time

It is no wonder that Blue and Orange are complimentary colors on the charts -- they originated in the sky.

And so I drive, looking at the sunset over my left shoulder, leaving behind more than I ever have before and less than ever expected. My foot eases on the gas pedal, I'll take this road slowly, it takes a little getting used to.

Because it isn't what I expect, life rarely is. Even more so, because it isn't what I want, not even close. I have been learning to turn and walk away, but no one said the turning is the hardest part. The moment when decision must mark my move and when fierce determination is my burden is the moment I haven't yet come to. Like the disciple who said,˜Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." It wasn't that he didn't already believe and know that good things were up ahead, it was that he needed something stronger than his own will and his own design to push him to an unseen goal.

It's not that I can't see what should be, it's that I'm not sure that my should be and His will be, are the same.

My foot eases on the gas pedal, I'll take this road slowly, it takes a little getting used to, and I'm fine just enjoying the view.

And then it's gone, almost as suddenly as it came. They sky is a purple grey, and soon the trees and silos are dark silhouettes obstructing the horizon. I realize just as suddenly that the world will not cease turning, waiting for me to wrestle through all the things which command my minds attention and my hearts energies.

It's time.

On a lighter note, a dear one and I discussed farming the other day.

turned

The sky is blue and the lake takes on that hue, only a darker reflection of the reality. I stare at the maple and pine, douglas fir and birch surrounding me. All the leaves compliment each other, dressed, like a librarian, to celebrate the fall. The waves push me up against the dock and the wind rocks my perch. I am secure. I hug my brown wool sweater up around my neck and pull my knees up to my chest, resting my docs on the railing in front of me.

It is still. It is quiet and so I wait for the Lord to speak first (exercising the need for male domination).

When he does speak they aren't comforting words of solace or approving accolades of my character. He doesn't remind me of my need for Him or rebuke me for my passive approach to life. He just shows me His beauty, all that I love most and all that I long for, and leaves me there, to decide. This is what you can have, and it will be good. You will appreciate it and cultivate it. You will preserve it and you will be good at it. It will be good. It will be good because I am good and I have made it and made you to love it. But it will not be best. It will not be best because it would mean you were not willing to give it to me. Hand in your letter of resignation, forget that you love the feel of dirt, forget stillness and relinquish blank tablets and felt tip pens. Give me back your love of water and your eyes which love beautiful things. I want to give you something new –something better than good and different than this.

I sat down there to listen to stillness and it came through. I left making a choice - to turn and walk away. He knows best.

And I choose that.

mine

The shocking realization that my world is not the world revisits.

I have been reading A Chance To Die: The Life and Legacy Of Amy Carmichael, telling of her work in India. Tonight I watched a disturbing account of an African reality. I am leaving for a foreign country in two months.

My world has seeded inconveniences of cold weather and not enough gas money. I am relegated to dial up internet access and only dream about Starbucks on semi regular basis. Everything I own is down to twenty-four cardboard boxes; twenty one of which contain books I sometimes doubt the necessity of. I can choose to eat from any culture Potsdam offers cuisine of and couldn't explain to a foreigner what American food is, because America doesn't have any claim to fame. I grow discouraged when I cannot see ever having my own garden and the biggest failure of my life is never having gone to medical school, as planned. I receive only one magazine in the mail--a small monthly reminder of one dream never yet realized. I own neither cell phone nor palm pilot, car or home and not even a pocket flashlight. My greatest accomplishments are maintaining a 3.8 average and learning how to navigate Quick Books. I sometimes like to daydream, but call it imagining, because it sounds better. I afford myself the luxury of a blow dryer and like using q-tips. I've had stitches five times on five parts of my body and broken several bones, all of which required setting and casts. I still only have two scars. When I am sick, I have access to blankets and medicine if I want it. When I am tired, I sleep lying down. When I am happy, I laugh and when I am sad, there is no shame in crying. I have held a gun twice, both times a result of boys who thought it was funny and never because I was expected to use it. I have never seen more blood than during the birth of my younger brother and I have only ever lost one sibling to death. My greatest pain is emotional and my deepest sorrow is still temporal.

I live in my world. My own little world. My own little world of one.

And there is so much more to realize.

salt

We reconciled something last night, we two. Standing on the verge of a graveyard, staring at a orange moon, past the beautiful broken tree. We reconciled our dreams and our plans and all the things in-between playing dress up at seven and the edge of forever we are ready to jump off. Did we ever think that they wouldn't come true? Did we ever imagine that perhaps our plans were different than His? Did we ever question the validity of imagination and temporal meanderings?

My mom says that we are supposed to leave a little bit of the Kingdom wherever we go, she said.

Someday we'll be laying on the inside of that graveyard. The moon will be hidden, not by roving clouds, but by a mound of dirt covering our soulless body of death. Someday we'll be the body over which people walk on a late night walk. Someday we'll be forgotten and someday no one will remember any matters of vital importance to us. Someday we'll be long gone even though we once said we wouldn't be gone long, just a year or so. Someday we just won't be any longer.

The only way to leave a little bit of the Kingdom wherever I go is to start now. To forgo those aspirations of living simply and live simply for Him. To sacrifice that stuff of earth, the selfishness my heart longs to hold onto and demands that I deserve. To relegate myself to the highest calling, never regretting it. To find that, like Lot's wife, if I look over my shoulder one last time, I will be remembered only as a useless block of salt.

To leave a little bit of the Kingdom wherever I go by going only toward the Kingdom.

home

There are days when it pleases me most to just know that all the things I hold dear and all the knowledge I have stored for a rainy day and all the coffee I haven't yet drunk are all just little things in the great big world.

I know that today because I looked at a map of where I will spend the next year of my life. I looked at a map and my eyes didn't go immediately to all the places I want to go someday or have already been, but they went to the place I will call home for a short piece of my allotted section.

And I remembered something which was prophesied over me two years ago, You will be an ambassador. Remember that this world is not your home. This will be a key lesson for you to hold onto. An ambassador represents that which he has come from and you have come from Heaven and that is your home. Represent it with grace and goodness. Keep the culture of Heaven. This is not your home.

So I know something about today, and yesterday, and all the days in between when I was born and when I was born again and the day I'll finally breathe my last: This world is not my home. And, which is more, Madrid is not my home. New York is not my home. North America is not my home and nothing else shall be my home. Not in a box and not with a fox.

So the things which I long most for, the things I write about and think about, the porch swings and lilac trees, the vegetable gardens and canned peaches, the fireplace and wool blankets, they all represent the good things to me. They represent home in my mind, and that's fine, it really is. Because Heaven promises me those things, [It does, you'll see.], but that's not really it. That's not really the end and that's not really the point. The real stuff is what I know here, while on earth, and that stuff is the gross discomfort of never really having what I want most out of this world.

And, for once, I'm fine with that, this world suddenly has nothing for me anyway.

Because today I knew that someday I'm going Home and what I'll know there will be the real stuff, the best substance and surpassing all the lilac trees ever accumulated, that's the stuff of Heaven. The stuff of God. The stuff I find I've really longed for all along.