Walk, Stand, Sit

By Heather Allen –

Roughly twenty to one. Those are not great odds in a face-off. I did not have a sling or five smooth stones. My life was not at risk, my future was.

The loudest in the group of my would-be friends turned hard eyes on me, her face twisted into a snarl. “You are just a Jesus girl.”

And with that, it was done. The horde moved down the hall, a repetitive bell reminding them school was in session. I stood alone. Wow, Jesus girl? There are moments when Satan’s mask slips. I almost pegged the wrong enemy.

Two solitary school years began that day. No matter who you are, at some point you will have to choose who you are going to walk with.

We drive our daughter to the south where tea flows and generous smiles beam. The brick dormitories that could be her home stand bookishly solemn, reminding me of the lateness of the hour. The breeze catches my sweater. We head for the campus coffee shop. Laughter circulates through the air, companions bend over a paper, a grinning barista is ready to help.

I trail my daughter, wondering how our home will move on when she moves on. The campus President graciously shuffles his schedule and shares lunch.

He looks me in the eye. “There are three questions you must ask.”

1. Does this school and its instructors believe in absolute truth?
2. Does this school and its instructors believe God’s word is literal?
3. If yes to the first two questions, how is the truth of God’s word incorporated into the classroom?

I sit back letting my breath empty. I should have studied for this.

Six people enter the conversation and we start talking about Psalm 1. I squint at the window and up to the clouds. Should I fall on the floor and declare Holy? This passage again. It has been spoken to me at least four times in two weeks. Okay God, I hear you. If Psalm 1 were a location, I just moved in. My attention shifts back to the college President.

“Do you see the sequence? First a person walks with those who are rebellious against God, and then he takes his stand with them, and then he sits and remains in the dwelling of the wicked, who are arrogant and scornful.”

His last words on the subject went something like this,

“If you have trained your child to live righteously, if you have carefully instructed them eighteen years, and this is the first time they are leaving your influence, why would you hand them over to those who are ungodly? Would you have them alter what you have spent so much time building? Why would you pay for your child to walk in their counsel?”

Good questions, thought provoking. Leaving this circular mind with a few more.

We wave goodbye to the South, our time is up. Winding down the Appalachians confident, knowing He will keep us as we journey. He has a path for us. I know He will lead.

“For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Psalm1:6 NIV).

P.S.

By Makenzie Allen –

To: The one I’m waiting for
Love: Kenzie

Last December, on a cold winter night, my dad and I ran from the car into an auditorium. It was alive with all kinds of colored lights. My dad had decided to surprise me with a ticket to go see The Nutcracker and have a night out with him. We sat and watched as the ballerinas twirled around and the Nutcracker fought valiantly against the Rat King. Afterwards, my dad took me to a coffee shop where I was given something that reminds me, almost daily, of you.

It was my purity ring. It means more to me than just being pure. The ring means that while I wait for you, I can learn to love in a Godly way. In a way that will last.

Something that I’ve learned through my teen years may come as a shock considering all the movies, books, and songs teaching us the key to happiness is a significant other. What I’ve learned is this—teen years are some of the most crucial years of life to find who God made you to be and to grow as your own person. The only thing is, you can’t grow as your own person when your whole goal in life is to keep someone’s attention. We cannot compromise our identity for love. I’m praying you won’t.

Right now, as I press through my junior year, my goal will not be to find a boyfriend. My goal will not be to seek a guy’s attention. My goal will not be to sway from my identity for a chance at synthetic love. My goal will be to give God my life, my love, and my devotion. Then someday, when I meet you, I’ll be able to give you a love worth waiting for.

Please wait for me.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV).

One of my prayers for you is that you would be a man after God’s heart, and that you would love Him above all else. Even more than me.

I don’t know when I’ll meet you, or if I already have, or if I ever will. It doesn’t matter though. You and I can be content, loving God and living fully immersed in His presence. My greatest fear is that I’ll miss the gifts God has given me in the here and now because I’m too busy craving the future.

Let’s not crave the future, okay? I want so badly for us to not miss daily blessings. Pray for me, as I pray for you.

To the one I’m waiting for.

P.S. Hope to see you in a few years. Wait for me.

Real Love Found Me

By Diane Mayfield –

I was a lonely, shy little girl longing to feel loved and wanted by someone. I often fantasized about belonging to a large family where I was the only girl. In that fantasy, all my brothers adored me. Of course, the fantasy didn’t last, so I was left in loneliness when it ended.

In my early elementary school years, I discovered that making really good grades won me a special place as Teacher’s Pet. So that became my goal. I set out at the beginning of the school year to win that place in each teacher’s heart. In that I could feel loved.

In junior high, I found there was an “in” group and worked hard to belong to the group, thinking that would give me the sense of being loved. At the same time, boys started paying attention to me. My world came alive with the thrill of boyfriends and popularity. It didn’t seem to bother me that I had to work hard to keep up these positions. I had no idea there was an unconditional love freely given if I just opened my eyes and believed.

As one might expect, looking for love in relationships with boys often led to self-destructive and abusive relationships. What I thought was love was not love at all. God in His goodness would use that path to later introduce me to true love.

At that time in my life, I made unwise choices. One choice in particular brought me to the end of myself. I needed forgiveness but I wasn’t really sure how to find it. Growing up Catholic, I was taught the way to forgiveness was by confessing to a priest. So, in my senior year in college, I went to a priest. I told him my story and my need for forgiveness.

He told me, and rightly so, that I didn’t really understand my faith and suggested that I take a class being offered to learn about it. I did.

One evening a laywoman came to the class and lead us in how to get alone with God. She took us through what I later understood to be a visualization exercise. It went like this. Imagine that you are in some quiet place. I imagined myself on a grassy green hillside overlooking water. Then she suggested that you see Jesus coming to you. What would you say to Him? I did just that. I saw in my mind Jesus walking to me with His hand outstretched to me. I took His hand and asked Him, “Why did you die for me?” His answer was, “Because I love you.”

I walked out that night and knew Jesus was real, living, and my friend. More importantly, I knew I was loved and I found a place I belonged, right in Jesus’ arms.

Later in my new life, I learned it was not by my efforts that I found Jesus. He was wooing me all that time that I was going the wrong way. He never let go. Now that is true love. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NIV).

Loved

By Heather Allen –

I attended college just hours from Washington D.C. and this, combined with my school’s overtly political university Chancellor, fanned my fervor to be a champion for Christ into full blaze. It seemed right that marriage should be in the distant future. My sights were set on law school. Which I believed presented the quickest route to transforming the world. I was confident that was my destiny.

During the winter of my freshman year, a college-sponsored ski trip landed me on a large bus headed for the mountains. A friend and I were the last to climb aboard. We scanned the bus for two open seats. The search only turned up two good-looking guys.

My friend nudged my ribcage “I call the dark-haired one.”

My eyes scanned both faces. But when I looked into the eyes of her choice, my chest grew tight.

I tried to be discreet. “No deal.” I tried not to stare.

He stood to his feet and moved to the aisle, offering me his seat.

Suddenly shy, I thanked him and sat down. I kept watch for him on the ski slopes, but he was nowhere in sight. When the ski area closed, my friend and I trudged to the bus and wound back down through the dense Blue Ridge Mountains.

No one was sad when the bus driver pulled into a restaurant. We stood in line, cold-cheeked, but cheery. When I had a steamy cup of hot chocolate in hand, I worked my way to the last seat available. I looked up. The guy from the bus sat across the restaurant and his eyes had already found mine.

He stared.

I stared.

Neither of us was able to look away. If it were not a purposeful, intent gaze it might have grown awkward. The young woman sitting at his table turned to see what held his attention. I silently prayed, hoping she was not his girlfriend because I had no intention of breaking eye contact.

My roommates were asleep when I entered my dorm room. I did not sleep much that night. I was shaken to the core. I knew who I was going to marry and I did not even know his name. Upon being introduced two months later, I told a group of friends that I finally had the name of my future husband. They laughed, thinking I was joking. I tried to laugh, but the laugh came out more like a cough. I was terrified.

The truth is, real lasting love takes more than we have. It changes everything. When a commitment is honored, it means no longer being first, but rather being first to go last. It is staying up late to doctor a sick spouse when you are exhausted. It’s picking up dirty socks that land right next to the laundry basket for eighteen years straight. It means keeping your mouth shut when you have a really witty, but unkind retort. But it also means holding hands. Laughing over jokes no one else knows. Having arms hold me tight when I am afraid and prayers prayed over me when I am discouraged.

Tonight, I watch the sunset, light grazing his nose and brow, taking in every detail. He senses my gaze, grabs my hand and smiles.

“This is going too fast. I am not sure loving you the rest of my life is long enough.” I breathe, choking back bittersweet tears.

Thank You Lord. Thank you for love. Thank you for marriage. Thank you that your plan overcame mine.

What Love Looks Like

By Kathleen Brown –

Of all the miracles we experienced during my mother’s illness, few compare with the day of the wheelchair ride.

Despite the ravages of Alzheimer’s, Dad was able to keep Mom at home until just a month before she died. But eventually the disease forced a change. Because Mom couldn’t do the rehab necessary after she broke her hip, her doctor insisted she must live where she could get professional care.

With only 24 hours before Mom was to be released from the hospital, I despaired of finding a place good enough, in Dad’s eyes, for Mom to live. Would she have a room to herself? Were there plenty of nurses? Would everything look nice? Smell nice? Would the other residents be friendly?

I needn’t have worried. The Lord led us to the place He had prepared.

Dad often tried to describe for Mom the beauty of “Golden Acres.” The landscaped grounds, the parlors, the artwork hanging in the halls. The courtyard, the gift shop and the nice ladies there. He promised her she would see it all, and she, eyes blank, looked back at him and, sometimes, smiled.

But Dad didn’t take a promise lightly.

I knew nothing about the wheelchair ride until a phone call early one evening.

“Guess what, Katrinka!” Dad boomed into my ear. “Your mother went out in the wheelchair today! The nurse put her socks and robe on her, and the physical therapy people lifted her into the wheelchair. It didn’t bother her at all! No pain! She sat up and looked around at everything.”

“We passed the nurse’s station,” he went on, “and I showed her the big TV. People waved to her and she waved right back!”

I asked if a nurse or an aide came along.

“Nope! Just your mother and I! We went everywhere. She really liked the gift shop. I knew the ladies would offer us coffee—I carried your mother’s ‘til we got out to the courtyard. It was warm enough to sit out there, so that’s where we drank our coffee.”

Before I could wonder aloud how he managed two Styrofoam cups and the wheelchair, Dad had moved on to introducing Mom to the receptionist and then sitting for a while on the walk outside, beside “those tropical-looking ferns.”

I hadn’t heard such satisfaction in Dad’s voice in years. He had wished for something: to show Mom that he had searched out, and found, a nice place for her to live. The best place. And, of course, he wanted her to see it his way—all at once, on a grand tour, led by my father himself. And he had gotten his wish. Against all odds, Mom sat in a wheelchair for two hours in the middle of the day. She had, Dad boasted, smiled, waved, enjoyed coffee, pointed to flowers, smiled some more, responded in some fashion to his undoubtedly animated commentary, and, in his words, “really had a keen day.”

All this in two hours. A true miracle.

Love may be hard to define, but it’s not hard to recognize when you see it. Those who saw Mom and Dad tooling down the halls of the nursing home that day saw love. In action. And I heard it in Dad’s voice that night. I would hear it again each time he told the story of the wheelchair ride.

From the Giver of all good gifts, love given and received and given and received. From my Father to my father. From my father to my mother.

For love at once immediate and eternal, we thank You, Lord.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17 NKJV).

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