I'm having dinner with my two best friends tonight. I'm not used to having to plan dinner with the two of them. We are a spontaneous friendship, we three, prone to mishaps and mischief and the really good stuff of friendship. This two week break is the first time home for me since they've both committed to lawfully wed their other best friends, of the male sort. This is the first time since June that the three of us will be just the three of us, just like it used to be.

Only not.

Last night two of us drove on icy roads and I confessed something to her; I'll let you in on it too: I'm ready to go back to Tennessee. I've been feeling that way for a few days now, but didn't want to let on, after all, I belong here don't I? This is home. But things have changed and me not along with them. I mean, I've changed too, but it's all a game of catch-up and I'm ready to get back to the present. I'm having a hard time being a side piece in a puzzle where I used to be in the interior of the mix. It's growing up, I know. Growing old, I'm aware. But it's hard nonetheless.

After she said it was alright, she confessed something back to me. It's hard for her too. And I imagine it's hard for the final third of us. I imagine it's hard for every person who has ever undergone any sort of major change in life--it hurts a little, but it makes us always aware of seasons and changes. And always aware testimonies and grace.

And someday we'll all be home together. Maybe we can be neighbors then.

I recall being very young, perhaps six years old, and wearing a pair of hand-me-down denim overalls from my older brother, a train engineer's hat atop my head, and I'm sure a mischievous grin on my face. Someone, whose name I can't remember and whose face is of the same sort of blur, asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember looking down and thinking very hard for a full ten seconds and replying that I wanted to be a ballerina. "Well, then," they replied, "You'll have to change your clothes first."

I have wanted to be a great many things, in very particular order: a ballerina, a writer, a librarian, a synchronized swimmer, a veterinarian, a marine biologist, a equine veterinarian, a marine biologist, a doctor, a missionary, a mother, a wife, a writer, an editor, a graphic designer, a church planter, and every once in a while, a veterinarian. But most recently, and most ardently, I have wanted to be obedient above all other things.

I've been home for a few weeks now and the opening question of choice in most conversations has been what I want to do when I finish school. I answer, almost incessantly, that I will have to find an internship somewhere and what I will do when I finish depends almost entirely upon where that internship is to be found. It sounds a little like a cop-out. It sounds a little like a six year old dressed in grease monkey duds declaring she wants to be a pretty dancer. It sounds a little like this 25 year old is as clueless about her future as she was twenty years ago. But I promise you I'm not.

Honestly, I really have no idea what I will do when I finish school. I could find an internship, I could decide that teaching English in China or Tibet is plausible, I could land a great job at some publishing house in New York City, I could move to Portsmouth or Cleveland, I could sell all that I have and give it to the poor, I could figure out cold fusion, or I could just come home. I honestly, really and truly, don't know. All I do know is that whenever there is a question about my future it is quickly answered in these words "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. But since I can't see heaven, I'll just do whatever it is I think you want me to do today."

There is a snatch of conversation I love from Little Women:

Mr. Mayor: [That was] well argued, Miss March, you should have been a lawyer.
Jo: I should have been a great many things Mr. Mayor.

Today I will walk in obedience and grow excited about the possibilities of tomorrow. The Lord is faithful to take a great many things and make one complete thing, and I trust Him to do the same with my future. That is what I want to do when I grow up.

Christmas was the Nutcracker on PBS, with support by viewers like you. I would twist and twirl, on pointe with my imaginary tutu, slipping on our hardwood floors and dreaming of the day I would be the Sugar Plum Fairy. Christmas was warm oatmeal mixed with raisins and eaten hurriedly by the kerosene heater on Christmas morning. Christmas was the gifts beneath the tree, piles of cubed colors and secrets. Once there was a Strawberry Shortcake toiletry set and a few years later the boxed set of my favorite books. A riding crop and Equestrian magazine subscription took precidence when I was eleven, and violin when I was fourteen. A faux fur vest and mini-skirt-a-la-Holstein when I was sixteen couldn't persuade me that Christmas wasn't always going to be picture perfect. I used to think Christmas was all about me. Or at least Us.

Even the manger scene, the one with the perpetually headless shepherd whose neck was more glue than ceramic, wasn't enough to remind me that Jesus [Was] The Reason For The Season. We read the Christmas story sometimes, on December 25th, but that didn't puncture my self-imposed stardom syndrome. The reason we had presents and festivities was because we were people and people need attention.

I don't remember when it happened, an awareness that I was not the reason we celebrated. Of course I always knew the answer if the question was posed "Why do we celebrate this day?" But somewhere in the last few years I began to realize that I was not the reason for the season and Someone Else most certainly was. And a different sort of Christmas Joy set in, that awareness that the world is bigger than me, more than me, more than us.

But this year, as I sat surrounded by little brothers and a million presents, and a very pretty new umbrella of my own, I was suddenly struck by something that may seem a little sacrilegious, so excuse me if you will.

Somehow the Christmas story has been romanticized and dramatized so frequently that we've forgotten the gospel of it all: His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And, while I'm all for the star and the wise men and the angels in the sky, I think there's something more to that declaration of Who Christ would be to this world. Before we can have a Wonderful, we must have a not-so-wonderful. Before we can have a Counselor, there must be a problem. Before there can be a Prince of Peace, there must be a war being waged--and that is what this Christmas suddenly meant to me.

A war was waged for my soul since the beginning, the devil wants me and God wouldn't let him have me. So we have a Christmas Story with pretty angels and family traditions, but more than that we have the beginning of the end of that war over my soul, and yours. We have a Son, and a Sacrifice, and a Savior.

I grew up thinking Christmas was all about me and it turns out I was right after all.

I take my cues from Proverbs chapter 31 and Titus chapter two. I Peter 3 tells me how to do my hair and Ephesians how to do submission. But today, and a little bit of yesterday, I've been thinking about the purpose of marriage and, consequently, the purpose of womanhood. Guys plug your ears and boys take your clubs elsewhere, this is for the ladies of the brood.

Want to hear a secret? God didn't call Jesus the bridegroom and the church the bride before He instituted marriage; He created marriage so that we would have a tangible picture of a heavenly purpose. We women do not have a standard to uphold, representing the Bride of Christ, we have a standard to emulate, the Bride herself: Holy and Blameless, Spotless and so Wrinkle-free that my grandmother would even lay aside the iron and stand flabbergasted.

I've been a little daunted by the books on femininity, the conferences on womanhood, the magazines touting the worth of a woman, and the rising price of rubies; frankly, it overwhelms me. How long is too long, how short is too short? How forward is too forward and how introverted is ship-burning? How long is it okay to be single and how long is it really okay to be single? How can submission be worked out in a very practical way for a world of girls from broken families? Valid questions needing to be answered, but valid questions which can be answered more succinctly than the amount of media given over to them.

We all want a how-to manual on womanhood. We're women, we like to be told what looks good and/or bad. We like the attention given to manicures and pedicures and on the slimming of our hips. But sometimes I think we've been overly attentive to the details and forgotten the real purpose of womanhood--to emulate the Bride of Christ. We've made being a woman complicated and a little bit frustrating, all this attention given to things like PMS and emotional needs and social butterflying, and none really given to the base foundation of femininity: Obedience and honor.

Because nothing is more beautiful and feminine than a woman fully submitted to the work of God in her life. Nothing is more precious than the contentedness overflowing from a woman aware of God's hand in her future. Nothing is more pleasant sounding than laughter from a woman who is confident of her place in the kingdom. That is true womanhood; that is the Bride of Christ in tangible form.

She was sitting behind me, wearing a turquoise shirt and matching eye-shadow. I wore jeans rolled up at the cuffs and an old camp t-shirt, no make-up. She said her favorite magazine was Vanity Fair, mine was National Geographic. She could have given Reese Witherspoon a run for her money and I could partner with Jane Goodall nicely. It was the first day of class and this girl was clearly out of mine.

She smiled, I smiled, and we shared perfunctionary hellos, because we had to. Our professor was one of those charismatic types, the kind that makes you laugh because they are. She had us fill out little 3x5 index cards with superlatives and names and things, trade with another classmate, and introduce them to the rest of Introduction to Mass Media, Communications 201, section B. I traded mine with the girl sitting behind me.

Her name was Kelly and I didn't know we'd be friends. It wasn't until later that I found out that she would've said National Geographic if she'd thought of it, but that Vanity Fair was the first thing that came to mind. I also found out that she likes vintage clothes. And when I tell her she looks like Reese Witherspoon she laughs and rolls her eyes and says "Oh. . . " That when she really looks like Reese. She's the only other person I've ever met who actually wants to be an editor (but secretly wants to write), and loves true-blue black and white photography. She loves God, and I know that's kind of a given when I say I'm friends with someone, but she really does. If you didn't know it from the sparkle in her eyes, you might catch it in the middle of a really deep conversation when she nods her head in agreement with something you just said. Something only people who really love God agree about.

Tonight I called her and left an incognito message on her voicemail. She called me back and just laughed for ten seconds. We said we loved each other at the end. And missed each other.

Who would have thought I'd miss a girl who likes Vanity Fair and blue eye-shadow?

I delight in your loyalty, more than your sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Hosea 6.6
Sometimes obedience and sacrifice look like the same thing, or at least they both result in the same thing. Maybe that's why I get so confused, mental elastics playing gymnastics with my intentions. I try to do the right things, honestly, I do. And most of the time I end up doing the right things, which is why, I think, I end up more confused than ever when the results are exactly what I wanted and the accompanying feeling is never what I wanted.

I sacrifice always. I am obedient rarely.

Sacrifice requires careful analysis of material, fuel, and result. Obedience requires careful hearing of the Lord's voice. Sacrifice demands things to be given up. Obedience almost always results in things to be gained. Sacrifice is easy for guilty bystanders to see and note. Obedience is almost never seen or noted. Sacrifice is what those ignorant of God's sovereignty do to reach Him. Obedience is what Abraham did to commune with Him.

Abraham was fully aware that his sacrificing Isaac would not result in a more intimate relationship with the Lord, him somehow attaining a status quo with I Am. He understood that sacrifice resulted in a decrease of him and an increase of God, but that was not the end result, the primary goal. Abraham grasped the concept that God was not a thing to be reached, but a relationship to be had. He understood that obedience would put him into a position where things could be heard clearly and blessing could be had.

We often times fall into the trap that the more we sacrifice to God, the bulkier and greater He looks to others. He is not hungry for our overflow, our meager dinner scraps and pious offerings; He wants to lend to us the whisper which leads us to repentance and brings us to the throne in constant obedience. This is what empties ourselves and it happens almost without conscious thought.

Ana Banana and me. All dressed up and the world to go. 

It will be an almost complete Christmas. Minus a few. Minus him. Have I mentioned how much I love my brothers?

I'm always one to count the cost. I won't jump without a parachute and won't leap without looking. I mull things over long enough to frustrate others with more hasty personalities. I frustrate myself enough to make hasty decisions I always regret later. I'm not a risk taker. I'm not out for an adventure, I'm just out to get by.

To leave well enough alone.

Today in church we heard a six point sermon, the kind that makes me love my local church, the kind that makes me leave with obedience brewing in my heart.
The wise men:
:.Were eager
:.Were active
:.Made seeking Christ a priority
:.Sacrificed
:.Took risks
:.Gave Christ the honor He was due: Gold, for the King; Myrrh for One Who would die; and Incense for One Who is God.

The wise men took risks. And I began to systematically list the areas of my life I haven't/won't/wouldn't take risks. No, I won't systematically list them here; it's enough to say that they're there. Glaringly there. But everytime a decision is to be made, I weigh the cost heavily. I weigh the costs so heavily that whichever side the scale tilts to the most is the side I determine will be my own--even if the Spirit nudges me in a different direction.

A word given to me almost a year ago: There are going to be paths in front of you, things that just make sense. Things that to the rest of the world are smart, and advantageous, and just make sense. But there's going to be this little shred of doubt in you; that's the Holy Spirit, and you'll know it. And based on that little shred of doubt you're going to be a risk taker, not like the risk takers you wish you could be like: cliff hangers and black diamond skiers, but a risk taker in the Spirit. Walk with that sort of risk. Hear the voice of the Lord above the din of the world.

Ready. Set. Soar.

The silence is deafening. I forget how silent the presence of snow makes everything. My room is dark, lit only by the glow of the best early Christmas present ever: my own miniature pine tree, complete with gingerbread ornaments and off-white ribbon. I am covered over with a white down comforter and a fuzzy apple green blanket. I look across my covered feet to the floor to ceiling bookshelves lining the wall and a giant Georgia O'Keefe painting of my favorite flower. I smell like home. It smells like candles and pine and woodsmoke and snow. I wish I could bottle it and take it with me wherever I go. Instead I suffice for its memory when I'm not wherever it is.

The silence is my favorite part. It's been a long time since I've heard it and I can't wait to hear what He'll speak. I can't describe silence except to say that it sounds like what my room looks like, green and white, peaceful, and that it sounds like what my room smells like, pine and candles, belonging.

My actions shouldn't be governed by my circumstances, I believe that, I do. But, as the clock downstairs chimes midnight and I hear a horse whinny in the backyard and my body is still warding off the negative two temperatures chill, I can't help but think that it sure is nice to be home.

If you know me you know two things about me: I love home and I'm very, very, very forgetful.
If you don't know me, you think I'm a tri-color website full of run-on sentences and cyclical thoughts.

I am going home in a very short time: a little more than twenty-four hours. Of course, by the time we've driven the twenty-two hours to get there, it will be more like two days until I actually am home, but nonetheless, I'm going. I opened my inbox today to an email from my best friend. This is what she said: Thursday night, Liz and others will be gathering in my little home for little bits of food and mostly just loving and laughing. Of course, you're the central figure, because we all want you back home as badly as you want to be here! And, while we all know that I am not prone to liking the central figurine status, the thought of seeing all my lovely friends in a little apartment with a grand piano and candles and the smell of home is just too anticipatory for me to not think about in the meantime.

I've felt a little out of place the past few weeks. Catching myself in a group of people, suddenly quiet, with nothing to say. Catching myself on the verge of melancholy, awaking suddenly when someone says "What's wrong?" When people used to ask me that question I used to answer "Nothing." But I've learned the hard way that answering that way only pulls me deeper into nothingness. I have to shake off the interior loneliness and walk with obedience to the joy set before me.

I kept thinking that the loneliness I was feeling was due to the shortening time until I could walk through my own front door, hold my hands over the woodstove, wake up bleary eyed to the smell of raspberry muffins and coffee, knowing that the people around me love me even when I'm bleary eyed. I kept thinking that the loneliness I was feeling would dissipate the moment I walked into that little apartment where two people I love live. I convinced myself that the feeling of aloneness would deteriorate the moment I stood sixth row back, left side, aisle chair, and sang my heart out in my own church. I told myself last night, sitting in a room full of people I've come to love but still hold a little of myself back from, that in only a few more days I would be with the people to whom I've given all of myself.

I've been lying to myself.

Home is where my heart is, and so I've logically deduced that home is Potsdam, New York. Home of Sergi's Pizza, The Fields, P&C, and my school. Home is the brick farmhouse on Country Route 47 in Norwood, where the woodstove is hot to the touch and my small green room is cold without me. Home is my local church, Christian Fellowship Center, and all of the people I respect so much I'm sometimes overwhelmed. Home is the Sinclair's, where we ice rum logs and laugh loudly and eat Java Chip too late at night. Home is Benjamin's eyelashes giving me butterfly kisses. Home is where my heart is.

Because sometimes my heart loses sight of its real home. Sometimes I look back, like the people in the book of Hebrews had opportunity to do, but as it was, they desired a better country, a heavenly one. And because of that God was not ashamed to call them His own. Hebrews 11.15,16 But then I close my eyes and count to ten and try hard to not be desperate for the familiar, the comfortable, the known. Because there is One who is more familiar, more comfortable, and more knowing than anything I could ever have at home. And I want Him to be proud to call me His own.

I know I'm a little slow, a little stupid, but my mama didn't raise no fool. My eyes play tricks on me and my heart does somersaults. I've been duped and down that path before. I fall and I fall hard. I get back up and dust myself off, convincing myself that victory is only a decision away.

I trust in mankind and make my flesh my strength; I get a little anxious when I see draught and I cease to yield the fruit I know I should. My heart is more deceitful than all else, and it is desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17.5,8,9

I stand and shake my fist at the enemy, swearing I won't budge and he can't make me; crumbling at the first sight of forbidden fruit. I am a person who likes to be swayed, a person who likes to be wooed, a person who likes to be coddled in tangible arms with tangible promises. I am a person who is human. I am a person who loses sight of promises and commandments.

But I am a person of faith. I am a person who messes up and can't always see the obedient path needing to be walked. But I am a person of pilgrimage and destination. I am a person of waylaid dreams and false fortunes. But I am a person of content joy and heavenly riches. I am a person who forgets her Father and betrays her Savior. But He is a person of unceasing forgiveness and everlasting kindness.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye difused a quickening ray
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
my chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose went forth and followed Thee

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine
Alive in Him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne
And claim the crown through Christ my own!

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. II Corinthians 10.5.

I think about things a lot. I don't mean that I'm full of good thoughts, only that I think the same thoughts repetitively until I've regurgitated them so thoroughly that, well, meat becomes milk (if you get the metaphor).

I take thoughts captive like they were little lego men in my brother's sets, captive, release, captive, release--it's all a game anyway. I take the naughty thoughts, the envious thoughts, the prideful thoughts, and the occasional angry thoughts, I shove them into their dungeon threatening to send them to their grave without any dessert -- and making good on my threat.

But the past few weeks I've been thinking about the fact that this verse doesn't say to only kidnap the nasty thoughts, it says every thought. That means that every bit of thinking I do needs to be captivated by the obedience of Christ, which really just means that I follow His example. He obeyed in the wilderness, staring temptation in the eyes and making Satan's bribery seem like shellacked apples in a cornucopia of fresh fujis. He obeyed in the temple, overturning the tables of greed and grieving at the sight of so much green. He obeyed in the garden, "If it be Thy will, even so, not my will but Thine." And he obeyed on the cross, "Father, forgive them. They are ignorant of their crimes."

To capture my thoughts to the obedience of Christ means only to be able to see the bigger picture. A kingdom picture. I can't, won't, shouldn't, see the whole heavenly picture, but I can purpose to look beyond the immediate results. I can purpose to see the destiny marked out in peoples' lives. I can purpose to see that my thoughts result in good, bad, or indifferent results, and that each one needs to be aligned with His will before my will should act at all.

Edit: I am now a resident of the good old Volunteer State. It's kind of fun to have a certified piece of plastic saying I belong here, even if I don't always feel like I belong here.

My day in moments:

A friend visiting my lab and telling me how good the Lord is and how tired I look.
A call from my pastor-down-here's wife.
A cheerful smile at the DMV.
An email from home.
A phone call to see how my day was going.
A happy-birthday box full of green from Mama: Green shirts. A green journal. A green card. And my favorite reindeer of all--a fuzzy green blanket to keep my always cold feet warm.
An interview.
A friend bringing me a macadamia nut cookie and a half a smile.
And now, a little nap before work.

All tiny reminders of His love for me.
All tiny reminders to keep my head on straight.
All tiny reminders to not lose sight of the goal.
Which is just relationship anyway.