An Off Brand Life

By Heather Allen –

Can I tell you what I want from life? Do you have a minute to pull up a chair? I want a smallish house with beautiful plants surrounding it and a roof made of shakes. Smells wafting from the kitchen that welcome visitors and make them want to stay for the cookies in the oven; sounds of kids laughing, with me straining to hear all the ridiculously cute things they are saying. Permanence: same house, same garden, new friends are okay, same grocery store, same streets. But ah, it seems that it is not to be.

My heart feels a little tattered tonight, like a rag flappin’ out on the line.

At age 13 I told my mom I did not want an ordinary life. How I wish I could go back and muzzle that big-mouthed girl. There is enough adventure in books. Fictional characters do not lay awake at night worrying about their kids adjusting.

So here I am another house in another state, but thankfully a little closer to those I love best. Yet I feel my life is an itchy sweater with seams that keep twisting up my body. The tag at the neck is driving me to distraction: it’s fixating. I cannot breathe right, I do not feel right, but I just keep yanking at that tag. It is easier than learning to live with it, or around it.

If God put His hand on my head my whole body would probably still be squirming. There is only one conversation I am looking to have but He keeps bringing me back to where we started “Set your heart on pilgrimage”.

I do not like being a pilgrim, and it doesn’t strike me as a very family friendly lifestyle.   My mind spins and forms an extensive list of questions, so I read the book of Job. He had questions about his life. It started well, but not even halfway through the first chapter he starts a downhill spiral. I am a bit dramatic, but I can relate to his confusion and his longing for some answers.

At the heart of my conflicted life lies a deep desire to see the extraordinary, even if it means traveling to the ends of the earth. So I will endeavor to set my heart on pilgrimage. Believing a God whose knowledge spans beginning to end, I will learn to trust.  He left His home to save me; I can leave mine too.

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” Job 42:5 (NIV)

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” Psalms 84:5 (NIV)

Someone to Hold

By Heather Allen –

This summer I met a stocky toddler with honey brown eyes. She and her baby sister are wards of the state.  Over the past year I have spent some time with foster children. In the sadness of their situation there is also joy.  Many believers open their lives and homes to help care for these children. The duration is uncertain; it can be weeks or years. A housemother from a children’s home said girls in her care are constantly moved, often with only ten minutes to gather their belongings and adjust emotionally. I think about my belongings filling shelves and closets and counters while theirs fit in a solitary bag. What would it be like to not know the people you live with or how long you will be with them?

My friend Stephanie is fostering two little girls, and knowing their time together may be short, she longs to give them hope. Zephaniah 3:17 is painted on their temporary bedroom wall.

“The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (NIV)

Hurting over the toddler, who insists on keeping every possession by her side, Stephanie asked, “If that were you or I, stripped to one small bag that held all our belongings, would we still believe we were loved?  Would we believe our life had purpose? And how tightly would we cling to that bag?” She went further. “Imagine everything you hold is lifted from your grasp. Who would you be?”

In Egypt, the Israelites cried for a deliverer. They prayed God would rescue them. He did. Plagues that struck the Egyptians did not touch them. They were set apart but it was not because they had done anything right, they simply belonged to Yahweh. There was a distinction made. Sadly, knowing they were set apart was not enough to keep them content in the wilderness. Instead a generation fell.

I wonder if the longing to be free ever went beyond idealism.  Instead of having a micromanaged life, they could choose. And in choosing they longed for the certainty that captivity had provided. I feel conviction as I write this, compelled to admit that I sacrifice freedom for certainty too.

I think about that small bag of belongings and my hope that Stephanie’s tot will know there is more. I wish she knew that her little bag held no assurance, that Jesus is enough. And I wish that took the ache and loneliness from her small heart. If it would make a difference, I’d put my hands on her cheeks and kneel and say “let it go sweetie, let it go.”

As I contemplate what might help, a holy hushed whisper asks me the same question, “What would it take for you to lay down your bags and just hold on to me?”

I am bereft and filled with an intense longing for that to be our reality, hers and mine.

Heather Allen spends most of her time caring for her hubby and 3 kids.  Check out her blog: http://www.theknottedapron.blogspot.com/

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