Tuesday night, Zoe stood on the stage at school, nervous even though she’d said she wouldn’t be; all decked out in black velvet, deep green organza, and the sparkly tights.  They were itchy—the tights—but she wore them anyway, and that’s how I knew what this spelling bee meant to her.

That, and the fact that she’d practiced diligently every day over track out.  The initiative her own, she’d sit down with that enormous list of words and work on “the hard side” of the paper.  She circled the ones she didn’t know how to pronounce and asked me to talk to her about them.  She practiced, the way we all do when we prepare for the new, the unknown, anticipating moments round with the possibility of victory.

She prayed about the spelling bee for weeks, her voice soft, asking.  Please.

One night, after Kevin heard her praying hard that she’d do well, he had to go back upstairs after he’d left her room, just to make sure she knew that we’d be proud no matter whether she left the stage first or last.  She’d talked about being brave enough to get up on that stage and spell words in front of everyone.  She’d clipped a sequined black hair bow in her hair.

And the night of the spelling bee, Adam held a grudge against Zoe for making him leave his free time behind.  ”Zoe!” He kept saying, layering the letters of her name with frustration and angst as they left his lips.  This week has been furious, limiting, for all of us.  I understood his unhidden reluctance.

But we pushed our way through supper and homework, leaving some assignments to finish when we got back home, and we all went to school to watch Zoe participate.  She ran ahead of us through the doors and down the hall, eager.

While one of the teachers read the rules into the microphone, sitting on the edge of the stage, explaining that the kids had all been informed prior to the contest, Zoe sat straight and high on the platform in the second row, swinging her legs, smiling at me, shrugging her shoulders sweetly.

“Now, this one’s the hard one,” the teacher said slowly into the microphone, drawing our attention closely.  ”Once a student has begun to spell the word, he or she may start again from the beginning, but he or she may not change any of the letters which have already been said.  The original spelling will stand.”

oh my.  no second chances.  that one is tough, I thought.

But the first easy words went quickly.  Pill. Sweet. Next.  I realized Zoe would have no trouble with these, that the warm-up should give her confidence.  Eight kids filed up to the microphone and breezed through the introductory round without a single pause or stumble.

Then Zoe stepped up.

“The word is...jazz,” one of the judges called.

I saw the fear-shadow fall over her bright eyes, the way her cheeks turned white as she drew in her breath, and my heart sank, already hurting over her anxiety.  Fear paralyzes, twists, blockades.  Every parent focused on the face of a child knows fear as Enemy.  It’s the reason do not be afraid appears so often in scripture, falls from the Savior’s lips over and over.  Perfect love casts out fear, I thought.  Perfect love, Zoe.  He loves you perfectly.  In that moment, I desperately wished to communicate this to her, to embolden her, to ready her.

She held her arms in front of her, twisting her own fingers.  She’d seen all the eyes watching.  She wished to forget our faces, not to see us as witnesses to her moment.  We always wonder what everyone will think when they see us as we are; when no amount of velvet and organza can cover over our vulnerability.

“Jazz.  (deep, shuddering gulp) …j-a-s..” She made a sound, knowing instantly that she’d slipped, and quickly shook her head, slicing away the mistake, throwing out “Z-Z,” in purposeful, firm staccato.

Silence.  We never know what to do, how to be, when suddenly we’re face to face with someone’s mistake.  She stood there, twisting her body back and forth, waiting.  I felt an awful, helpless, fiercely protective ache settling in my stomach as I watched her not knowing, not remembering the rule, not expecting the judges heads shaking back and forth.  No.  Shock, uncertainty, paralyzed her in that spot.  She doesn’t know it’s over, I thought.

Finally, one of the judges spoke into her microphone.  ”I’m sorry, Zoe, that’s incorrect.  Please go sit with your parents.”  Her face fell, clouded with shame, and I watched her walk off the stage, the first child dismissed.  She could not look up.  What do we do when the thing that seems so easy for everyone else turns out to be the thing that trips us up?  Already, I stood, I moved toward her before she rounded the corner and came down the stairs and out from behind the curtain.  Tears hit the floor as she walked, one hand half covering her eyes.  She held her head low, but she looked for me sideways, quickly jerking her eyes up and back down.  She trembled, her whole face red, her cheeks wet.

I grabbed her hand and squeezed, guiding her outside the doors of the gym, walking her over to a lone chair in the hall.  I pulled her into my lap and wrapped my arms around her, bending my head towards hers.  ”Honey, it’s okay.  You were nervous.  We’re SO proud of you.”

She shook her head, tears still dripping, eyes down.  ”I’m so embarrassed,” She said, stopping a wail before it left her throat.  ”Why did I do that?  Why was it wrong?  Why did I just stand there after they said it was incorrect?”

I hugged her, stroking her cheeks, her hair, with one hand.  ”You just made a mistake, Zoe.  You won’t be the only one.  They have this rule that once you say the letters out loud you can’t change them.  You got nervous.  It’s okay.  No one in there thinks any less of you for it.”

She shot her eyes toward the doors.  ”I can’t go back in there.  I can’t.  I’m so embarrassed.”

“Honey, you need to go back in there and hold your head up high.  Only a small number of kids in the school got to even do this.  We are so proud of you.  Daddy.  Riley. Adam. Me. Your teacher.  You have nothing to be ashamed about.  We all know you just got nervous and made a mistake.  It could’ve happened to anyone.”

The double doors opened and another dad walked out of the gym, smiling.  I don’t know if he’d come out for another reason or specifically to find Zoe, but when he saw us, he walked over.  ”Hey,” he said gently, to Zoe, “it’s okay.  You just got nervous.  No big deal.  It’s okay…”

I smiled at him and looked at Zoe, who couldn’t bring herself to look up.  ”See, Honey?  All of us parents know you were nervous.”

Another dad walked by with a child, on the way to the bathrooms, and he stopped to talk to Zoe too.  ”Hey, are you okay?  Don’t be upset.  Easy mistake.”

She closed her eyes, absorbing the idea that other people knew what had happened and didn’t think her incapable.  I saw the weight falling from her back and wondered if they saw it too, as she sat there trying to breathe.  In the space after our stumble, this is what we need: to know that belief survives, that we have friends who still see the best in us despite what they know of our weakness, that mistake has not labeled us failure.

Zoe wanted to go home, but I knew she had to go back in and finish this night, face her fear before it mastered her.  When she had pulled herself back together, we walked back into the gym, hand-in-hand, and made our way back to our seats next to Kevin, Riley, and Adam.  I pulled Zoe into my lap, wrapping my arms around her waist.  Kevin offered her a simple smile, his always smile for her, and patted her knee with his hand.  Her mistake had changed nothing in her father’s love for her.  He regarded it simply: an opportunity for a better next time.  She got up and hugged him, then sat back down on my lap.  Her teacher leaned toward us from a few chairs away and said, “Hey Zoe!  Get over here!”

Zoe looked at me, wary, sad.  ”Go talk to your teacher,” I said gently.  I watched Zoe’s teacher touch her arm, catching her gaze, and I knew enough without hearing the words.  For Zoe’s sake, she had tossed aside the error nonchalantly, cast it out as immaterial.

And when Zoe walked back to me, she smiled, and I whispered, “See?  She’s proud of you too.  No one sees you any differently.”

Then Riley leaned over and said, “Zoe, you did a really good job.  But you got the word wrong.  You spelled it wrong.”  I wanted to grin, to laugh out loud, but I pressed my lips in a straight line.  For Riley, this was not an accusation or a judgement.  Just facts.  Still, it made me think of the human in all of us, the way we’re awkward with what went wrong, the way we try to encourage while never really letting go of the mistake.  This is the thing we all hide from, the idea that our mistakes will be stains everyone else will always see, even while they smile at us.

Zoe shook her head all over again, burying her eyes in my neck.  I patted her back, and we settled in to watch.  As the other students filed through, Zoe whispered in my ear, noting incorrect spellings before the judges said, “I’m sorry, no.  Thank you.”  She knew these words.  I felt bad for her, knowing she’d have done well but for her nervous mistake.

Later, she said she’d never do the spelling bee again.

“Oh no,” I said, smiling at her.  She already knew what I’d say.  She’d shrugged a little when she said it, faintly, almost a whisper.  ”You don’t get to do that.  You have to try again, harder even the next time.  You can’t just give up.”

“You learn from your mistakes and do better next time,” Kevin added.  ”Like, for example, because of the rules, you know that next time you can spell the word in your head first.  Take your time.  There are no extra points for rushing it.  Next time you’ll know a little better how to handle your nerves.”

But in private, Kevin shook his head as I told him how bad I felt for Zoe that things had happened that way.  ”The worst possible scenario…”He said, sharing my sadness over Zoe’s heartache.   Oh how we wished we might have absorbed her pain, shielded her from embarrassment, protected her fledgling confidence.  Oh how God must ache over our mistakes, the choices that He must let us make and the shame we feel because of them.

As I sat hugging Zoe in that hallway, whispering in her ear, the Spirit whispered in mine the way He always does, holding me faithfully, one hand stroking my cheek, my hair.  I live my life seated on His lap, shaking my head, saying things like, “I just can’t go back in there.”  And while my daughter cried in my arms, this is what He said:  What if God had a rule like that?  You mess up, you can start again, but you can’t erase the mistake you made.  It stands.  All is lost.  And then the pause, as I absorb this, as I tell Zoe we love her just as well, way past her mistakes.  And then: You know, some people still believe that’s how it goes.  Every mistake stands.  Every bad effort changes your forever.

But that’s a heartache God couldn’t bear for His children.  It’s true, holy can only be spelled one way, but for our sake, He wrote that word in blood. And the blood of Christ washes white as snow.  Not even an echo of the misspoken letters remains.  No book records all the ways we missed it—nervous, afraid, ignorant, defiant, embarrassing and shameful ways, our blunders casting deathly shadows over all our  preparation, all that velvet and organza, all our innocent desire to make Him proud, all our wishes to be something.  He could never watch us walk away, one hand shielding our eyes, all our pain splashing on the floor at His feet.  So He did what every parent longs to do when our children stand there in the silence, twisting their fingers in front of them, shame settling on their shoulders.  We always wish we could go stand in their place, take the hurt ourselves.  And that’s what He did, writing holy across all our lives in His own blood.

So when we make that sound, having owned our need, having crawled up in His lap and hidden our lives in Christ; the sound admitting our guilt, the grieving, deep-throated pleading for second chances; the moment is completely new, we are completely new, as though it is our first breath, the first syllable we’ve spoken.  No one remembers the jagged “s” hanging in the air, nor ever even hears its hiss.

The first time I served soup after Adam’s teacher helped us expand his diet, Adam went in the kitchen, got a paper towel, and then tried to dry up all the extra liquid in his bowl.  I still make him eat soups, but I always know he’s going to be less than excited about it.  Adam’s favorite food, even when he only had a list of six things he’d eat, has always been spaghetti.  None of us will ever forget the day he came home from the hospital at age two, newly diagnosed with diabetes and starving, and ate three whole cups.  So, when I saw this soup in Diabetic Living’s Diabetic Slow Cooker publication, I had to try it to see if it would pass the test with my diabetic spaghetti-loving, no-soup-today, autistic son.

Adam loved it, an easy five stars! He ate not one but two bowls, and the rest of us really enjoyed it too.  It has just enough broth to qualify as soup, but not so much that Adam complained.  To him, it was just extra saucy spaghetti.:) I love that it’s flavorful (a hint of cayenne gives it just a tiny zip), full of all kinds of vegetables, and very healthful (1 cup has 252 calories and 27g of carbohydrates).

I prepared the ground beef and vegetables on Saturday afternoon so that getting it into the crock-pot the next day would be quick and easy.  We left it simmering when we went to Sunday morning worship and came home to the mouthwatering smell of delicious soup ready-to-eat. Hope you and your family enjoy it too!

Diabetic Living’s Spaghetti Lover’s Soup

1 pound extra-lean ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium green sweet bell pepper, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 medium carrot, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 14.5oz. cans diced tomatoes, undrained

1 14oz jar spaghetti sauce (I like Prego Light Smart Traditional)

1 cup water

1 TBS quick-cooking tapioca

1/2 tsp dried Italian seasoning

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

2 ounces dried spaghetti, broken (I always use whole wheat thin spaghetti, and it’s so good in this!)

In a large skillet, cook ground beef, onion, sweet pepper, celery, carrot, and garlic over medium heat until meat is browned and vegetables are tender.  Drain off fat.

Transfer meat mixture to slow cooker.  Stir in tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, water, tapioca, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Cover and cook on low-heat for 8 to 10 hours or on high-heat for 4 to 5 hours.

If using low-heat setting, turn to high-heat setting.  Stir in spaghetti.  Cover and cook for 15 to 20 minutes more or until pasta is tender.

Source:  Diabetic Living’s Diabetic Slow Cooker publication (a Better Homes and Gardens Special Interests Publication), 2012, pg. 44 ~ I found this magazine cookbook in the check out line one day at the grocery store, and I have to say, if your goal is to serve healthy foods your whole family will enjoy (despite a full and busy schedule at home), you should definitely look for this one! It’s well worth the purchase.:)

Search out recipes of all kinds here at the link party!or here at Taste this Thursday!

Last Thursday, I wrote it nonchalantly on the schedule, just below morning chores and breakfast.

The girls already knew.  Riley pays attention to the calendar, had prayed about it the night before.  Remembering the last visit—when the dentist pulled me aside right next to Zoe and told me two of her permanent teeth just weren’t there and wouldn’t be coming in, not ever–Zoe picked up on this line of thought and prayed too, asking “that everything might be okay with my teeth this time.”

That last time, I’d considered switching dentists.

“Does this guy even have kids?”

I remember thinking this while Zoe curled up in a ball on the red vinyl chair behind him, tears spilling down her cheeks, shaking, while he reassured me that the missing teeth were in the back.  ”She’ll probably just keep the baby teeth,” he’d said, “but we need to seal those.  Because, if she loses those, there will just be gaps with nothing coming in behind them.”  Empty holes.  Not even the promise of anything else. There’s only been one forever empty that meant forever full, and that  one an empty tomb, robbed forever of death.

“Zoe, it’s okay,” I said, touching her shoulder, moving around the dentist to her side.  She just trembled, red-eyed, and buried her head in her hands.

He turned to her, surprised.  ”He doesn’t have kids,” I thought, wondering when it happened that half the professional people we see look twenty years younger than Kevin and me.  Our favorite dentist now only performs dental surgeries at the hospital.  This guy had only been with the practice a year.  ”Wait.  What’s wrong?” He said to Zoe.

She just shook her head.  I touched her shoulder again.  ”It’s okay.  Honey, you can tell him.”  She pressed her lips together and shook her head again, quickly.  Her eyes said, I’m not talking to him.

I asked the question she had, knowing.  ”So, will it be noticeable, if she loses the baby teeth?”

“Oh, no,” he said, still looking at her, still surprised by her tears.  She shook, her eyes buried, tucked away from him.  ”We can do some things to help—with orthodontia—to close in the gaps.  And they’re in the back…so…no one will even know…Honey?”

He spoke to her again.

Honey?

“Sweetie?”

Sweetie?

“Why are you upset?  Can you tell me why you’re upset?”

She shook her head again, tears still spilling.

“I think she’s just afraid,” I told him, interpreting.  ”Because you brought me back here, you know, used the words a bit concerned, unusual, missing, and never coming in. It seems like a big deal to her.  I don’t think she knew until you told me.”

“Well, no,” he said, “I didn’t want to alarm her.”  He turned to Zoe again, “Honey, it’s not common, but it’s something we’ve seen several times before.   It’s okay.  You just need to take extra good care of those teeth, because there’s nothing coming in behind them.” Again with the nothing.  No possibility. Ever.

Zoe looked at me, her eyes screaming, “PLEASE.”

The dentist waved a hand dismissively toward Adam, already moving on.  ”We did the best we could with him.  He let us clean his teeth, but…well, he didn’t really want us poking around in there much.”

“Okay, when I get home, I am asking friends about dentists,” I thought, but I said, “Well, I’m very proud of him.  He used to to scream through dental appointments.”   I had the feeling that the dentist had no time left for me, that he had tuned me out, didn’t care, but I pressed on.  I had to.  ”I used to have to lay on top of him.” I said this a little too loudly, enunciating a little to purposefully, remembering the way I’d had to press my body out full length on top of my son, clinging to his kicking legs, while one hygienist held his arms, another his head.  I still remember the ugly, clinical apparatus they’d used to pry Adam’s mouth open so that he couldn’t close it while the dentist’s fingers roamed inside, and me holding him, singing helplessly, trying to soothe.  Adam would scream through those appointments, hysterical, betrayal torching his eyes as he looked at me.  ”You know that cartoon cat?  The one with all its hair on end and its claws out?”  I held my hands in front of me, fingers curved in, claw-shaped.  The dentist said nothing.  I saw no comprehension flash on his face.  No smile.  Nothing.  Nothing save impatience.  ”Well, that used to be him,” I said, fruitlessly, gesturing toward Adam.  ”He’s done really well.   We had to hospitalize him a few years ago—when he had a cavity.  The fact that he can even be back here without me is…amazing.”

The words came out quickly, firmly, unbidden and unharnessed.  I wanted this dentist to understand how much Adam had overcome.  I wanted him to look at my son and see more than what remains lacking.  I wanted him to catch just a glimpse of the possibility I see because of the long way we’ve come, to be patient, not to give up.

Really, it’s what every parent wants, this vision of possibility, the understanding of long roads traveled hard.  Parents raising children with autism crave that recognition, search for it, share it eagerly.  Our children look so normal, but they struggle so hard to communicate, to comprehend things gifted to the rest of us as instinct, to overcome anxieties and obsessions.  What Zoe can learn in one conversation, Adam and Riley learn in thousands of repetitious lessons, complete with visual support.  It takes us so long, but every step is a leap.  And we’ve come such a long, long way together.

Every time I stand in the presence of someone who sees only what lacks, only how far we’ve yet to go, I feel it like a fist, punching and pressing, twisting right into my stomach.  So many times, I’ve encountered people who think we’re not teaching our kids because it takes them such a long time to learn, because the signs of progress come so slowly.  It takes us so long, but we’ve come so far together. I know it doesn’t matter really, that they don’t know.  Only God’s opinions truly matter, and He knows.  He brought us down this road, accomplishing everything.  But it bruises to have so much hard work go unrecognized.

“Oh, I see patients who are like that all the time,” he said, dismissing my son again.  “I don’t care how many patients like that you’ve seen,” I thought.  “I had to lay on top of him.  Now.I.don’t.  He sits here by.himself. No kicking legs anymore, no.screaming.”  I looked past him, not sure how much more I could take before I said something unkind, hasty, God-glory robbing.

But then the dentist moved on to Riley, who sat looking out the window, waiting.  ”And she’s old enough now for braces.”

“Braces?”

“Yes.  Nothing serious, just cosmetic.  I asked her if she wanted braces (Oh no.), but she said she didn’t know (Whew.  Of course she doesn’t know.  She probably can’t pull up a visual for ‘braces.’).“

“Does she need braces?”

“Well, she has a bit of an overbite…and…her teeth could stand to be more evenly spaced.”

I looked over at Riley.  She felt my gaze and returned a tiny hi smile before her eyes flitted back to the window.  Her teeth looked beautiful to me, straight.

“If you like, we can make her an appointment for a consultation,” he said.

“Um, I think we’ll have to think about that a bit first.”  I gestured to Zoe, who had managed to pull herself together and sat red-eyed, blinking, still on the chair behind the dentist.  I reached for Adam, who popped up immediately, ready to go.

“Come on, Rye,” I called toward the window, and we all left, sore.

In the hallway, Zoe unwound all over again, her voice quavering as she described the image in her mind that had appeared when the dentist started talking to me about her teeth.  ”I just—I’m just afraid I’m going to look hhhorrible!”  The word poured out, a waterfall.  ”Everyone will laugh at me, Mom!” It shouldn’t matter, but we care what other people see, and the last thing we want them to see are empty, never-holes.

I pulled her into my arms and stood there in the hallway, rubbing her back, while Riley stood beside her, panicked, trying to dam the flood with words. Riley hates to see Zoe cry, had been too absorbed with the goings on outside the window to notice in the office.  ”Zoe. Zoe.  Zoe, it’s okay, sweetie,” Riley stood there repeating, desperately, her hands flying up and out and back, as though she didn’t know what to do with them. Adam spun in circles next to the wall, synthesizing sounds with his tongue, things he heard outside.  Then he’d get too far and come back to me, eyes searching my face briefly for signs that we could go.  ”oh my…my back hurts,” I realized, thinking about how I always pack my stress.

Finally, that day, I had gotten them to the car.  All the way home, Zoe and I had discussed worrying about what other people think; crossing bridges when we come to them; how it really wasn’t the crisis she thought; while Riley interrupted to ask, “Mom?  Why was Zoe crying?” and to say, “I don’t like it when Zoe cries.”  And every time I’d turn down the radio so that I could hear something Zoe said, Adam would complain, his finger wiggling in the air, pointing to the stereo, his voice deep, “Uh, music please.”

So, no one dreaded last week’s dental visit as much as me.

I’d not gotten around to changing dentists yet.  Around here, intention takes a while to ferment into action sometimes, even with genuine frustration mixed in to grow the yeast.  I thought of this as I drove them, my finger tapping a rhythm on the wheel.  I dreaded it.  But first,

go to the dentist

casually written on the schedule.  Adam noticed it when he got up and immediately started arguing with me about it, yet another sign of long roads traveled.

“No.  No dentist today,” He said to me.  He thrust his watch into my line of sight, to be sure I understood.  ”No 10:45 dentist.”

“Yes, Adam.  We have to go to the dentist.”

“No!”

“Trust me, I understand.  I don’t want to go either.  But we have to go get your teeth cleaned.”

He made a sound, exasperated.  ”No clean teeth today.”  Again the sound.  ”Zoe dentist.  No Adam dentist today!”

Zoe looked up from where she sat at the table, eating her breakfast.  ”HEY!  I don’t want to go either, Buddy,” she said to him.  She looked at me.  ”Can you believe he said that?”

I laughed.  ”Yeah, he pretty much threw you under the bus.”  I turned to Adam, who paced in front of the schedule.  ”All of you have to see the dentist.”  I sighed.  His features twisted.  ”No!  No…no dentist today!”

“This is going to be one exhausting morning,” I thought, already expecting the worst.  Face to face with all our lack, I couldn’t see the possibility.

But when the hygienist who took the kids back came out that morning, he smiled.  ”Everything went really well today.  No cavities.  And I looked, and it looks like I’ve had Adam the last few times he’s been in here.”

“Really?  Well, that’s probably good.  That he knows you.”

“Yeah.  I really like Adam.  He’s a cool kid.  He did a really, really good job.  We even got x-rays (the last time they’d been able to get x-rays, Adam had been asleep in the hospital).”

Excitement. I saw excitement on the hygienist’s face.  I’d had to look more closely.  I hadn’t expected it.  He’s proud of my son.  He sees.  He knows.

And when I walked back with the hygienist this time, I walked back to meet a new dentist.  All the way home, while Zoe told me about how the man working with Adam had been so good with him, so patient, talking to Adam the whole time he worked, Riley asked me a thousand different questions about what had happened to the other dentist.  ”Where did he go, Mom?” And I just kept thinking about the difference in two men, one seeing lack, another progress.

And I wondered, “Does God feel bruised when we look at each other and only see what lacks?  Does He want to press past our callousness with stories of progress and hard work and ‘please, please-don’t-give-up-on-my-child’ possibility?  ’But wait.  I used to have to watch her cry for hours in the dark.  She used to…but now she…she’s come so far.  And it’s amazing.’”

Just weeks ago, I asked a hurting friend how I could help her through a particularly hard time.  And she said, “When you notice a way that I’ve grown, please tell me.  Tell me the ways you can see that that I’ve changed, that things are different.  I need to know that all this struggling is really worth it, that God is making progress with me.”

Thinking of her this morning, I smiled, gazing at double amaryllis blooms in pots by the window in my living room.  When I’d planted them, those ugly bulbs in wicker baskets, they’d been nothing to see.  Just three pots of wet dirt, a rough brown stem jutting up in the middle, a pile of moss curling from the top of each.  But I’d watched them for weeks, expecting beauty, enthusiastic for the possibility of everything happening beneath the soil.  In the darkness, for days, beauty rooted deep.  Then the stem, the bud, the full, rich bloom, petals like ruffles.  My friend had only asked that I see the signs of the beauty accomplished in her, that I speak of them.

This, I realize, has to be what God wants us to see in each other.  Not the lack. Not how far we’ve yet to go, but how far we’ve come.   The possibility.  The progress.  The long way already traveled.  And when I dismiss the possibility in the face of lack, the Holy voice presses past my callouses, proud, to tell me all that has been accomplished already.  Because when I look at you, when I speak of you, the only empty I’m meant to see is a death-robbed tomb, the forever-full.

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here (2 Corinthians 5:15-17)!

These cheesecake bars cut no corners when it comes to indulgence: rich raspberry-white chocolate swirl cheesecake–so creamy and decadent—blanketing a buttery, shortbread crust.  I read the recipe twice—real butter, cream cheese, sour cream, white chocolate.  But these sweet treats won’t break your calorie budget with their completely-worth-it 172 calories each (15g carbs, if you’re interested).  The secret here is clearly portion control.  Make sure you cut them into the 32 medium-sized bars the Women’s Day recipe suggests, before you take a bite!:)

Crust:

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter, softened

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

4 oz. white baking chocolate

1 cup frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed

2 bricks (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup light sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp red food coloring

1/4 tsp raspberry extract

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.
   Spray a 13×9-in. baking pan with cooking spray.
2. In mixer bowl, beat butter on medium-high speed until creamy. Add confectioner’s sugar and salt; beat until fluffy (about a minute).  On low speed, gradually beat in flour just until blended.  Using your fingers, press mixture evenly into the bottom of the pan.
3. Bake 18 minutes or until golden.  Place pan on a wire rack; let cool.
4. Melt white chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave.  Cool to room temperature.
5. Press raspberries through a fine strainer with a spoon.  You should have about 1/4 cup of puree.
6. Beat cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl on medium-high speed 2 minutes or until creamy.  On low speed, beat in eggs, one at a time, until combined.  Beat in sour cream and vanilla extract, then flour, just until blended.
7. Stir 1 cup batter, the food color, and the raspberry extract into the raspberry puree.  Take out 1/2 cup of raspberry mixture and reserve.
8. Stir melted white chocolate into remaining batter.  Pour 1 1/2 cups white batter over crust, top with spoonfuls of remaining raspberry mixture, then remaining white batter to cover.  Top with small dollops of reserved raspberry mixture. Drag a knife through cream cheese mixture in circular motions to marble.
9. Bake 32-35 minutes until slightly puffed and set. Cool completely on a wire rack, then refrigerate at least one hour until firm.
10. Cut into 32 bars.

Source: Guilt-free Sweet Treats: a Woman’s Day Specials Publication…check it out!

Trust me, this is the perfect dessert for your sweetie!:)

Do not believe that I have mastered contentment.

I pursue it…ruthlessly.  But just as I feel it graze my fingertips, it disappears, the butterfly I cannot catch, dancing just nearby.

Do you struggle, like me?  Blessed beyond what you can believe and yet still somehow allowing the ridiculous sigh from your lips?  I count gifts, always, numbering so much grace, and still, I struggle against complaint.

I could fill the days of a week doubly–triply–long:  a day for scrapbooks—rainbows of paper on my desk, glitter dusting my fingers, the cropped edges of photographs stacked in the trash can beside me, notepaper covered with handwritten memories; a day for baking–even if we breathe deep the smell, taste a hot, steamy piece and give the rest away; two days for making resources to use to teach my kids—Boardmaker pictures beside words, the rough sound of Velcro pulled, laminator hum, scissors gliding through plastic, trimming edges.  I could fill three days with Bible study; another four with writing; one day managing our finances; two days for lunches and coffees with friends—to spend the undivided time friendships deserve; a day staying in touch with my family; three days to volunteer; and still another penning notes and tying ribbon around tiny gifts to leave on doorsteps and tuck into mailboxes.  I would love to have a weekly Encouragement Day.  And it would just have to be a Friday.:)  …I need a day for planning.  If I’ve learned anything these eleven—nearly twelve—years of mothering, it’s that I need to plan ahead for all the hours when I will not be able to think.  I need to know when to take the chicken out of the freezer, whose birthday is three days away, when we will stop everything to paint fingernails.  And I could use a few days for continuing education.  I flip through magazines and bookmark recipes, ideas, thoughts, in moments snatched unexpectedly. And now there’s Pinterest.  Be still, my heart.:)  Beside my bed, in the stack with Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral, sits the big, thick Home Comforts book I love, an encyclopedia on home-keeping done well.  And I read about diabetes, autism, epilepsy.  I read about healthy living, and these days, I want to read a book about running and training.  I’d really love to run a Rock and Roll marathon.  Sometimes, I feel so desperate for more time.

So, now that you know the truth, I have to tell you another one.  There were days, especially the early ones, when I never thought I’d say this:  I love my work.  And loving it is all grace, a gift of the Spirit, the love of Christ.  So maybe now I can see the butterfly, watch her float on the breeze, even if she remains outside my grasp. And He who began a good work, even in me, is truly able to complete it (Philippians 1:6).

I love polished base boards, clean floors, and sweet-smelling towels, warm and just folded.

I love baking smells, and slow-cooking smells, and the waft of a buttered rum candle.

I love crisp sheets on folded-down beds, shiny chrome, and organized cabinets.

I love a set table, a soft pillow tossed in a chair, and lamplight just as the sunlight of day drifts away.

I love teaching my children to create a home and dwell there—beds made (even if crookedly now), clean clothes gently stacked in a drawer, warm-popcorn tossed with seasoned salt and a movie in the afternoon, legs all twisted together on the ottoman.

My kids are tracked-out right now, and I am in the season when the sounds of them make me smile, and I don’t mind their questions.  The girls take turns choosing board games—calling out numbers for the Bingo game Riley gave me for Christmas, dancing on Hullabaloo mats, chasing each other’s marbles around the Aggravation star.  They sit in the living room floor and decorate headbands with feathers, jewels, shimmery butterflies.  And when the sun shines bright and the skies dome blue, all three of our children run outside and jump wildly on the trampoline together.  I love the sound of their muted voices in the wind—calling, laughing.  It makes me think of my mom’s tears when my brothers and I laugh and hug and make plans together, and the way she says, “I’m glad you guys are still close.”  And suddenly, I understand why Christ has so much to say about loving one another, “as I have loved you (John 13:34).” Oh, how that must delight the Father when we get it right.

While I’m folding clothes, Adam’s remote control car peeks around the doorway and then disappears under my bed, blinking red and blue.  He spins tops, clicks magnets, plays music, and presses the keys of his new adding machine, a gift from his aunt and uncle.  I bring a stack of clean clothes into his room, and he’s sitting on the bed, doing a word find.  He plays the xylophone, the keyboard.  This morning, I walked into his room to do some organizing, and he sat beside his CD player, listening to a book-on-CD on his headphones.  He builds towers with the Angry Birds board game a dear friend slid under our Christmas tree for him, and he giggles, free.

But the week before Christmas, Adam cried every time I spoke to him.

He did not really even want to eat.  I’d call him to the table, and he’d wipe tears from his eyes with the back of his hand while he fumbled with his glucose meter.  Peering through the watery blur, he’d hold up a finger and try to focus, looking for blood, trying to see if the needle had penetrated past his calluses.  He’d look up at me and melt into a cascade of tears and frustrated words. Gently, I helped him work through his frustration for days, sitting him in my lap, stroking his hair, prompting him, “I am frustrated because…,” and every time, he’d say something about the computer or Riley’s ipod.  But the last time he melted into tears at dinner, I drew a line in the sand.

“No eat supper today!”

“Adam, are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you need to eat.”

When Adam is frustrated, he writes with his finger in the air, on surfaces.  He picks up the dry erase marker and writes his frustration in large, crooked letters on the sheet where he records his food and carb counts.  His finger scribbled on the worn wood of the kitchen table, furiously.  I know what he wrote.  ”No eat.”  I ignored it and asked him to pull his chair up to the table.  He grabbed the dry erase marker and quickly wrote, “First eat, then ipod,” filling up the white space at the top of the recording sheet with ugly, jagged graffiti. Again, I ignored him.

“He just wrote—,” Zoe spoke up, eyeing him from her chair.

“I don’t care what he wrote.  He can write anything he wants, but it’s time for supper.”

I picked up his recording sheet and flipped it over, then picked up the dry erase marker to write my own note.  ”Choose: Good attitude at supper.  No crying, yes computer tomorrow.  —OR–Bad attitude at supper.  Yes crying, no computer tomorrow.”  We had followed this path before to its end.  He knew I would follow through.

He looked up at me.  ”Yes computer!”

I pointed to the note.  ”Choose.  Yes computer, no crying.  Yes crying, no computer.”

His bottom lip trembled.  He circled “Good attitude” and sat down in his chair, rubbing his cheeks with his hands.  For five minutes, he ate his supper.  Then he looked at me and said, “First eat supper, then computer.”

“No.  You already had computer time today.  First supper, then bed time.  Computer tomorrow.”

The tears came again.  ”First bed time, then wake up!  Wake up six o’clock.”

“Okay, fine.  Wake up six o’clock.”

“Wake up 3:45!  Wake up, then computer!”

“No.  Choose:  Wake up six o’clock or wake up eight o’clock.”

“Wake up six o’clock!”

“Okay, fine.”

“First wake up, then computer!”

“No.  Computer after lunch.”

His mouth fell open, a twisted chasm. He sobbed.

I put my fork down.  ”Adam, I think you’re finished with computer.  You need a break.  No computer this week.”

Kevin shook his head.  ”No, I think he’s finished for a while.  No computer at least for the rest of track out.”

I nodded.  It was time for a media fast.  I could see the wisdom in it.  We were losing our son to electronic devices, once again.  This is not a new problem for us.  Our children’s compulsions, their obsessions, threaten to crumble our sanity and our connection with them on a regular basis. Adam couldn’t bear to do the most normal, necessary things.  Every moment had become about just how long it would be until he could play on the computer again or fiddle with Riley’s ipod.  He scarcely wanted to do anything else.  All of his free time he spent doing math, waiting for another hit of cyber crack.

He argued with us constantly, negotiating a shorter wait.  Our Adam, our happy, fun-loving boy, had become someone else.  He’d become an addict.  His drug—electronic gaming—haunted him, consumed him, gripped him entirely.  He could not be content away from the screen.

Sometimes we can’t be sure how much Adam catches of our conversations, and other times, it’s clear that he’s heard every word.  He hadn’t missed any of this.  He  fell off the emotional cliff on which he’d been perched.

“I’m crying,” he said, as if we couldn’t see that clearly.  ”Computer tomorrow!”

“No,” I said gently.  ”Computer is finished.”

He negotiated for a few minutes more, scribbling across the table with his finger, but as soon as he realized that we weren’t going to budge, he sat down and started eating, defeated.

Fifteen minutes later, Adam danced in his chair, grinning widely, bubbling over with sounds of joy.  I looked at Kevin.  ”It’s like we unlocked the prison door.  It just took a few minutes for him to see the door standing open and recognize his freedom.”

And for these last weeks, he’s played like he’s never played before, as though for the first time in his life he’s realized he can have fun doing so.many.other.things.  And he doesn’t cry over his supper.  Oh, he’s impatient about leaving his play, but it’s more playtime he’s looking forward to, not the electronic abyss.

And watching him, seeing the freedom in the fasting, I realized something:  When my contentment flits away, so illusive, perhaps its time for a fast, time to put away everything that casts shadows on the One who is truly everything, time for the reminder that contentment is Christ.

Jesus answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast (Matthew 9:15).’

Until He comes…  Fast.

One of my favorite things to do is find and serve healthy, satisfying, family-friendly recipes.  I really enjoy cooking, and as my family “yums” over bites, I love knowing that what they’re eating will nourish their bodies well.  At just 281 calories per serving, this meal definitely fits in with our goal for healthy living.

Since one of my goals this year is to add more content to this blog, I thought I’d share some of our favorite recipes each week.

This meal slow-cooked all day today and made our mouths water.  It smelled so good, and the flavor did not disappoint!  And one reason I really like it is that it would be equally delicious for breakfast.  Start it while you’re cooking supper and let it slow cook overnight…yum!

Potato, Sausage, and Egg Supper (Or Breakfast!)

1 1/2 pounds yellow, gold, or red potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes

12 oz. chicken sausage, sliced

1 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 cup shredded, reduced-fat cheddar cheese

Spray a large sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil with cooking spray.  Combine sausage, potatoes, onion, and peppers and place on foil sheet.  Drizzle with chicken broth, sprinkle with thyme and pepper.  Cover with another sheet of aluminum foil, folding edges of both sheets together to make a large foil packet.

Place the foil packet in the slow cooker.  Cook on low for 10 hours.  Pan fry eggs in a skillet coated only with cooking spray.  Place 1 cup of the sausage-vegetable mixture on each plate, top with an egg and 1 tablespoon of shredded cheese.

Each serving: 281 calories, 23g carbohydrates (for all the other diabetics out there )

Our whole family enjoyed this.  I hope you will too!

Source:  adapted from Diabetic Living’s Diabetic Slow Cooking 2011 Publication

Last week, Kevin and I went backpacking on the Appalachian Trail.  I loved it.  And I hated it.  And now, days later, I still want to go back.

Identity intrigues me, the way we allow the details of life to shape our perception of possibility; the way I have limited my own view of who I am, the shape of the vessel God still molds in His hands, its function.  I read the dent of His thumb in an unexpected place and think I know so much about where He’ll take me and where He won’t.  And the closer I step toward surrender, the more He expands my view, even of who He is in me.  In His arms, I see vast and limitless possibility.

I’ve never been able to imagine myself enjoying a trek up a mountain with a fifty pound pack on my back, much less sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag.  I don’t know why.  On the shore, I could care less about the regularity of a shower, the salt in my hair, or the grit of the sand beneath my feet.  I shed everything for a love affair with that place, pressing my face up against the chest of God, listening for His heart beat.  I sweat out there and I don’t care.  I ride waves, and I walk for hours, and when I’m tired, I lay on a towel and close my eyes.  So, I don’t know why I thought I would care about sleeping in a tent in an alcove of trees, with nothing to hear except muted birdsong and crickets.

We drive into Grayson Highlands State Park, and my cell phone complains about a lost data connection.  I smile, stretch the two bars of cell signal into three broken calls to my parents to let them know we are okay, and then switch my phone to “airplane mode” to conserve battery life.  My introverted soul sighs contentment.  We are officially unplugged, and that sort of break is a balm I need.

The wind whips sharp as we get out of the car at the ranger station to make our presence known and tie up loose ends.  Kevin buys a trail map, and then we drive a mile or so more and park.  We strap on our packs, walk down a path to a little gate, thump across a wood plank walkway, and then take a trail straight up.  I love hiking, but immediately I know that this experience, my first carrying a heavy pack, will be new.  And new is usually amazing, but never easy.  We cross one stream and then a second on our way up the trail, in my first few steps getting used to ascending beneath the weight.

“I hope we don’t have to cross too many of these,” I say to Kevin.  It’s funny how something can seem so significant in first moments and then, miles later, hardly important.  The snow on the ground, just a dusting in the first steps, surprises us.  We’ve left the mildest temperatures of the season at home, and though we knew the mountains would be cooler, the numbers suggested nothing particularly harsh.

“I don’t know about all this snow,” I say, thinking aloud.  I’m a girl who loves heat, and I’m easily cold.  I pray often for those who cannot get warm.

Kevin knows this about me.  It’s why I carry, at the bottom of my rust-colored pack, a zero degree sleeping bag.  He hadn’t expected the ground to be all that cold, but still, he knew I needed to be warm. The wind flys through my gloves and chills my fingers in the first half hour of our hike.  Early, we dig out hand warmers, and I shake them in the air, stuffing them as close to my fingers as possible.  I grip my trekking poles hard, turn my face away from the wind, climb on.

“I like the snow on the ground,” Kevin says happily.  ”It’s beautiful.”

It is…gorgeous.  Everything looks pristine and untouched, glistening in the afternoon sunlight.  But the powder thickens as we hike, and soon we find stretches of the path covered in solid ice.  I test the ground in front of me with my trekking poles, groaning inwardly.  I don’t like ice, especially when I am climbing, especially learning to balance under a backpack.  Still, this early we still have plenty of space to skirt the ice, and after a while the wind dies down, and in the late afternoon sun we explore quiet trails and hills dotted with horses.  As long as we are moving, I feel warm enough.  And I don’t mind pausing here and there so that Kevin can photograph the landscape, which makes us gasp.  We walk in a majestic painting, touching rocks shaped by God’s fingers, looking out over wide open spaces that melt into the horizon.  Here and there, we consult our map, knowing we’ll have to exit the park and hit the Trail and federal land before we can camp.  As we breathe all that beauty, sucking it in deep, reveling in the quiet, the day dies quickly.

We find our way to the Appalachian Trail and a camp site just before sunset.  And as the sky washes purple and orange, I start getting cold.

I help Kevin gather small pieces of wood for a fire, but the wind makes the lighting difficult.  We struggle to shelter and blow our little flames into popping heat.  My toes and fingers hurt, and the wind cuts into me and makes me shiver despite my layers.  Turning in, burying my discomfort, wandering in the deepest reaches of my still burning soul, I ask God to light the fire.

“Please,” I beg.  ”Send the fire.  You sent fire from heaven to burn up sacrifices. Please, would you light this fire?”

I stand as close to the struggling little flames as I can get, squinting against the smoke dancing up from the snow-wet wood.  The wispy, gray ribbons float up like ghosts and sting my eyes.  I want warmth so badly that I don’t care.  When the wood starts popping, I stay glued to that spot, daring a spark to fall on my feet.  Briefly I think of shows Kevin and I have watched on television, people climbing Everest or trekking their way across the Alaskan wilderness for months.  I don’t know how people do that stuff, I think, standing there in obvious weakness, focused solidly on the chill.

Finally, Kevin suggests that I go in the tent, where at least I can find a bit of shelter from the cold wind, and stuff my frozen feet into my sleeping bag.  He seems undaunted, whistling as he works on the fire and pulls out everything he needs to make coffee and dinner.  I shiver in the tent, pulling off my shoes with stiff fingers, thanking God for foot warmers and goose down as I pull out my sleeping bag and tuck my legs inside.  While Kevin works outside the tent, commenting about the beauty of the night sky—oh, all the stars, the moon, I wrap my arms around my knees and stare at the lantern stamped on the tent wall.

He cannot get the Jetboil lit for the coffee.  The wind wickedly extinguishs every match.  I hear him moving, trying different locations, searching for some natural shelter for the flame.  Finally, he pushes his way into the tent, away from the wind, kneeling in the corner.  At last, a flame holds, and soon, he presses a cup of coffee into my hands.

“This should help warm you up,” he says hopefully, smiling into my eyes.

I eat dinner that way, crouched in half of my sleeping bag.  Some sort of southwestern pasta I eat out of a bag with a plastic spoon.  Kevin hasn’t quite mastered the Jetboil yet, and the food is warm, but not hot.  I don’t care.  I eat quickly and pull out my sleeping pad, opening the valve so it will inflate.  Apparently this takes a while, maybe should’ve been done an hour earlier.  I can think of nothing save getting warm.  Impatiently, I blow up the pads myself, forcing my own breath into the open valves.  I stretch out my sleeping bag, unzip my outer jacket, and climb inside.  I have a foot warmer stuffed in each sock, hand warmers in my hands, and I pull my zero-degree mummy bag tight around my shoulders, yanking the draw-string closed at the neck.  For a while, I just lay there, listening to Kevin moving around outside the tent.  When I finally stop shivering, I think about how single-minded I’d been for so long, how nothing has mattered like warmth.  I whisper a prayer for those who can’t get warm—both the unsheltered and the lonely.  So many people live desperate for warmth.  It is a consuming, bitter need; the cold and wind such harsh, painful company.  I think about the balm of love, Kevin seeing me to shelter, whistling while he serves me coffee and dinner.  It bothers him that I feel cold.  He keeps saying, “I am so sorry you are so cold, honey.”  My warmth has become his priority.  I realize, laying there in the sleeping bag he knew I’d need, how I should feel toward those who cannot get warm.  I feel their need, have known it myself.  They need my compassion, not my impatience or my judgement.  How would I have felt if Kevin had judged me less because I struggled so hard against the night, the wind, the temperature? How little we truly know about what makes another’s journey harder.

I have room to move in my sleeping bag, and finally, when at last I can breathe and not shake, I pull a book inside with me and sink down in a tight space to read.  Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral.  I read the dedication by Kris Radish and chuckle, hunkered down inside that goosedown.

This book, which some might think is about dying, is really about living.  It is for any woman—every woman—who has ever lost something or someone she loved and then grieved, touched the sorrowful edges of her own soul, embraced the heart of loss—and then moved forward.

So much of the dying in life is really about living.

And then, I read the acknowledgements and laugh out loud, the first time I’ve laughed since the sun went down and I got cold.  This woman could be my sister.

…Then there are the women who read my books.

The women who send me letters and e-mails and come to listen to my wild writing tales.  The women who get what I am trying to share and say and who see a part of themselves in one of my characters—the way she said something, the time she finally did something, that one conversation on that one page.

Just so you know, I am terribly grateful and I think of you—each one of you—when I write and growl and worry and cry and bend over the words that eventually move you to connect with me.

Thank you.  Just thank you for giving me your own thoughts, sharing your intimate stories of survival and change and for fueling the flames of a passion I have had since the day I was born.  It’s a wonder I do not explode.

I haven’t even read the first sentence and I lay there surrounded by sisters, thinking of my friends and the way they give to me and fill my life with the heat of their laughter, the warmth of their smiles, the fuel for this passion I have.  It’s a wonder I do not explode.  I’ve thought that…a million times.

So, I turn the pages in my book,  past the curling title to the first chapter, a one in the corner with what looks like butterfly wings underneath.  And I fly away from the sound of the wind lifting and dropping the tent cover, the wind shaking the snow loose from the trees outside, the cold wind obscuring the beautiful stars from my view, and I float off on the bubbling, rushing current of Story.  I love that about words, how they build a boat and take you away, how they can fill a cold tent with the colors, and sounds, and faces of another adventure. I might as well have been sitting there warm, with Annie Freeman’s red shoes in my lap.

I can’t tell you that I slept well.  When my eyes get tired and I set aside my book, I sleep fitfully, aware of my sore knees, or the tent cover whacking, whacking.  I open my eyes a few times to guess how far away the light might be.  And I listen to Kevin breathing beside me and rub my thumbs over the hand warmers in my palms, and I thank God again for so much grace, and I doze.

The moment I open my eyes to daylight, Kevin says, “Good morning, Love,” like he’s been laying there watching me sleep.  He makes coffee again, and this time it steams, very hot.  I zip up my jacket, pull on my gloves, and sit half in my sleeping bag letting the steam warm my nose.

We eat peanut butter oatmeal and trail mix for breakfast, then we pack up camp.  Kevin takes pictures of our packs, sitting there by the fire circle without us, so symbolic of journey and adventure.

He snaps a few of us too before we strap everything on and walk away from the alcove of trees, the snow and dry, frozen grass crunching under our feet.

The thing I love about the Appalachian Trail, at least as it curls toward Mt. Rogers, is that the landscape seems constantly changing, wide open spaces blending into groves of rhododendrons, rocky passes, cliffs.  For a while, I hike mesmerized by beauty, in love with the place.  But the pack is heavy, and the ice unforgiving.  As I lean on my trekking poles, careful to balance the weight forward as I climb up, I keep thinking, “At some point I have to figure out how to get back down this same way.”

Kevin hears me sigh when we make our way between two solid walls of rock, so close we have to kneel a little to get our packs through.  In front of me, a wide sheet of ice covers the rock.  I see no footholds, no way around.

“You’re doing great,” he says to me, testing the ice first with his poles, then his feet.  Slowly, he inches through.  ”If you just step carefully, you can make it without slipping.”

I follow his lead, swallowing my complaints, working hard not to tell him how not fun I find this trip.  I feel a shadow falling over my happy sense of adventure.  More than once, I thank God for the trekking poles, thinking how like His Spirit they are, supporting me, warning me of dangerous spots, helping me balance carefully through the most precarious situations.  Without them, I’d have fallen.  Without the Spirit I am blind, deaf, wandering unsafe, unguided.

A few yards past the rock walls, we meet a man who has hiked the Trail near Mt. Rogers for 20 years.  He tells us he’s been camping since Sunday, that one night he  slept in a hammock and it rained, and one day it snowed three inches.  He says all this smiling, pushing his glasses up on his nose.  He wears an olive green fishing hat, the draw string pulled tight beneath his chin.  He tells us he’ll have to be home by New Year’s Day, or his wife will be angry.  He says this chuckling, scratching his five-day beard with one hand.

He doesn’t look particularly athletic, and he’s at least twenty years older than we are.  I stand there listening to him, hearing Kevin tell him where we’re from, that it’s my first time backpacking, and I think, “He seems so nonchalant.  ’Yea, it rained all night…so cold…then the snow, and now…’  Who is this guy?  I.am.so.pathetic.”

Later, I say as much to Kevin, and he smiles back at me.  ”Did you hear the part where he said he’s been doing this for twenty years?  You’re doing amazingly well.  You’re carrying fifty pounds on your back, Babe.”

I think twenty-year guy, who is one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a long time, could see the shadow creeping up over all my joy.  While we were standing there with him, he told Kevin about a horse trail we’d hit a little further down the Trail.  ”It’ll take you back to Grayson Highlands Park,” He’d said, looking at me, smiling.  ”It’s an easier hike down, at just a slight decline, too.”

“Oh, that sounds good,” I’d said to him, which only made him smile deeper.

“I thought you might like that,” He’d said, already starting to move past us.

By the time we near the horse trail, I am exhausted.  My shoulders feel sore beneath the pack and my knees ache from all the jarring on the rocks.  Kevin consults the compass, the map, the surrounding hillside, and then decides that we should not try to reach the peak this time.  He can see that I am worn down, and we both want to reach the parking lot before sundown.  We find the horse trail and set out, knowing we have a few miles still to hike before we finish.  The trail is wide enough for us to walk side by side, but soon we find ourselves walking down what feels more like a babbling stream than a trail.  We navigate through miles of water, mud, and ice, skirting the sides where ever we find sides to skirt.  We pass through a gate, by waterfalls, and I am so tired I find it difficult to take joy in any of it.

I have been quiet for a while, but finally, Kevin says something loving about our sixteen years, and I realize that it’s our anniversary.

And this is marriage.  The love flowing straight through the struggle, even when it gets exhausting and ugly.

“I don’t feel like it’s our anniversary,” I say to him.  ”This is not what I expected it to be.  I thought we’d have more time together last night, that I could sit with you and look at the stars, maybe talk.  But the cold…I couldn’t do anything but get in my sleeping bag and try to get warm.  And I thought we’d get to stop and look at things today, hike together, but it feels like we’ve just been doing it individually in the same space.  All this ice, the snow—I hate all this ice and snow.  It makes it so I can’t look around and see.  I’m too busy watching the ground.  Every step is hard.  ..I’m not enjoying this right now at all.”

All the words I had worked to swallow spilled.

“I know.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t know there’d be snow on the ground.  It hasn’t been exactly what I expected either, but I’ve loved doing it with you, being here with you.  Thank you for doing this with me, trying it.”

In that moment, I don’t like myself at all.  I am angry that I have tainted his day, this adventure, with my grumbling.  ”I hope you understand,” I say.  ”It hasn’t all been bad.  Some of it has been wonderful.  It’s beautiful here, and I love the quiet, and I love trying new things with you.  Anything with you is good…I just wish it wasn’t so cold.”

“I understand.  Listen, I feel the same way about some of it.”

We walk on, and it seems like the trail will never open up.  I know it has to open up before we reach the gate that leads to Grayson Highlands.  I grow single-minded, pushing hard, willing myself to finish.  I am ready to unstrap the pack.  For a while, we are quiet.  I am praying, “Please, let this trail end soon.”

It isn’t until we pass through the gate into the state park, until I know that soon we will finish, that I realize I am glad we have made the journey together.

“I want you to know now, while you know how tired I am, how hard this has been, that I want to do it again,” I say to Kevin, smiling.

He seems pleased, not surprised.  We have shared something, something beautiful and terrible all at once, and even though we have struggled and ached and fought the cold, we are closer and stronger because of every moment, for all the pressing on, the encouraging, the climbing through together.  This, after all, is the very best of life and love and relationship.  Bearing each other through the beautiful and awful all at once, well past comfort and the places where the struggle spills messy, and loving each other still, for all of it.

When he asks me a day later, when I am sore and still tired but warm and comfortable, I still say I want to go again, maybe to the same place, in a different season.  I want to see the rhododendrons in bloom.

For a few lingering weeks, after the Christmas decorations have been packed away for another year, white lights will still flicker and blink warm here, winking at me, reminding me that the magic is always, not just for a season.  Here and there, a bit of silver, the hint of a snowflake, the shine of a curling gold ribbon remains.  Fire and light.  I crave them.  I’d look upon them always, holding my hands over the flames.  I want to wear the twinkling like a robe.

As hearth fires pop and we hold mugs in our hands, we’ll hold all this heat, this light, in our hearts.  Because as the new year begins, I’ll need more than just fizz and streamers and confetti to celebrate all things new.  I’ll need more than one night staying up late, watching a numbered sphere drop.  I’ll need more than resolutions, more than a bit of starry fanfare to weather the Winter.  I grew in sweet sunshine, heat dripping from my cheeks.  I have to wrap up tight and stoke the fire to stay warm.  I have to train my eyes on the twinkling and let gratitude burn.

Because the Spirit is a fire, burning, bringing the new even as the body dies, our hair graying with the Winter skies.  And holy newness isn’t just for a day or a season, but for an eternity.  I am making everything new (Revelation 21:5)! This walk, always toward time coming instead of time gone, renews not once but continually, season building upon season, the garden of the soul maturing well past the cold bare-branch-bones of this life—begging, yearning up, reaching for light, for fruit—into the wild, vibrant, glittering Spring of the next.  And every breath is His name.  YHWH.  Every step, His reflection.  Indeed, to live is Christ.  And before the new, the death of the old.  Before the glory, the eternity, the victory—always the sacrifice.

And I have so much more dying to do.  I know already what He has asked of me in this new year: less of me, more of Him.  I am resolved about only one thing: the Spirit would loosen my grip on still more.  Indeed, already He pries my fingers away, already He whispers surrender, full surrender in my heart.  But this death to self is not the cold, dead, frozen process of mortality, things that pass.  It is the hot, bright-burning, twinkling miracle of the Holy, the always, the coming.  His is the fire that reveals, that purifies and builds eternity without turning Spirit-born leaves to ash.  The leaves of the Spirit-tree never wither or fall.  No, those leaves will heal nations.  He would use me, the fruit He bears upon this soul, to bless.

But first holy fire must burn away the cold, the dying, the withering and earthbound, flickering through the Winter, well past the magic seasons, leaving me sterling, like lightening, white like the snow robing all those bare branches in glinting white light, diamonds obliterating the dull, the empty, the husk of life.

I love this about God–the always coming, always new, always redeeming.  Look around.  Even now, when skies grow dull and the wind cuts, sharp, you can see glory glisten. Beneath the blood of sacrifice, we are white, like snow; washed new, like a fresh-scrubbed year.  We are blinding, twinkling, stunning white, like the white of his hair and the fire in His eyes, burning hot.  Though they stripped and mocked Him, though He bled dripping, sticky scarlet, He now wears robes as white as fallen snow. He looks like lightning, and so does the new, the becoming until the flashes of His Coming, the Forever growing strong against the gray, dying skies of this shadow we live now.

Through the winter, as the year breaks new, lights twinkle against sterling.  They wink at me through the coldest days, wrapping me tight, the Spirit’s gentle gaze upon me, the promise of glorious becoming, the always magic.

Come, Spirit.  Fall fresh.

*~*

For inspiration on all things new…try traveling here as well:

All week I’ve been asking God to cleanse my sight, help me to see.  It isn’t ever done, this Spirit work of showing me truth, stretching my eyes beyond dirt and flesh.  On Thursday I felt like I looked through fog, the pace of preparation clouding everything.  The season feels compressed this year, and I want to slow time so that I can stop for seeing, so that I can exhale God’s name as my breath.

I wonder, walking in the breeze next to Kevin, about the shepherds.  What had they seen before they fell on their knees and covered their faces with their hands, struck with terror by Reality:  Glory of the Lord ripping open the night sky, an angel hovering huge, filling their view? What had they heard before that beautiful voice and its life-giving words?

Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2: 10-12).

Had they sighed like me, weary, smelling sheep, tugging at the dirt stuck under their fingernails?  Had they wished for rest?  For something more comforting than the soil under their feet?

Moments before, they had to have been stuck like me, humble, inadequate souls entrapped in flesh with weary sight.  They had to have fought, like I do, to see more.  Then, moments later, God shattered the starscape—one angel, promising everything, then “a great company,” filling all space,

praising God and saying,

‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests (Luke 2: 13,14).’

And the night changed their now.  Truth rearranged priority.  It made them seekers, looking for the Lord, searching for what He’s done.

Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about (Luke 2:15).

It transformed shepherds into evangelists, proclaimers.

When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,  and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them (Luke 2:17,18).

And that’s why I ask:  Please, Spirit.  Rip apart the sky.  Cut away the calluses on my eyes that I might see.  Show me so well that I, even I, am seeker and proclaimer.  With every breath I breathe.  With every moment, every choice.

Because this is the truth: the angels are still chanting, the voice still a Heavenly echo.  Good news…great joy…he is the Messiah, the Lord.  Glory, Glory, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth—yes, even on earth–peace to those on whom His favor rests.

It’s so easy to look around these last few days before Christmas and see all the wrong things—clutter on counter tops, the kids’ things accidentally left out, the pillows all crooked on the sofa.  Oh how perverse, how muddied and blind the view! Spit, Savior, spit upon your fingers and place Holy hands on these eyes of mine.  Help me see.  Help me see you as you are now:

…among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.  The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance (Revelation 1: 13-16).

Touch my ears.  Help me hear the rushing water, the voices of the Heavenly ones encircling your throne.

And they sang a new song, saying:

‘You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.’

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.  In a loud voice they were saying:

‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!’

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever (Revelation 5:9-13)!’

Faithfully, He does.  He wipes the mud from my eyes with His fingers.  He redeems my sight.  I open my eyes, and I see Him, the truth about who He is and what He has done.  He redeems every detail, even a holiday once pagan, making it all a proclamation: Christ.  Joy to the world, the Lord Has Come.

I see Him, clearly, in my mother’s hands—folding laundry, baking bread, working yarn and needles into hats—working, serving, in spite of arthritic knots twisting her fingers.

I see Him in every shining light, every decoration, every way the light reflects—His majesty; His light helping us see, illuminating, redeeming all the darkness; His Glory, forever.

I see Him in my children, surrounding the table, loving each other, loving our family.

Can you see, too?  The extraordinary wrapped up in ordinary?  The greatest of these, truly, is Love.  It rips apart the night sky.  It brings a mighty Savior with eyes like fire to dwell in human form, a writhing baby in a virgin’s arms, wailing the shock of earth like those He came to save from death.

I wonder, when Mary bent over His feet, bathing them in her tears, drying them with her hair: Was it only her sin redeemed that made her cry, or the breath of God, Spirit blowing into her face, cleaning her eyes so that at last she could really see Him?  I understand, as He changes me, why she did it.  I want to do it too, use my hair as a towel for His feet.  He shows me Reality, glory upon glory, and He transforms me into seeker, proclaimer.  He washes away the weary and earthly and gives me a view of Heaven, of Kingdom now.

So, I ask.  Because every day I feel blind again.  And seeing isn’t believing, because without Him, I am blind.  Believing is seeing.

~*~*~*

Merry Christmas!  A few gifts for you:

• The sweet taste of Christmas, a few of our favorites this year: Hungry Girl’s Candyland Peppermint Pie…wow.  Also, Caramel-Cranberry Chex Mix, and the blog I found it on, which just rocks.
• Inspiration.  Listen to these.:)
• Music…fill your life with it.  This is our all time favorite Christmas song.  Truth proclaimed…It makes me cry.
• Traditions worth recalling: Get a group together and go Christmas caroling.  Last night, surrounded by some of our best friends, we tromped around the neighborhood ringing doorbells.  A simple thing, really, all of us standing there side by side singing.  But moms dressed in their pajamas sat on their steps listening to us with their children in their arms, smiling.  A couple danced on their front porch.  One man thanked us for the gift, gesturing toward his parents who had just arrived and “aren’t used to this sort of thing.”  We sang to one family who had lost their home in the April 2011 tornado.  They haven’t been living in their new place long, and after the last note, we all shouted “Merry Christmas,” and, “welcome home.”  Such joy, and love spread out, all unwrapped.
• Warm wishes:  Thank you for the gift you are to me, to us.  Here we are, just before Christmas, wishing all of you who meet us here faithfully another year full of blessing and full view of God’s glory.  

“Adam, what would you like for Christmas?”

He smiled back, searching my eyes, trying.  ”Presents.”

I inhaled slowly, almost a sigh, thinking this year would be no different than last year, when “presents” seemed to be the only answer he could manage.  Last year, when I had prodded, “Yes, but what do you want inside the presents?  When you open them,” gesturing to the inside of something with my hand, drawing pictures, writing down the words, he had only grinned harder and repeated, “Presents!”

I expected this as I stood there trying again, my hand swiping the air up and then in.  ”But you’ll open your presents, and then inside…what?”  I held my hands flat, palms up, empty in front of him, willing him to fill them with words.

He stood there, working, trying, stuck for so long.  I’ve learned to wait.

Finally, his mouth started moving before the word came out.  ”Math.”

I smiled.  The answer was appropriate.  Math is Adam’s favorite thing.  ”You want more math workbooks for Christmas?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

Again, the thinking, the effort.  ”Ball.”

Adam has this ball my dad got him from Brookstone—clear, filled with glitter floating in fluid.  It lights up when Adam bounces it, and he stands there flapping his hands, the excitement that cannot come out in words coming out through his fingers.

“You do love that ball.  You want another one?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

But Adam had finished.  He smiled at me and sidled away, his famously silent way of begging out of further effort.

Then a few days later, he brought me a bookend he’d made in Bible class, short pieces of wood glued together and decorated.  He handed me the bookend and a pair of scissors.

“Cut, please,” he said, pointing to the places where the wood had been glued together.

“Cut?  Why do you want me to cut this?”

“Blocks.”

“Blocks?  You want me to separate this into blocks?”

“Yes.”

“Why?  What do you want to do?”

“Build.”

“Adam, I’m sorry.  Cutting this won’t work.  Do you want me to get you some blocks for Christmas?  So you can build things?”

“Yes!”  He flapped, pleased that we understood each other.  My son speaks a different language, and we’re never sure we know it exactly.

I asked Adam’s teacher about the blocks, knowing that the interest had probably developed at school.  The idea that Adam wished to play at something new thrilled me.

His teacher explained that she had structured building sets for the kids to use during free time.  In the classroom, she showed me.  In plastic bins, she puts just enough blocks to build something specific, figurines, and a step-by-step flip book, complete with pictures, about how to build and what to do with the figurines.  In one bin: penguins, a laminated blue pond cut out of construction paper, the blocks to build a bridge. Step by step, they build the bridge, and then the flip book shows them how to take the penguins and plunge them into the pond from the top.  Another bin: the three little pigs and the big, bad wolf, blocks to build the pigs a house, instructions that show what to do all the way to having the wolf huff, and puff, and blow that house down.  I imagined Adam laughing wildly, standing on tip toes, flapping his arms over the pile of blocks all knocked over.

Autistic children have difficulty imagining, imprisoned by the literal, the concrete, the bombardment of real sensory stimuli.  Adam loves to act out the pictures in his communication notebook, inspired by the images and the words that label them.  It’s the closest he ever comes to the joy of pretend.  I could see why he liked the structured building kits.  They unlocked a door, showed him how to play.  Every child loves to play.

We looked to Adam, who sat nearby half building an Elmo out of Legos (following the images in a flip book), half watching us.  ”Adam, would you like some of these at home, for Christmas?” His teacher asked.

“Yes!” He answered immediately, giddy, laughter escaping his lips.

I am elated.  And now I have blocks, figurines (Cars 2 and Toy Story 3), a few simple Lego kits, plastic bins with lids stacked neatly in my office.  I have closed the door to the kids, for elfing.

And all this has me thinking about how far Adam has come from the days when he said nothing; to the days when he came to me only in crisis, when he needed something; to the days when he only said scripted, memorized, listed things; to these days, when he works so hard trying to communicate something genuine.

And lately, I’ve been asking God to help me imagine all that He can do with a truly surrendered life.  I recognize that God and I often speak a different language–His heavenly, mine earthbound, my eyes on the dirt.

In the early days, when my faith sprouted new, I came to Him only to plead over something I thought I needed, my view of relationship so awkward.  God lived in a distant palace, a tiny little wizard with a monstrous persona, a gold-bricked road standing between us.  Eventually, I made lists, as though He might not realize everything I wanted if I forgot to mention it.  I even made notes for Him about the how.  Most days, my prayers were scripted, memorized, listing, listing, listing, one request after another.  Sometimes I would vary the order, break up a few rote phrases, just so that it wasn’t exactly the same.  I showed no imagination, imprisoned by my limited view, the details bombarding my now.

But He persisted with me, content that I had come to Him, that I spoke, even if it hardly qualified as conversation.  This I understand.  I know Adam will always say, “I am happy,” when I ask how He’s doing, but I still ask just to hear him speak.

Gradually, I learned to talk to God, to share relationship.  First, I talked as though He were my friend, then as a child to her Dad, then with the intimate deep knowledge of passion.

I think of this at night when I listen to my daughters praying.  It is sometimes the chatter of divine friendship, sometimes the recognition of another father, a Holy one. I remember the days when Zoe repeated the same phrases, scripted, empty, and I remember the day when I asked her what she’d think if every time we talked I said the same thing over and over.

“I think I’d wonder if you really saw me, if you really wanted to talk.”  I remember her sheepish, understanding grin.  ”That would be boring.”

“So talk to Him,” I said that night, smiling with the recollection of my own Spirit-training in relationship.

These days, I search for still deeper communication with the lover of my soul.  All these miles of glittering streets I walk with YHWH, Elohim, my Adonai, swinging my arms, I ask Him to teach me to imagine, to teach me how to play the kingdom way, right beside Him.  Step by step, He shows, opening my eyes to see in images, details, moments.  I simply do not have the ability to conjure the miraculous, the holy, the only-by-His-power, the things beyond all I ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).  I ask for a step-by-step guide, the Holy Spirit redeeming my eyes.

I’ve said it before:  I am spiritually autistic.

And I am so thankful for the patience of a faithful God, who loves me enough to do the hard-work teaching of an awkward child who tries, standing before Him stuck.  He teaches me daily to speak in the heavenly tongue, word by precious word, my eyes trained on His face.