliff. Then a Mary Poppins thing came to mind (who says God can't use WHATEVER He wants to communicate with us!). I thought of the part of the movie when they all jump into the chalk pavement picture. Bert makes up all these prerequisites to getting into the picture, and Mary says, "Why do you always complicate things that are really quite simple?" Then "Hold my hand please, Michael. Don't slouch." And of they went.

Rissa heard, "rest in me and obey" -- SO IMPORTANT as I tend to freak out about such things. Then, as we were praying to close, I thought of the beginning of the aforementioned movie scene when Jane sees the picture and says, "Oh that's lovely. If you please, I'd much rather go there." What an accurate metaphor for these last months a years. I felt like I have seen a picture of who I really am and how it really should manifest in the world, and I came up with all sorts of ways to get there, and God says, "Don't overcomplicate, please. Hold my hand. Stand up straight. Jump."

WOW. Whew... And yikes, right? Off I go anyway!

marah jean

The power of theme music

2008-03-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

I am very proud of myself because this morning, after MONTHS of procrastinating, I finally accomplished a very important task --- disposing of my Christmas tree. Yes I realize March is half over and I probably should have ridded myself of it two months ago, but I didn't. A month or so ago, I finally moved it from beside the steps to the yard waste can in the alley, but the yard waste guys wouldn't take it. Apparently the lid has to be closed, and I'm sorry, but a 6-foot pine tree doesn't allow for dumpster closage.

So I thought to myself, "Bill, we could take it to our old church building and put it in the uber-sized dumpster... hmmmm... not entirely on the up and up, but better than nothing." However, I knew I needed to accomplish this fell mission under the cloak of darkness. One can't just go chucking dried up Christmas trees in dumpsters at high noon with the whole world watching.

So, this morning after cup-o-coffee-number-one, I thought, "Bill, we should just do it now... but we need some encouragement." And so I began humming the theme from Mission: Impossible. And wouldn't you know it, that's what did it! Apparently all I need is a soundtrack and I can overcome any amount of procrastination build-up!

The Day of Leaping

2008-02-29T05:42:00.000-08:00

As I sit here on this Friday morning with Leap Year on the brain (thanks, Jayme), I'm pondering the fact that it is also a year of leaps for me. I have decided to join three of my closest friends from church in a church planting endeavor this fall. We started staff meetings about six weeks ago with just the four of us, discussing the vision and values for Franklin Hill Foursquare and building community with each other. No sooner had we started than the travel season kicked in for me and I was off to Portland for Boomerang, then home a week, then gone a week, then home a week, then -- you guessed it -- gone again.

Last Thursday, before this last cycle of gone again which landed me in Missouri (I didn't take any pictures because unlike all the other places, The Elms in Excelsior Springs just ain't that grand), Cesar and I sat down for lunch and chatting. (I'm still learning how to converse with Cesar when it is one-on-one. Normally I'm with him and his wife and family or other people. It's an intriguing process.) At any rate, I was challenged to assess the patterns in how I spend my time and the internal consequences thereof.

I realized that, outside of worship and teaching teams (which have taken a backseat to Boomerang and family stuff these past years), my time is spent on me. I may have sporadic times of service to other people, but there is no one place where I have been proactive in turning my heart away from meeting my own needs. And while the work I do is good work in the world, I am still compensated for it either monetarily or relationally.

Furthermore, I started thinking about the cost of being gone so much. When I travel for a Boomerang conference, I usually miss church, small group, and FHF Staff. If that weren't enough, I also just miss being in people's lives here. When I got back from MO, Cesar and Lisa had shifted around all their furniture AND decided to home school their kids next year. HELLO!!!! I didn't even know that was in the crock pot.

There is more to this, but one of the decisions that I've made as a result of all this pondering is to back out of the Boomerang Conferences I was scheduled to work in April. I'm going this week to Colorado, but after that, I won't be BoomBooming until the last conference of the season in Mid-May. While typing that makes me sad and makes me want to say "well, maybe I can work the Washington conference", I recognize that as me not wanting to leap with both feet into the next season of life. Part of my reluctance stems from my lack of knowledge about the next season, most specifically where I'll work, but I do know where I'll be as far as community, and I want to be here.

The other leap that happens today is applying for the YVCC Dean of Students job. It closes today and I'm squeaking in at the last second. I'll keep y'all posted on that one.

much love -- marah jean

Interesting title here....

2008-02-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

Okay -- I officially extend myself blogging grace. I didn't realize it has been almost a month since my last blog, and a part of me wants to lock myself in the closet and give myself a flogging for the lack of blogging. But since I'm not a character in a Hawthorne novel nor a member of some Puritan colony, I just say "GRACE!!!" And since I am subbing today at an elementary school, I have lots of time this morning to get my dedicated readers (Colin, Heidi, and Jayme!) and anybody else out there caught up on my life!

Boomerang: I'm officially in travel season now and have worked at two conferences thus far: Skamania (near Portland, OR) and Lakeway (near Austin, TX). At both conferences, I worked in the WEB room, which means that I taught the middle school curriculum to middle school teachers. Let me just say that, as a crew, middle school teachers are hilarious! I suppose they have to be considering what they do every day, but I never understood how "serious" we high school teachers are. After all, we have CONTENT people! :-)
In keeping with one of my new year's resolutions, I did take some more pictures. The Portland pictures actually aren't from the conference, but from my trip to Goonie Rock with Colin and Mary. What an exquisite joy to have the opportunity to spend extra time with these life surprises. My second trip to Austin was just last week, and the weather was definitely a perk. It was hovering around 70 when I got off the plane. Oh yeah baby! And the scenery was just breathtaking, which was a complete surprise. I thought Texas was entirely FLAT, but I was wrong! Apparently, there's a huge lake in
Austin... and HILLS!!!! This picture was the view from my hotel room.
I was in the WEB room again and had a fantastic group of teachers. I always feel that way, but it was particularly true this time around. What is funny to me is that, other than my six week stint as a 6th grade reading teacher, I haven't worked in a middle school, but this season is shaping up to be the middle school season. I found out yesterday that I'm scheduled to be the one and only WEB coach next week in Missouri. That should be interesting, but I'm up for it! I know from experience, though, that Excelsior Springs isn't as picturesque as Austin. But I'll take pictures anyway!

Family: How glorious is it to have my family here. The kids are adjusting SO WELL! Bennett really enjoys his preschool and no longer wigs out about going to class at church. It still boggles my mind at times that they are HERE. Last week, I had a day off in the middle of the week and went to Costco and just ran into Rachel and Erin. And last night I went to Wapato for my Chubby Lady Support Group, and Rachel and the kids were at mom and dad's with dinner waiting! Seriously! It's just too great. Something I didn't expect, though, was the shift in my involvement with my dear sister when we go to conferences and whatnot. After I got back from Austin, Rachel and I went to a ladies' retreat with the gals from Living Faith in Philomath. It was fun, but the weird thing was that I didn't really have anybody to hang with. Normally at these things, I'm focused on getting as much Rachel-time as possible since it would be months before I saw her again, but now... well, that is how she is with her Philomath friends. So I took naps, read a book, went jogging. All good things, but just different. One of the most amusing parts of the weekend, though, was the lip sync/dance show. My group got a bag of hats, ties, jean shorts, and a CD with a little New Kids on the Block action. Great glory. It was good times.

Other stuff: I guess the biggest thing to keep y'all up-to-date on is work. I'm applying for the Dean of Student Services job at Yakima Valley Community College. This is by far the LONGEST SHOT I've ever attempted since, on paper, I am quite unqualified. I mean, hello! I have NO collegiate administrative experience! But I do play a MEAN people, tigers, and traps, and can create very positive work and learning environments. So I'll write my letter of interest this week, get letters from a few of my important people, and see what happens. I'm trying not to think too much about it, but I do pray that, if THAT is where I'm supposed to be, the doors would swing WIDE OPEN and confirmation would flow from on high! :-)

And that is it from this corner of the globe. love and sunshine -- marah jean

Finishing January

2008-01-21T08:37:00.000-08:00

I realize it is only the 21st, so there are still 10 whole days left in this first month of 2008, but for me, it feels like I'm finishing it this week. I have three days left with the sixth graders that I have come to love, and then I'm off to Portland for 6 days of Link Crew: 1 day with Colin and Mary who are flying out early, two days of coaches training with the whole staff, then three days of facilitating WEB training, which I have never done before. By the time I get back to Yakima, it will be January 31.

The month has been full to say the least and has flown by. I'm sure the rest of the spring will follow suite. In the weeks since my last post, my sister and her family have moved to Yakima and now live just 3 miles away from me. How great is it that I could just bust over there right now if I wanted! Sweet!! It is hard to see the kids struggle with new places and people. They came to church yesterday and wouldn't go to class and then just wanted to go home. Rachel was quite sad. They have only been here a week, so it is not surprising, just makes my aunties heart ache a bit.

And that is really it from here. As I travel about the country this spring, I'm determined to take more pictures. I didn't take but a few last year and I may never be to those places again. This year, I shall document!!!

The most noteworthy picture of this month is the result of a bet my 5th period class had. They bet me I wouldn't wear my hair in a mohawk. Apparently they know me not!

Happy Festivus

2007-12-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

Festive Holiday Greetings! Although some of you may be getting the following songs via snail mail, I figured I'd post Marah's Annual Christmas Letter online for those of you (COLIN!) for whom I have no mailing address.

My holidays have been very low-key, with no presents yet because we're waiting for Rachel, Wyatt, and the kids to get here next weekend. Yes, that's right, on January 5th, my family will MOVE TO YAKIMA!!! Score!! Wyatt will actually return to OR to finish up his last week at work while Rachel stays at my parents' house with the kids. During the evenings, she'll come up to town to work on the house. Then, on January 12, the big move will take place. Gracious me! Much excitement!!

Other big things, I preach this Sunday! Deep breaths. I really love serving and teaching in this way, but I usually have to talk myself down out of the tree of fear.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, Marah Jean's Christmas Carols of 2007

The First Six Months (to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Dashing through the year, just subbing for my pay
And working with the Boom Boom Crew.
With new friends I did play.
I met them through Link Crew at the conferences I worked
From Minnesota, Missouri, Toronto, and Newark!

Oh! I spent hours on the planes
Flying to and fro.
If the miles were added up,
I'd be in Tokyo!

And all the while I did fly
All over the US,
I was also training for
A legendary quest!

Starting in Januar' with my friend Lisa Ann
I strapped on some new shoes, and then I ran and ran
And ran and ran and ran, and then I ran some more,
And then in June we ran the marathon in old Newport!

Oh! Quite the feat for my feet and the rest of me!
And I've crossed that off the list
Of Things to Do By Thirty!

Now I have the glory of
A finisher's t-shirt
And a metatarsal pain
That sometimes does still hurt!

The Second Six Months (the the tune of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

Once I was done with running,
I spent the summer with my fam.
Bennett and Erin Lindsay
Take lots of space up on my cam.

Let's not forget sweet Jaelynn
Who turned two on December first.
She loves to play, with Auntie,
Tag in "Ready! Set Go!" bursts!

Then this fall, I've filled in as
a sixth grade reading pro.
Middle school is quite the fit
For my crazy antics and my wit.

This job has helped me realize,
Though traveling is quite the kick,
I love being a teacher
And getting paid e'en if I'm sick!

Other Events in 2007
(to the tune of Deck the Halls)

Also in the weeks of this year
Fa la la la la la la la la
I have been a church volunteer
Fa la la la la la la la la
On the worship team I do sing
Fa la la la la la la la la
And the sermon sometimes I bring
Fa la la la la la la la la

One large accomplishment I've had
Fa la la la la la la la la
I am now a Gonzaga grad!
Fa la la la la la la la la
I completed my Masters work
Fa la la la la la la la la
A big raise I hope will be the perk.
Fa la la la la la la la la

That is all that happened with me
Fa la la la la la la la la
Except for one thing that caused much glee
Fa la la la la la la la la
I finally bought a new car
Fa la la la la la la la la
That had not been driven too far.
Fa la la la la la la la la

Lots of love -- marah jean

The goose is getting fat

2007-12-19T08:23:00.000-08:00

Because Christmas is coming! Life here has been a flurry of activity, and I don't have anything specific to report. But as I sit here at Sierra Vista Middle School is Sunnyside, WA (perhaps the only district that doesn't block this site), I've decided to make the most of the silent reading time and blog about things I've noticed in December! (Side note -- the next three days of subbing should be fabulous, if for no other reason than my actually classes are done at 12:15! After that, this teacher has individual and team planning time. Yeah -- I won't be sticking around for that!)

Things I've realized in December:

1) I love being a part of a school staff. The last few weeks have included a long-term sub job in sixth grade reading at Wapato Middle School. The kids are fine, the content simple, but the BEST part is the team I've been plopped into. They are so fun and have accepted me with open arms! I was involved with the pixie gift exchange, the cookie exchange, and the celebratory meal at El Porton after the last day of school. One of the teachers is, I swear, my brother from another mother. He reminds me a lot of two of my favorite people: Johnny Gomez (my little brother's best friend) and Cesar Dominguez (my associate pastor and friend). Loves kids, loves Jesus, and SO STINKING FUNNY!!! After the El Porton lunch, he and I played racquetball at the Y, and I haven't laughed that hard for that long in many moons. I cannot even explain the hilarity of seeing this big hurkin' athlete swing for the fences and whiff it. Oh man. Sweet comedy.

My experience at WMS has been so good that it has sealed my desire to get back into teaching. After over a year of subbing and traveling about, I have determined that I thrive in a school setting, especially after I have found real friends on a staff. The friends I have made at Wapato have even got me to consider working at the middle school level, just so I can keep working with them. The other major thought is to find a job at Davis High School, which is right down the street from me. I could totally see myself at either place, so I'm asking God for some major direction as to which avenue to pursue. There will probably be jobs at both places, so I'm very thankful that we have an ever-present God who promises to say, "This is the way. Walk in it."

2) I love racquetball. And I love being a member at the Y. It is so gloriously social! I've met more people in the last month at the Y than I did ALL SUMMER at West Valley Fitness. I spend an average of 90 minutes at the Y each day, with some days topping two hours. Yesterday Lisa and I played racquetball with some army reservists, and I'm sorry, but it is so much fun to be flirted with by cute military men. :-) I don't know if I'm actually getting any fitter. After all, it is the holidays which would not be complete without daily sugar fixes. But I do love being active, even if it isn't running at this point.

3) I love Josh from the Eugene Costco. I have never met this man, but he completely made my day yesterday. I was subbing at Davis and decided that I would finally go to Costco and get my piano. For two months now, I've been visiting "my piano" at the Yakima Costco. This digital instrument with great piano and strings sounds was going to be my "congratulations on finishing my MA" gift. Several people have donated to the cause and yesterday was The Day when I would get my piano. But when I get there, IT WAS GONE!!!! Cue tears in Costco. Not only was it gone, but NOT ONE COSTCO in the ENTIRE STATE had any left! I called my sister to cry and she said, "Do the Costcos down here have any?" After a few queries, I discovered that the Eugene Costco had four pianos left and that Rachel & Wyatt were planning to go to Eugene to Christmas shop. So I called that Costco and spoke with Josh, who totally made an exception for me and allowed me to purchase the piano over the phone!!!! So Rachel is going to go pick it up today, and then next Thursday, she and I will meet in Troutdale and make the exchange. So what could have been a HORRIFIC day and week ruining experience turned into utter joy!! Hurray for Josh!

4) I love my small group. Last night we had our Christmas party and it was hilarious. It was a Bad Sweater Christmas Party (which some of us thought was the Bad Christmas Sweater Party), complete with remixed Christmas songs, flashing Christmas tree lights, and a bad sweater fashion show. Dang. We are funny people. My sweater had two gigantic ducks, each one placed squared over each... well.... you get it. But the clencher was Steve, who had a sweatshirt with four santa hat wearing cats, the back of which showed the cats rears. But that wasn't the best part. The best part was that he decided to wear my sassy boots for his trip down "the runway". I don't know which was funnier: the sweatshirt or the fact that he could fit his calves and his Carhart pant legs into my boots when I have to stretch to get them zipped. :-)

So, in short, the December has been busy and gloriously joyful. I hope you each have found as much to enjoy!

much love and eggnog -- marah jean

A HUGE Weekend!

2007-12-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

The Wood Family came down on Thursday for a weekend of house hunting, birthday celebrations, and -- as it turned out -- SNOW! All things have gone quite well. Rachel & Wyatt found a house, made an offer, and it was accepted -- all within the course of two days. AMAZING!!! We're going to look at it this afternoon sometime, and they are planning to move the second week of January.

Bennett and Erin had loads of fun playing in the snow, and Jaelynn had loads of fun unwrapping her MOUNTAIN of presents. Bennett and I made cookies yesterday, which were very chocolatey and slightly overmixed, but I figure that's what happens when a four-year-old is involved in the process.

All decorated and ready to go!

2007-11-25T06:09:00.000-08:00

Despite a nasty cold that I caught from my brother, I have had quite a productive Thanksgiving vacation. I got all the grading done, got my house nice and clean, and -- most importantly -- put up my Christmas tree! I thought I was going to have to wait until Monday, but then I got a text from Lisa Jean, who was out on a coffee run, saying that Top Foods was unloading trees! SCORE!!!

After I selected my tree, the tree guy asked me what I was driving. When I motioned to my little Hyundai, he laughed and said, "You want me to put it in your car? It won't fit!" To which I responded, "Oh ye of little faith! All you need to do is roll down the windows!"

I'm still feeling sick -- hot, dry throat, headache, stuffy sinuses -- but at least now I can gaze at my lovely tree!!

The evening John Mayer wrote about

2007-11-18T19:28:00.000-08:00

"No way November will see our goodbye
When it comes to December it's obvious why
No one wants to be alone at Christmas time."

The day started with rain and lots of it, and by this evening, the drops decided to be snow, but not the kind that makes marshmallow worlds, but the kind that melts on the ground. I was doing my normal Sunday evening routine -- watching a Christmas movie and eating some treats -- when I was swept over by the fact that, well, here's comes another Christmas where it's just me.

I think this stings a little more because in the last two weeks, there have been hints of possibility in the guy realm that have fallen flat: 1) my friend Lisa gave my number to a guy who works at her gym with whom she's quite chatty and he said he'd call, and he hasn't. Then, 2) a couple in my small group brought an out-of-town guest to our small group this week and he was attractive, engaging, amusing. So I hosted a games night with the purpose being getting to spend more time with him. Bold move. Go me. Yeah... they didn't come. (No real fault to them -- they were visiting his extended family in Portland.)

So I feel like the sound that little kids make when they stick their tongues out and blow. And I feel like there won't ever be the fireworks of mutual attraction bolstered by the foundation of faith and friendship. I feel hunting down the hope that lives in my heart -- the hope that causes me to bloom with possibility and optimism -- and clock it over the head with a shovel so that I don't have to feel the deep gray of being passed by.

Most of the time I can combat the onslaught of these warring thoughts with the perspective shift that I'm not alone. I have a great family, terrific friends, an invested life. But there are times, like tonight, when I don't feel like fighting. Can one lament one's singleness in a blog that could be read by just about anyone? Probably not the wisest thing to do. But those of you who really know me... well... then we've probably had this conversation before. :-)

(Insert reflective pause here...)

While I don't feel like fighting, I also don't feel like starting the holiday season under this cloud. I want to truly be thankful, not try to numb the ache in my heart by consuming half the pumpkin pie. I want to experience the joy of the season, not go through the motions. And if I want to do that, then fight I must.

So I declare the I am thankful for my God who made me, who loves me all the time, and who gives wisdom when I ask for it. I'm thankful for Lisa Ann (my marathon buddy) and the YMCA and the fact that I have discovered the fabulousness of racquetball and can laugh like crazy with Lisa when I absolutely whiff it. I'm thankful for a long-term subbing job with kids that are soaking up the love I have to give (even if I do have to give it with the stern teacher voice sometimes) and a paycheck that will compensate for all the vacation days between now and the end of January. I'm thankful that my little brother turns 26 this week and getting to celebrate it with him and my fantastically clean and sober sister. I'm thankful for the Egglestons who have made 2301 Eleanor my HOME. I'm thankful for singing in all its forms and the gift of being able to hear and sing harmony. And I'm thankful that I don't have to be a victim of my circumstances, which aren't really all that bad when I really think about it.

And so I sign off tonight...

with hope...

marah jean

Wish I were a Jenny

2007-11-18T19:23:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my dear friend Jonathan Eggleston, I have been introduced to the glorious poetry and piercing harmonies of Wailin' Jennys. They've been gracing the airwaves of my apartment for the last 18 hours. Oh... sweet glory. They are a tad like the Indigo Girls without the pervasive angst (and no f-bombs) with some down home guitar licks.

I definitely recommend "One Voice" and "Beautiful Dawn".

Enjoy!

----------------
Now playing: Wailin Jennys - Beautiful Dawn
via FoxyTunes

Lots of stuff

2007-11-15T05:28:00.000-08:00

Ack! I can't believe it's been three solid weeks since I've blogged! Doh! My apologies to those of you who check up on me via this blurb. So here's the turbo version:

I had two Link Crew student conferences that I facilitated, one in Denver and one in Lemoore (south of Fresno, CA). They were both fantastic, and the best parts were getting to see my friends from those places: Halee, Lauren (who took me to Red Rocks), and Ivan. Despite the immense fun of the actual conferences, the trips were further confirmation that I am not really wired to have a full-time travel around speaking job. The travel itself just WIPES me OUT!!

Today my life as a substitute teacher undergoes a major shift as I'm taking on a long-term job in sixth grade reading. While I am a little nervous (it's been a while since I've been full=on IN CHARGE of a classroom and these are sixth graders), I'm more excited for the perks of a long-term job. I don't have to wait for jobs to show up online, and I get paid more (which is very good over the holidays with all the crazy breaks). Because of those breaks, this job goes until January 25, which is right before Link Crew coaching starts.

I'm hoping that Link Crew coaching will still be a part of my spring line-up. It is semi-up-in-the-air because of the potential change in my employment status. I have submitted my application to teach at Yakima Valley Community College. They will keep my file and contact me if there are any classes for which I am qualified to teach. There is the possibility that something will come up for the winter quarter. I've already decided that I won't ditch the long-term sub job for YVCC classes, which is more about professionalism than preference. However, if there are evening classes in the winter quarter, I may take those to get my foot in the door, even if it means I can't be off coaching. I need to keep my head screwed on straight, though, because they haven't offered me anything, so I don't need to get emotionally worked up about not coaching. At least not yet.

And there's the update. I'll try to be more consistent over the holidays.

much love -- marah jean

Most recent bane of my existence...

2007-10-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

In the life of a substitute teacher, few achievements are more diligently worked towards than being "The Chosen One" -- the one person that the teachers and sub caller contact as soon as an future absence is known. Because of my teaching experience and lovely personality, I believe I had achieved Chosen One Status last year and was counting on that status to keep me well employed throughout the year.

Well, my friends, I have been usurped, not by and up-and-coming substitute star with better jokes and more credentials. No. My reign has been toppled by...

The Online Sub System.

Gone are the days of being hand selected by teachers. Oh no! Now it's just one big sub pool and it's first come, first serve. What the foshizzle!!! I don't have a job for tomorrow -- at least not in Wapato where they pay $50 more a day -- because there are none online, and if I want to catch the stray subbing crumb that may fall, I have to stay glued to my computer! Hello!! I have a life here, people. Yes, it consists of Starbucks and The Office, but it is a life nonetheless!

And so I have my back-up Yakima job at Ike tomorrow, but if Wapato calls...

no wait. They won't.

Grrrrrr..... this makes subbing much less enjoyable. Not that it's a big thrill ride to begin with.

Teaching and Preaching

2007-10-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

This morning, I had the privilege of preaching at Yakima Foursquare Church. I am a member in good standing of the YFC Teaching Team, but I have become the designated hitter of the team -- an apt analogy since the other members are all avid baseball guys. (Sidenote: What is it with me and baseball players?!?! Like a moth to the flame!!!) My message centered around Judas and the heart issues that lead to betrayal. Powerful stuff, and God's presence was potent this morning. I'm so honored to be a part of his work in this way.

And I really love preaching and teaching. I went to Women of Faith this weekend and found myself not only encouraged by the speakers, but also drawn to the idea that "that is what I want to do"... and this morning, "this is what I want to do." But -- irony of ironies -- I don't want to be a pastor. All the pastors I know are so very wrapped up in the Christian world and the task of equipping the saints (a VERY worthy pursuit and calling) that they don't often engage with people who don't know God. Hmmm.... things to talk with God about for sure.

Aside from this revelation of sorts, I very much enjoyed my weekend with my sisters. We don't often get to spend time just the three of us -- sans kids, parents, and Joe (though he is always a welcome addition in my book) -- and I'm so thankful for the healing that has come to my relationship with Carrie Grace (on the left). She really is a riot!

I have other thoughts rolling around in my brain tonight, but I'm zonked and headed to bed. Yes, people, it is 7:58 and I'm going to bed. I'm also drinking hot water. It's official. I've become my grandparents.

Fall, Fair, and Frolicking

2007-10-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

Several times in the past several weeks, I have thought "Ooo. I need to blog." But, as the archive files do tell, I have not done so. Maybe it's the change of seasons that has thrown me off my rhythm. Fall has officially arrived in the Yakima Valley with cloudy days that don't touch 60 degrees and beautiful trees lining the river. Not as beautiful as Indiana, but lovely for here.

The coming of fall is also marked by the Central Washington State Fair -- further proof that Yakima should count as "the sticks." I attended this grand event last Wednesday with Carrie and Jaelynn and had a most excellent time! We had to see all of the animals -- most of which Jae wanted to pet (which she did, as proven by the picture!) and thought most of them were cows. She is on the cusp of having full-on conversations, so there was lots of chatter with her... and lots of deep-fried deliciousness for Carrie and I. God bless the Pennsylvania Dutch for funnel cakes!

This excursion was just one of my many frolicking adventures in the last several weeks. At the end of September, Rachel Lynn and family came up for a 1.8 day visit. Wyatt had an interview with the Fred Meyer Pharmacy and, if all continues to go along its current trajectory, they'll move up here around the start of the new year. Then I spent a weekend in the Cascades with the ladies from my small group. How fabulous are they! I just love them. Plus we got to have our first taste of winter when we drove up to Mt. Rainier and couldn't see it because of the snow! I was singing "It's A Marshmallow World" in the car. Good times. Then I shared at Riverside Christian School Junior High Chapel, which is a post all on its own.

The frolicking continued this last weekend as I went to Spokane to help teaching a teambuilding class to a group of MBA and MACC students. Funny folks, those business people. And, as if that kind of professional development wasn't good enough, I got to see Angie and Sharla (from summer camp) and my dearest Jen Bell, who just happened to be visiting from Arizona this weekend. That was the best blessing of all!

And the promise of sweet fun doesn't end there. On Friday I leave for Women of Faith with Carrie Grace and Rachel Lynn. Sweet! And this week I'm prepping to give the sermon next Sunday. So if you think of me this week, please pray for me! God's words -- not mine.

And that is it from here.... for now anyway.

Ouchie...

2007-09-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

I've never been a big fan of dental work. Too many traumatic fillings and extractions when I was young, and I have yet to get over those. Any time I am told I have to have a filling or anything of that nature, I have the uncontrolled reaction of... well... crying. That's right. I cry like a baby who's lost her binky.

The same reaction happened a few weeks ago when I was told that I needed, not a filling, but a root canal. I went in for it on Saturday, took my iPod loaded with Christmas music, and spent two hours in a nitrous oxide induced wonderland. I wish somebody could have been in my head with me because it was really funny. One distinct thing I remember is being able to decipher lyrics in songs that I had never figured out before because the song moved too quickly. Apparently, all I needed was to slow down all of my sensory processors with some drugs. At least I didn't remember much of the drilling and other yuckiness.

Unfortunately, my mouth now is terribly sore!!!! My dentist actually prescribed Vicaden, which I didn't take but probably should have. I took some Aleve this morning, which helped some, but not enough to ward off the fatigue that comes from being in constant low-grade pain. I slept for two hours this afternoon.

The worst thing about all of this is that I am paying for the entire thing. The saga of the insurance is a whole different story that still makes me a bit mad, so we won't go there. Let's just say that, if I choose to finally replace my 288 thousand mile car, things will be tight. I'm thanking the Lord for the plethora of sub jobs, and the long-term job I have from the end of November to the end of January.

All of this oral trauma and pain has changed one thing in me: I no longer shirk the nightly flossing ritual. Every night, baby.

----------------
Now playing: Lex de Azevedo with Millenium Choir - Some Children See Him
via FoxyTunes

My new gadget

2007-09-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

It's official. I have been swept up into the Nike+iPod phenomenon. I bought myself a nano when I completed my marathon. My sister bought me the Nike arm band for my birthday, and I bought myself the sensor with my birthday money. Now, for the first time, I listen to music while I run. In "El Libro" (which is what Lisa and I called The Non-runner's Marathon Trainer, which is what we followed to train for our race), it says not to wear headphones, but to "listen to the run." So I did that for six months. Today I learned at least one thing:

Runs go faster when I'm distracted by The Aardvark Intermission Song.

The challenge for today was finding the song that kept pace with my running. I wasn't about to try to keep up with the Latin tempo of Club des Belugas's Hiphip Chinchin, and My Wish wasn't doing it either, even though one would think a Rascal Flatts ballad would fit my slow canter. But, when I had finally given up finding a pacing song, the Shuffle Song God touched my little iPod and gave me the gift that spurred me up the hardest 1/4 mile of the day:

Drive... by the Cars.

Solid snare drum back beat. Perfect tempo synchronization. Utter yogging perfection. And now with my workout firmly logged in the electronic annals of Nike.com, I am left with only one question...

Who is gonna drive me home tonight?

Insanity and mass homicide

2007-09-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

From the brinks of these two evils have I just returned. I have never experienced anything quite like today, the content of which made me fear for the loss of my mind and for the blood that would certainly be on my hands. The pitch of the day just kept increasing and increasing until, in a moment sent from God, the bell rang.

and the first graders went to recess.

Yes. That's right. First graders.

I subbed a half-day in a first grade classroom yesterday and it went very well. 30 minutes of coloring books -- that says blue, it's different than black -- 30 minutes of reading, some recess, and I was done. So when I got the call at 6:45 this morning for a full-day first grade job, I decided to go against my normal line of "no elementary" for the sake of having a pay check at the end of October.

I should have stayed home. I have never felt as incompetent as I did today. And the most ridiculous part is THEY ARE SIX! Give me any one of them and I would have been fine. Or even 10 of them. We could have played tag or read or any number of things that I know work with little people. But 26 six-year-olds are TOO MUCH for this teacher.

And my little heart feels horrible because I did what I know is poor classroom management. When they tattled and talked and moved around as if their chairs had electrodes implants, I hollered and threatened and prayed OUTLOUD "Dear Lord, help me to remember not to hurt these children. They are six and I am a grown up." The praying part isn't too bad, but I HATE raising my voice at kids. And that is what I did ALL DAY.

So I'm redrawing the line. Marah, here... first graders.... WAY over there. I don't care if I have to eat Top Ramen from now until Boxing Day.

Kazzah!!

2007-09-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

After hours of dedicated effort, I have just conquered all three levels of Minesweeper on this teacher's computer.

Behold, the life of a substitute teacher.

One more thing...

2007-09-09T19:55:00.001-07:00

Sunset over the Olympic Mountains

I just uploaded the most recent set of pictures and had to share my favorite picture from last week's trip to Bremerton.

Thoughts on fear

2007-09-09T18:27:00.001-07:00

The official theme of the Women's Retreat was The Battle Belongs to the Lord, complete with a flashback to Petra Praise. The unofficial theme was fear. Two of the main speakers and one of the workshops dealt specifically with fear and how often it can debilitate us and keep us from a closer relationship with God.

Saturday night my friend Rissa (GOTTA LOVE HER!) was sharing about the different battles through which God has brought her, and she gave biblical examples of different battles that were fought in the Old Testament. She mentioned Moses at the Red Sea made the comment that sometimes there is comfort in our dysfunction because we are accustomed to it, so we stay in an unhealthy place because we are afraid of the new. The Israelites said they should go back to Egypt, even though that had been a place of terrible oppression and suffering for them.

That example got me to thinking... and my thinking ended up in the seeds of a teaching that is quite alliterative. If you look at the account of God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, there are four stages of the journey:

1) Pharaoh (which I first called "captivity" but that doesn't start with an "f" sound) -- The Israelites started in captivity with an oppressive life full of back-breaking labor and death. They had family, but no freedom, no liberty to pursue dreams, to pursue purpose, or to pursue God. Their lives are compelled and controlled by an outside force that did not have their best interests at hear. When God hears their cries and sends a deliverer, they have to learn a completely new skill set.

2) Follow -- To follow, one must be aware of one's leader and trust him. There is no force involved in true following, which in and of itself was a stark difference from their lives in Egypt. The Israelites had to learn how to trust God's heart towards them, which was quite the challenge. But they did learn (sorta) how to follow, God provided for them a multitude of times. As we read about them, though, they often wanted to go back to Egypt. Why? Because at least they know what their days would be. There is a comfort in captivity if for no other reason than the unexpected isn't an option. There are no adventures upon which to embark, no challenges to rise up to meet, no potential failure or blundering because you just have to make bricks and you've been doing that your whole life.

The Israelites weren't the greatest followers -- they grumbled, doubted, disobeyed (glory, this is sounding familiar), but God kept leading and eventually they moved into The Promised Land. But they couldn't just walk on in. They had to learn another new skill set.

3) Fight -- If you read through the Old Testament, God had lots of different battle plans, and when the Israelites listened and obeyed, they were victorious.... but they weren't sitting in their Barco-Loungers. They actually had to GO OUT to meet the enemy. Sometimes -- like in 2 Chronicles 20, which was the passage for retreat -- God sets ambushes and the enemies destroy themselves. But sometimes the Israelites had to get out their swords and slay the enemy. And eventually they were transformed from feeble slaves to mighty warriors -- an army worthy of any opponent. And while this was an invaluable part of their journey, they had one more thing to learn.

4) Farm -- yep, they had to learn to farm. Even though the Promise Land was flowing with milk and honey (sounds sticky!), they still had to cultivate the land, maintain it, and defend it. But what a contrast from their starting place. No longer were they controlled and oppressed by a man who had only his own kingdom at heart, but they were loved and liberated by the love of the God who made them and called them into His kingdom.

And so I was thinking about my life, and specifically the internal issues that manifest in the food and body image arenas. I think that I am afraid of what comes with having a fit body. Irony of ironies, I'm afraid of being really attractive. When I was at my fittest, I received attention from another teacher at my old job and allowed myself to become quite emotionally attached even though he didn't share my faith. It wasn't a good situation. I'm afraid it'll happen again.

But I do long for freedom in this area. Not just losing the weight, but reclaiming my heart and actions and emotions for Christ. He's been calling me out of captivity and teaching me to follow Him in this area. And He has called me to fight -- to stand firm in His truth. I tend to curl up in the fetal position with a brownie. But freedom and victory can be mine because of the power of the One who lives in me.

That's flipping fantastic... once I start with the alliteration, it's difficult to finish...

marah jean

Home from the mountains...

2007-09-09T18:16:00.000-07:00

I returned this afternoon from the Yakima Foursquare Ladies' Retreat. Normally this kind of all-female frivolity is right up my alley -- I mean, who wouldn't love an abundance of snacks, karaoke complete with tp interpretive dance, and a shopping trip to Bellevue -- but this year, I was just wiped out! I think I might have been allergic to something up there because I had a stuffed up head and achy body the entire weekend. I'm feeling a bit better now that I'm home, but not quite 100%.

I was thinking about my involvement in activities such as these and lamenting my lack of expectation. Rendezvous like this aren't the rarity for me that they are for others, and I think this fact makes me somewhat dull to their charms. I enjoyed myself and was glad to be encouraged by the other ladies from my church, but I more wanted to be home.

And the sad thing for me was that there was nobody waiting for my return. I know so many of the women there would envy my situation -- the freedom to come and go as I please, few familial responsibilities, no diapers to change or anything like that.

I could continue in this theme and lament being single. I choose, instead, to "Yes, and..." myself.

Yes -- I am single, unattached, and currently unpursued.

comma -- pause to remember that I am LOVED by God, not forgotten away in Crackima, that His eyes are on me, His heart is towards me, and His delight IS me

And -- I have a GREAT life here, a family that loves me, friends that do too, and good things to do with my time, talents, and life.

I think I'll go take a lovely walk through my fabulous neighborhood.

much love even though I think I have a mold allergy -- marah jean

Thoughts from yesterday

2007-09-07T06:48:00.001-07:00

I had a sub job yesterday in Wapato and, thanks to block scheduling, had 2 hours of prep time. Unfortunately, I was not prepared to keep myself from being overwhelmed with boredom. So I wrote a blog without a computer -- and now I shall type it and save it for posterity.

It is September 6 and thus I've spent most of the first week of my 30th year eating deep fried foods or sugary carbs doused in syrup. I think I ran twice... which I suppose is better than nothing... but not much better than nothing.

It's been just over 3 months since I completed my first marathon, during which spectators who watched the start could have gone home, watched all of Gone with the Wind and still made it back to see me cross the finish line. That was the goal, not to take five and a half hours to finish, but just to finish. Finishing also brought an excruciating metatarsal stress fracture and a 2-month running hiatus. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up any other cardiovascular training, so now what was at one time an easy 3-miler can have me puffing and huffing and sweating like an overworked farm animal.

But -- call me crazy -- I love it. I really do enjoy running. Unfortunately, I'm not as adept at reminding myself that this is the case. I'm much better at recalling junior high memories of the dreaded running days (I was lucky if I could get 4 laps done in 30 minutes) and then the ironic high school "fun run." These people are on something... that is what I would tell myself.

But now... over a decade later... I've changed my mind about running. I suppose now it is time to change my mind about myself and running. I cognitively ascent to the idea that my weight doesn't define me -- an belief that manifested in a 216 pounder coming in 572nd in the Newport, OR Marathon -- but I would love it if my outside self would match my inside self: energetic, healthy, active, confident. I know, though, that my inside self isn't always these things, usually because I've become so focused on my outside self that isn't what I want it to be. It's a vicious cycle.

Thus begins the tale of my 30th year. With 359 days of it remaining, I have enough time to do a great many things: write an article for Runner's World, train to run 30 miles on my 30th birthday, lose the extra 30 pounds I've gained in the last two years, and finish my MA. Throw in figuring out what I wasn't to do when I grow up and meeting lots of great people, and we'll have a great year. And am I crazy to want to drop my mile time as well? I consistently can train at a 12 minute mile. Are 10 minute miles possible? Yes. By when.. I don't know.

And with all this dreaming, what do I find myself drawn to desire?

Ice cream.

I refuse to see this as a bad omen.