"Wherever you are, be all there."
Jim Elliot

Today in church my name was included with a few of the families who have been called to various and sundry places. We are all leaving this summer. Each of us, in our own ways, have been counting down the Sundays until we each have met our respective last. It's hard. And I know that this is home, that everyone should call this place home for a season of their lives. And I know that perhaps you're thinking I'm biased, but I'm not. Really. I know that there is a part of me that knows I'll be back, how could I not? But today in church as the offering was being passed and we sung these words, I knew that something more than this being home would be the thing which brings me back:

Here my heart is stilled.
Here my joy is filled.
Here I know who I am meant to be.
I'm home.

A few days ago I wrote about where home was, or should be. But I'm not sure I knew it then as fully as I did today, the corners of my eyes filling and the corners of my heart swelling. Home is not, can not, be the place we feel the most comfortable, like my pale green bedroom. Home cannot be a well read and dogeared book in which we've underlined our favorite parts, like my copy of A Two-Part Invention. Home will never be true if it only serves us our favorite meals, launders our clothes, and provides us shelter.

No. Today I knew that this place, my own town, my house, my bedroom, my own person, none of it is home. What is home is that place I was in during offering. My head in my hands and my heart humbled by God's goodness, His abounding greatness, and I was home.

This tangible home draws out that intangible home. The spirit which inhabits my heart inhabits this place. There is an overwhelming desire to come back here, back home, but more than that there is the knowledge that the Lord has good things in store for my life. One of them will be the constant awareness that wherever I am will be home because I will have the opportunity to be challenged, stretched, humbled, stilled, and filled if I abide in His spirit.

I'll take off tomorrow for my new job at a wilderness camp, post a sporatic entry if I have time, come home for a few days, and then leave for Tennessee for a few years. I say I'll be back, but even if I'm not, please know that I'm home and my heart is filled. The Lord is faithful to take care of that.

Tonight the official announcement was made: Tomorrow we attendants should have thought of some accolades, anecdotes, or general atrocities to bestow upon the bride and groom. We were of course warned about this weeks ago, but tonight the pressure is on.

There are so many stories, so many memories, so many heartbreaking and earth shaping moments to share; which to pick?

The hindsight hilarity of one of Ryan's million cross continent phone calls to me in Guatemala during the hush hush stage of this covenantal dance. One memory sticks out in particular. I was sick, like a dog sick. He called me after one particularly inconvenient bout of face over the toilet-bowl. I insisted I was going to vomit again in three seconds and yet he still demanded my full attention for those three seconds. Why? What, you ask, could be of such importance that one must put off the aggravating fumes in one's stomach in order to listen to a lovelorn boy thousands of miles away? Only this: I love her, Lor. I really love her.

You must, Ry, but right now I hate you.

The summer of secrets. Kicks under the table, raised eyebrows, and too many tears to count; where the weight [wait] was too much to bear sometimes. But bearing it, in hindsight, was one of the greatest privileges of my life.

The nights it would be too difficult to bear. Where the weight [wait] was too hard, too much, too demanding, and I would cry. Once on the street corner, at midnight, yeah, that was me you saw as you drove home from wherever you were. Ryan, tall and intimidating, me small and intimidated. Ryan, speaking truth into my life, me seeing him as the person who was stealing my best friend.

Right then, Ry, you were my friend and I loved you.

The100+ days of self-induced potato famine, er, surplus; days where I would come home to my apartment and find bowls stacked in my sink full of potato, tomato, avocado, and salt residue. Such perseverance paid off, on both our parts; he got the girl, and I moved out of my apartment.

The road trips of backseat chaperoning. Trying desperately not to listen, not to care, not to be jealous, not to love them so much that I couldn't let them go.

The meeting I was allowed to sit in on. The meeting. With Dr. Tallo. The meeting where covenant became real to me. Where they as a couple became real to me.

The last time we three spent together, three girls, three friends, three people whose lives will take dramatically different shapes in the coming years, but friends who understand Kingdom Relationship, and Kingdom perspective. I'm sad about the change, but I'm so thrilled to be linked for eternity to these two girls.

And finally, tonight, when you walked up the aisle, practicing for tomorrow. And when you thanked your father, with honor and dignity. And when you put your head on my shoulder and whispered how much you loved me. And when you cried on the phone with me yesterday morning, rejoicing and loving the Lord. And when I threw a load of laundry in this afternoon, his pants next to your shirts. Your socks next to her jeans. You became one in my mind.

I don't know if I'll have the words tomorrow. But let me say some tonight: You are two of the best people I know, shaped and formed for God's good pleasure. Planned and purposed for His great measure. There are stories I could share, anecdotes which would induce laughter, but more than all of that, I want you to know that the integrity and honor which abounds in your lives pours over and creates rivers of blessings beyond what I could ask or think.

You are precious friends indeed. I love you.

I should be in bed. Or rather, I should be asleep. I'll hate myself in the morning, I know. But in five days I'll be giving a presentation on the diverse personalities of school age children, none of whom I've ever met and little about which I know. I'm thrilled, privileged, honored, and scared to death. It's nothing I haven't done before, and it's everything I love doing -- but with so little time to prepare and so much to prepare I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

Until I remember the things I have heard which have affected me most in my short life. They are three:

Louie Giglio: On Isaiah chapter 6. "Glory. Glory. Glory. Is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is filled with His glory!"
Pastor Rick Sinclair: On the 'whos' telling us what for with no reason. "Who told you that?"
Mike Cavanaugh: On being a "send me" person.

Each one drove me to painful tears; each one drove me to a different awareness of who the Lord is as God, and who He is as my own. Awe. Freedom. Humility. In that order. But it isn't the messages only which remain burned in my memory -- but the presentations. The absolute transparency and humility of men who have walked and hurt and learned and imparted the greatness of God with the expectation that those who hear, really hear, will walk and hurt and learn and impart the same message to others.

So next week, and for the next month and a half, that is my prayer. That I will have an expectation that my life and my testimony are only as good as the light in which they are presented. Instead of presenting a list of personality norms and how-to's, I want to be a walking testimony of what the Lord can do with a confirmed Introverted Passive Non-Confrontational Shy Weakling. Instead of teaching rules about nature and the names of trees and plants, I want to teach them that we don't teach respect of God through respect of nature, but that we teach to honor God and, by default, we respect nature. Instead of working out staff relationships through a lens that wants to see peace, I want to model communication and servanthood in a lens that honors Christ above peace.

So I'm excited about this summer. I'm excited about these kids. I'm excited to have the stack of paperwork beside me finished. But I'm even more excited about the opportunity to constantly check my spirit and my attitude. Nothing like a good outspoken child to keep me on my toes.

June 21, 2005
Person Who Misses Home
Portugal, Europe

To the person who misses home,

You've found me out. You've dug down deep, scooped out the recesses of my heart, hurled them to the dogs that are search engines, and found yourself here. LoredotUnskeweddotCom. Congratulations, you and a hundred other people. You came here looking for encouragement perhaps? A shoulder to cry on? A poem to commiserate with? And look what you've found -- only me. What a pitiful lot; I can't figure out what kept you here so long. I can't figure out what keeps me here so long.

Except perhaps it feels like home sometimes.

I remember being in a foreign place, like you are now, surrounded by foreign foods, foreign people, foreign language, foreign expectations. Thinking that surely everyone else must be doing it wrong, because the way I did it was surely right. Perched on my toadstool of ideals and raising my nose in every direction, thinking that it would keep me safe from getting my feet wet. I remember pressing my hot face to the cool cement bathroom floor, watching a puddle of tears form, and missing home so dreadfully I felt sicker than I already was. I remember sitting outside my classroom, feeling a breeze, and thinking it was the first time I'd felt one in months -- and what a foreign concept that was to this New Yorker. I remember holding my breath and swallowing cow tendons.

I remember the moment I missed home the most. It was the moment I spent sobbing all alone in a church building because I couldn't remember what loving Jesus felt like anymore. It was in that moment that I realized that it wasn't home I'd been missing at all; it wasn't family I craved, it wasn't rosemary lamb for Easter, or words spoken in my first language. It was the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. The solidity of trust and faithfulness. The reality of truth and infallibility. The assurance of sovereignty and grace.

To the person who misses home -- He misses you too. And He doesn't want you to find your hope in a poem about missing home, or a support group who knows what you're feeling, or this website, He wants you to find home in Him. There are plenty of empty church buildings, or bathroom stalls, or taxi rides; go ahead, cry a little. Miss home. But don't miss the opportunity to see Him when He visits.

Sincerely,
Someone who misses home sometimes too

Standing in the breakfast line at church, picking up a granola bar, and teaching someone how to say "where is the bathroom?" in Spanish, I felt two arms slide around my waist and hold on tight. I picked up the head that had pressed itself against my chest and saw this beloved face:


Standing in church, my hands lifted way up high, my heart loving the Lord, I felt a little bit of loving from another little person. He sang the words loudly and I rested my hand on the head which recently has begun reaching above my shoulder. I prayed Kingdom vision over this child:


And then, his arms around my neck, his nose pressed up against mine, his whispered words conveying all the love a four year old can muster, I thanked God for a life that almost wasn't:


Seeing them is rare. They live with my mom, far away. I still live here. But seeing them is so hopeful, so promising. I look at the directions my brothers and I have all taken, all so different, scarcely anything the same; and I look at the hearts of my littlest siblings and know that God, in His great mercy, plans each life according to His will. I know that the Kingdom call on each of their lives, though at times undetectable, is undeniable. There is no better promise than that.

My little boy and me.

This weekend was my dad's weekend with the littlest boys, so they spent Father's Day at our house. We looked for frogs, walked through the vegetable garden, pointing out all the yummy baby greens, and swung on the hammock. I think they're the best little boys a sister could ask for!

Tonight I attended a graduation party for a friend of mine. The night smelled faintly of promise and budding lives. Weddings, engagements, graduations, even an expectant and overdue mother who began timing her contractions during the card opening phase. Seasons of change and excitement: new apartments all around, trying on wedding dresses, new employment opportunities, meeting new people and hugging old friends very tightly, remembering how good it is to know that I'm loved in my own right, as me.

Someone told me today about a toddler who, while showing off her mother's peonies, said, "They're just little balls right now, but soon they'll be cups!" My peer group, all of us in varying stages of twentysomething, is suddenly blooming. Balled up for so long, in school, in college, in engagement, in courtship, in limbo -- and suddenly, with the spring air and the blossoming peonies, we're all very grown up. Very sophistocated. Very excited. Very clueless.

And it's okay.

She said to me tonight, "You've done so much, been so many places, what an adventureous life!" I mulled over that proclaimation on my way home because it hasn't felt like an adventureous life; it's felt like a scattered and disorganized and wayward life. But it occured to me that it's all in the way I look at it. So, we're clueless, us all. Embarking on adventures that may or may not feel like adventures -- but when hindsight takes us for a trip down memory lane, I think we'll find that we've each been taken for the ride of our lives.

Fun.

What had begun as a minor setback, visited with no intentions of leaving any mercy the moment I found myself alone in the car. I watched their backs disappear into the Canadian equivalent of Barnes and Nobles, Chapters, covered my shoulders with a sweater, and my thoughts with the Lord. I meant to complain. I meant to voice my frustrations and hurts and self-pity, respectfully lay them at His feet and see what He could do with them, but, as usual, He had the first say.

Him: Do you love me?
Me: Of course I love you.
Him: Hmm. Cause it doesn't sound like it.
Me:
Him: Do you want all this? All this world? All this distraction? All these magazines and stimuli and premarital jitters and after marital glitters? Do you? Cause that's fine. But do you love me? That's what we need to talk about first.
Me:
Him: Okay, I'll go first. I'll tell you that you love me. I'll tell you that you want me. But what I won't tell you is how you get me. That's the wonder of our relationship. That's the beauty of the covenant we share. Do you still want me? Okay, we can go somewhere with that little nod you barely acknowledged me with.
Me: Fine. I want you. How do I get you?
Him: Ah, now we're talking, but it appears that your two friends are coming back out. Let's just trial and error for a few minutes.

So we did. So I did. Failed miserably I'm sure. I'm just not the most gracious person; not the most sociable in situations where I feel hopelessly out of place. Glaringly not wearing a ring on a certain finger. Even more glaringly not wearing an expression of joy on my face. I won't lie, goodness knows, my face doesn't lie, it's hard. It's hard to find joy, and hope, and promise, and purpose, and completion with old friends who are finding their joy, hope, promise, and purpose in something so different than what we've always pursued. And I know that the Lord is still the highest goal, the ultimate mark, but the lives we live coincide with one another; and the actions we play out are marked by the minute by minute way we live. And it's different than it used to be. For them.

But my life hasn't taken such a dramatic turn. I'll stand beside one friend in seven days. I'll stand beside the next one in eleven months. I'll move to Tennessee this fall. I'll find a new church around then. I'll make new friends and find new goals and old goals which need to be taken out and readjusted. That's the way of life, I suppose.

But He reminded me of something important this evening in the car. He reminded me that I want Him; that my prayer needs not be that I want what they have, but that I want Him and my heart needs to be focused completely on getting Him. I may never have what they have -- but I will always have access to the throne we all have access to. I may never pour over bridal magazines, cake decorations, dress colors, and ring settings, but my cup pours over with all the wealth a child of God is given. I may never keep house, make a budget for more than one, iron blue Oxford shirts and coordinating pants, but the maintenance of one heart is enough work for this child.

I want the Lord; He's more than good enough for me.

Early this morning, already overwhelmed and on the brink of tears, I got a phone call from the wearer of a certain brand spankin' new engagement ring. As I listened to her excited rendition of 'the story' the tiniest stab at my heart began poking deeper and deeper. I had to physically stop and count the innumerable blessings I've been given in the past few days just to make sure that I was honoring the Lord with my heart and not giving the devil room to pull any shenanigans over me.

Because that's so easy, you know-- to get gipped by the world and all it's glitz and glamour of grassier greens and having my cake and eating it too. At least for me. At least in this season of my life. And it's not that I'm not so incredibly blessed sometimes that I don't know what to do with myself: Last night I was driving home thinking about my new job doing something I love, a hefty scholarship offer, twenty extra dollars (a lot for this pauper), a message on my voicemail, the Prairie Home Companion on NPR, and an open window letting the raindrops spritz on my hot face. Life really looks good you see. Really good. In fact, if you catch me in a sanguine moment and ask me how good, I'll tell you. It's good.

But all that good just reminds me of how much there is left that isn't good. All the things in my life that aren't where they should be: a consistent quiet time, good family relationships, scripture memorization, companionship and fellowship. All of those things which should be priorities and aren't.

This entry isn't anything much. A little working out my salvation. A little baring of the soul. A little confession and a little coveting your prayers. I need the Lord, more and more every day.

I just flattened a lightening bug on my wall and now my wall is glowing. Had I known it was a lightening bug I would never have smashed it on my wall; I would have captured it in a jar and fallen asleep to its irredescent glow. But now the glow will die away; in fact, it has already begun fading. Goodnight Gracie.

I've never been Miss Social Butterfly. I get lost in big groups; heck, I get lost in small groups. It took me three years of living in New York to muster up the courage to make a friend, even though she was doing all the mustering humanly possible in order to get me to reciprocate. I've always been content to stay home, stay alone, stay out of it, or just stay. I rarely miss any excitement I miss out on and I'm excited to miss out on it if I do. But for all the lack of excitement surrounding friendships and society, I've been counting down the days to a certain date recently.

Because the reason I've always felt like I didn't need any more friends is coming home in eleven days. I haven't seen her in one year, to be exact, and I miss her dreadfully, to be even more exact. She's a hero of mine, mostly because she's loyal, but also because she's talented, and beautiful, and has straight teeth and little hands. She's also going to be photographing my mustering friend's wedding at the end of this month.

So if I'm am little more excited about a wedding than is normal, now you'll know why. And if my smile is extra huge during that perfect reception, it's not just because two people I love are in love. And if I pull you over to meet my beautiful camera toting friend, smile and be polite, she's helped to make me the person I am today.

Thanks Bean, and I can't wait to see you.

Wildest imaginations are my portion. Whether it is due to an overactive imagination or lack of unnatural stimuli as a child (we were raised on My Fair Lady, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Little House on the prairie; I didn't even know such a thing as Saturday Morning Cartoons existed until I was in first grade), I've always made up stories in my head.

A few examples:
- When we were 12 my best friend and I built miniature farms out of pebbles, leaf fragments, and twigs, created two imaginary characters named Ellie and Paul and each wrote the same story from different perspectives (She was Ellie and I was Paul). We both still have the black marble composition books we laboriously filled that summer.

- When I was five, and I bet my older brother will vouch for me here, our next door neighbor dressed up in a bear costume and chased us through the back yard. I've never forgotten that and no doubt have embellished the story quite nicely in the past twenty years. It was the single most frightening experience of my life.

- I announced to my entire kindergarten class that my mother had just given birth to a little sister named Emily moments before it was announced over the school loudspeaker that Sean and Lore Ferguson's mother had just given birth to a baby boy named Andrew David.

- I once caught a fish this big. (Only I did. Really.)

For whatever the case, and whatever the consequences, making up a story has always come fairly naturally to me; it's the sticking to it part that gets me every time. I was reading in Job this week and the first verse of chapter 31 says this:

I have made a covenant with my eyes.

and it goes on to say that:

If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hastened after deceit, let him weigh me with accurate scales, and let God know my integrity.

I don't think it's any secret that the fairer sex (and weaker vessel, sorry ladies) is prone to imaginations of the wildest kind. It's the ladies who are admonished to spare the gossip and spoil the still tongue, the ladies who are told frankly to shut up and ask their own husbands, and, I might add, in Proverbs it's always the ladies who do the enticing. Why? Because we can't resist a good story. Because we let our adrenalin rush do the talking, the walking, and the thinking, and before we know it, we've reeled the innocent bystander into our abode with promises and brides.

Oh, no. We say. We haven't played the harlot, we've watched our words, our dress, our demeanor, and our make-up application very closely and we're doing fine, thank you very much. But here's something I've been noticing today: I can be both the charlatan and the innocently swindled. By creating hopes, dreams, fantasies, plans, and desires I've cheated myself of realities. I've bribed myself with fruit and wine and then find myself unsatisfied with the shellac perfection placed in front of me.

The Bible is specific about capturing thoughts and keeping our minds set on things above, and sometimes it's easy to translate that into the big things of life and forget that every day there are sacrifices that we have to make with our minds. Every day I find another thing I've been setting my mind on, letting my imagination run with; and every night I find myself repenting for the lack of spiritual nourishment I've fed myself that day.

Oh, to have the mind of Christ.

I remembered something in the car today. We were driving to go kayaking in the river, taking advantage of a perfect summer evening and leaving the dishes to wash themselves.

I remembered that it was once very important to me that my name had a meaning and that meaning had provided a measure of hope for me in a difficult time. Lore is a form of Lori, or more precisely, Loree. In Greek it means Laurel Crowned. Growing up I was dismayed by the lack of solidity Laurel Crown provided. With brothers whose names meant respectively My Judge is the Lord, God's Grace, Courageous, Increase of God, Jehovah Saves, Shining Light Messenger, and Son of My Right Hand, you might be able to understand the inferiority complex that resulted from a name that conveyed a mere leaf.

When I was a young teen and studying Greek mythology, I discovered that the laurel crown was actually the equivalent of our modern day Olympic Gold Medal. The runner, or vaulter, or lunger who completed first, who touted victory deservedly, was crowned with a wreath of laurels. Several years later I read this verse and claimed it, if you will, as my life verse; the passage which I promised would jump to my lips, my heart, or my spirit whenever I felt my spiritual well in need of renewed hope.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you might win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

But I'd forgotten it, to be honest. See I'm very good at obeying the rules and making my body, my life, my slave. I want to be as radical and selfless and extreme in everything that I do, winning the prize and leaving the rest in the dust a few miles behind me. I don't confess to doing it well; more often than not the continual rebukes to me include my hesitancy to jump in with both feet, but that doesn't denote the fact that I want to be in the winner's circle. I'm all about winning a perishable prize. So much so, that I forget the imperishable prize.

My heritage might lend to failure, better people than me have fallen with the same lot; my eyes might lead to disaster; my heart may be prone to wandering; my lips will not fail to confess what I see instead of what I know and my name may be a constant reminder of how difficult the Christian walk is, but this I do know -- my prize is not contingent on finishing first, it is encompassed in how I exercise my body during training day.

I had an epiphany last night. Walking in the park it was enough to stop me in my tracks, turn to my two friends and blurt it out to them. They only nodded and gave me an I-told-you-so response, but to me it was, well, eye-opening.

I've always been an idealist. I know what I want, and envision myself perfectly fit and perfectly at rest when a few of these entities are within my grasp:

I want to can vegetables.
I want to take long walks by a river.
I want to laugh long and hard with friends.
I want to hang my laundry out on a clothesline.
I want to eat romaine lettuce with Greek vinegarette dressing.
I want to take more photographs.
I want to write more prolifically.
I want to learn to knit.
I want to have lots of kids.
[and while we're on the subject: if I get married,
I want to marry a man who reads out loud.]
I want to live with my whole family again.
I want to finish college.
I want to be a missionary.

Yeah - a short list of things I want to do. But here's where my epiphany came in. I realized I've done almost all of the things on that list. Not all at the same time, and a few are obviously not within my own ability to see the fruition of, but I have led a fairly idealistic life when it comes to doing what I see myself doing. And I've never been what I idealistically call happy. Content I've been a million times, but never overflowing with happiness at my current state. The two happiest and most growth filled seasons of my life were seasons where I wasn't really doing any of the above. I was living wholeheartedly for the Lord, letting all the stuff of earth grow dim in the light of His face.

Somehow I'm surprised it's taken me so long to see through these bramble covered dreams, and dismayed at the weeding which will need to be done to achieve a life that I truly admire, like Jim Eliot, or Richard Wurmbrand, or Gladys Alward. Lives where nothing was their portion and they took it and made the sweetest fragrance possible in the worship of the only ideal they could imagine: the Lord.

I'm as judgmental as they come when it comes to girls who value marriage above any other call that God might have on their lives. Now, I would never say that of course, but suffice it to say that whenever I hear those sweet little words "I'm waiting on the Lord for Him to provide the perfect mate" I inwardly snicker and think she already missed the point. But what I never considered was the point the Lord perhaps wanted me to realize. I had become so dogmatic about the subject, so platonic about my relationships, and so myopic about the idea of marriage, that the possibility of the Lord providing was out of the question--I would have been looking the other way just to spite myself if He ever had provided someone.

Then, in the span of one week, my two closest friends found their soul-mates, or rather, announced their intentions with their soul-mates. And very suddenly, wedding plans, bridesmaid dresses, registries, natural family planning, apartment hunting, invitation designing and mailing, reception ideas, and Martha Stewarts LIVING, seemed to be the conversation topics of choice. It felt like whiplash, however unintentional, and I sequestered myself safely with already-married-couples and children, where I was sure to be safe.

However, there seems to be a commonly utilized passage in my life:

There he came to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?' He said, 'I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.' So He said, 'Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.' And behold a great and strong wind was renting the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of the gentle blowing. 1 Kings 19.8-12

I've spent the last few months sincerely rejoicing for my friends, but held myself at armslength because I didn't want to turn into someone whose primary thoughts were K-I-S-S-I-N-G, love, marriage, and the baby carriage. I wanted to backpedal as fast as I could to what we used to be, friends and fellow laborers in the Kingdom. I wanted to rejoice about the fact that we hadn't been bitten by the love-bug even by our respective old ages of 24. I wanted yesterday.

The Lord has been working out his elements in the front of my self-made monastery though. But it wasn't until this week, really, that I finally heard the whisper. 'Come out, come out, wherever you are, and see that I am good.' And so I stepped every so lightly on the possibility that marriage is not only the covenant between a man and a woman, but also an illustration of Christ and His church. I considered the fact that my spitting on that picture has kept me crying and boasting 'I alone am left.' And I looked at my friend and her vacillation between white or off-white unity candles in a new way.

The only reason I am alone is, really, because I ran away, not because they left me in favor of greener pastures and pretty gold rings and becoming part of that illustration, instead of imagining it. I sit here, in my comfortable bedroom, reading, writing, and suddenly I snap my head to shocked attention because I just prayed those horrid and detestable little words: I'll wait for You to provide someone, Lord.

I'm as judgmental as they come when it comes to girls who are so singleminded in their pursuit of unsingleness, that they forget that the Lord is all of those lovely husband things and more to those who see Him as such. But I'm even more caustic in my judgment of myself. The sheer fact is that in 24 days two people I love will stand in covenant and humbly receive a fresh mantle of ministry and calling on their lives as a couple; and, in the row of pink frocked females, I will stand and not only witness their covenant, but, by my presence, call it a good thing.

It may have taken 24 years to get here, and the processes may have been painful and at times tyrannical, but I feel like for the first time ever I'm genuinely excited about covenant. I'm genuinely excited that the Lord speaks to individuals whichever cave they find themselves in and calls them to a higher place. I'm excited that my higher place might be a life of ministry and marriage or of singleness and singlemindedness. I'm excited that the Lord isn't in fire, earthquakes, or floods, but that He speaks in the voice that carries volumes of truth and demands faithfulness, regardless of the circumstances.

And I'm excited for those four friends who will spend the rest of their lives illustrating Christ and His bride.