I'm trying to not let the weaknesses show. We're human, after all, made of muscle and flesh and all things real. Weakness is real. Equal in value to strength. Without one we are merely phenoms or failures.

The truth is that I am weak in so many areas. And faith is all of them. "Lord I believe! Help my unbelief" seems to me the most trite of confessions and requests. To claim one thing and ask for it in the next breath seems to me that someone had their portion control a little confused.

Did he have it or not? Can you have it and not at the same time?

And so this is what I think about the past few days. Follow my thoughts, if you will:

If I am on a train that seems to be derailing, my first instinct is to jump off of the train, when shouldn't it be to figure out how to just get it back on track?

And why do I feel so often in a state of derailing? Why do I constantly feel as though every step forward means that tomorrow, or the next day if I'm lucky, I feel like I've taken two steps back?

Why do I feel as though this Helper of mine, who I've received through faith and the laying on of hands, is illusive when I need Him most? When I need Help, He stands on the sidelines, arms crossed and cocked eyebrows surveying the scene. I'm derailing, He's observing.

I think about Peter today. Thinking he had it in him to stand on water, to walk on waves. Flailing out of the boat, firmly set on the fluid beneath him, surprised at his faith, his belief. And yet, a second later, in front of an observing Helper, he begins to sink.

But here's what my thoughts are followed with: that observing Helper does more than just see, He says "Come!"

Come! to the sidelines, Come! to the frontlines. Come! be refreshed. Come! get back on track. Come! be rested. Come! be strengthened. Come! and go again. But just come.

Lord, I believe. I do. Today, right now, this second I believe. But every second is followed by another second and, Lord, I need your help to keep on believing. It doesn't come naturally to me, like weaknesses and flesh. It doesn't come easily to me, like grammar and good lemonade. It isn't part of my spiritual make-up and it doesn't make me invincible.

And all this lack makes me aware that trains derail and so we don't put our faith in the train, but in the tracks. They know the way home. They're pointed there, in the direction of the One who says "Come!"

This gift for this day. The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived--not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.

Elisabeth Elliot

I write from my perch on the second floor. A pale, green bedroom I've been glad to call my own again for the past six months, even if our time together is quickly coming to an end. I don't know why I'm writing that, just because it's true and it's a tangible sign of an interior sifting once again.

This earthly tent grows tired of housing herself in a hiking pack, waiting for the next spot to drop stake. I dream of a yard sale this summer, pulling furniture out of storage units and sheds, remnants of a dream-home that never woke up. I mentally categorize all the books that I own, packed away for three years, and check off the ones I will keep, knowing that thousands of books and antique tables and chairs are too heavy to fit in that pack.

Some things are just too heavy to carry around with us.

"Blessed is the man whose heart is in you, whose heart is set on a pilgrimage to Zion"

Those on a pilgrimage pack lightly, they know that here is not their destination, they know that somewhere else is their hope.

Eternity is written on our hearts and we know it, even if we try to forget it sometimes.

Here, in my pale green bedroom, I try to forget it. I try to forget that warning to me several years ago, that I would be tempted to make this world my home and that I must never forget that I am an ambassador and this place is not my home. I have a stack of postcards by my bed, pretty colors that I want so badly to find a place on my wall for, but there's the knowledge that I can't. This room is not my home. It's just one more stop on my pilgrimage.

Where are we journeying to? And where are we journeying from? What is written on our hearts? And what do our mouths confess?

These are the thoughts that rush my head, that clamor for attention above the other pretty things I want to write. I am tired of moving, yes. I am tired of staying places and never really living there. I am tired of my journey, but it never eclipses the destination that is written on my heart.

I am a product of Heaven, from it I came and to it I return, everything else is just a stop along the way.

This is an assignment handed over by the Woman of the House, which as everyone knows, is actually more like a demand. I am quick to my feet and grab the closest Bible. See, there's a little bit of writer's block happening in my head and I've said "I'm going to blog, for real this time" enough times today to be considered a lunatic, or at least fickle.

The assignment: Open the Bible to a random passage and write about it.

"Consider Abraham: He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness."

Assignment commences (doesn't it lessen the power of a post when you know it's forged on the spot?):

Consider Abraham with me for a moment. Consider the man who saw in his lifetime, a name-change, several location changes, a promise made, a promise seemingly broken, and a whole lot of other baggage we like to bury under the cloak of the Patriarch of our Faith: these things are better left to other men of lesser character and potential. But consider Abraham with me for a moment and realize that it wasn't Abraham's righteousness (even in the days of a very demanding bar to uphold) that was credited to him, it was his belief.

You already got that part right?

But that seems curious to me: here, in the days when righteousness was regarded more highly than belief (after all, there was no foretold Messiah in which to believe at this point), that a man who ran away much, lied a few times more, laughed in the face of his Lord, and took a handmaid to fulfill a seemingly empty promise, that he was credited with belief.

Belief is what Peter had and lost there on the sea. Belief is what Thomas lost and then had when he saw the holes in his Savior's hands. Belief is what Elijah knew when the whisper blew through his cave. And belief is what we all feel in that first recognition of salvation. We are strong with belief, we are firm with belief, we are built of belief--even without righteousness.

And that is somehow comforting to me. Today, when I fail and when righteousness seems far from me. When I mess up my life's script, when today's portion doesn't taste good on my palate, and when I laugh at the promises He's spoken, harboring unrighteousness in the form of disbelief. It is comforting to me that being right isn't the end result, but believing is.

It is comforting to me to realize that I might, and will, fail at ever being right--really right--but I only need to lift up my eyes and know that He is my helper, the maker of heaven and earth.

"Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!"

It's easy to think it always rains where only we stand--a constant deluge of rain on my parade of one. I feel soaked in that thought often. Elijah, a man just like us, did too. I take comfort in that--after all, misery loves company. "I alone am left!" he cries from the mouth of the cave, as though he wasn't the one who just left. "I alone am left!" I cry from whatever current state from which I've just run away. Running a race requires other runners around, not running away period.

I run away a lot.

Two days ago someone asked me what verse encapsulates my life. I mull for a minute, allow him to share his verse first, buying time masked as courtesy. And when he finishes and asks again, I scramble quickly grabbing the two verses I first memorized in my Bible memorization journey.

"Do you not know, that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way to Get That Prize!"

"Therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw aside every sin and the weight that so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set out for us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the Father."

It's not lost on me that both of these have to do with running: I'm dull, but not stupid. There are a few reasons why these verses mean much to me and victory is most of them. I want to win. I like to win. I need to win. But these passages aren't just about winning, they're about running. And the assumption is, they're about running alongside other runners.

I don't always like other runners. They crowd my space, cramp my style. They're sweaty and they're faster than me. I don't like other runners because they make me feel slow, or they make me want to slow down, pace myself like they do. Or I feel badly for them, lagging behind in last place, so I lag with them. I don't always like other runners because they can sprint and I just can't.

But sometimes I don't like other runners because I think I know the best way to run. And that is to run away. To run from the competition, the work, the fight, the company, and sequester myself safe from the challenge they present. To stand and shout from the mouth of my self-made monastery, "I alone am left!" As though He doesn't know that isn't true anyway.

No one's been left. It rains on the just and the unjust. You're not a special case and neither am I. We're runners and sometimes runners get tired, sometimes we need to pace ourselves, sometimes we need to sprint, sometimes we need to just run. But don't leave. And don't cry that you alone are left. You're not alone, you're just wet or tired. And that's okay, we'll slow down with you.

But we won't lose sight of the Prize.

I sort my Skittles, eating them by color. I class my gmail labels, ROYGBIV down the line. I vacillate in my closet--like shirts together? or like colors? and colors usually win. Food is arranged on my plate, carefully kept from touching. Aesthetic is important in issues like these. I am keenly aware of complimentary colors, pairing shades and hues with their compliments and my favorite colors were chosen for these reasons alone.

Today the horizon is no longer a line of black cowlicks on end, but a fury of red buds waking and stretching, surprised at the warmth and welcoming it. I know how they feel. My soul is stretching too. Surprised at how difficult it is to break out of my winter's cove, to wake and be awake and acutely aware of all the ways that this breaking summer will be different than all the others. I am nostalgic like that.

This morning a few friends and I spent a few hours at The Villiage Diner, an establishment at which I've never had the pleasure of eating (and still haven't for that matter). The purpose: To ingest a foot and a half circumference of Bisquick and Blueberries. The Flapjack challenge was on. Before it was all said and done, five t-shirts donned our winning men and one very disappointed girl surrendered half-way through. It was fun, though I didn't rise to the challenge. Flapjacks aren't my thing.

I do not like to drive. Yes, true. I don't. Perhaps it's for the same reason I don't like to fly--too much time spent doing both has ruined me for a chance at true love. But one of the things I like about driving is that it means plenty of time by myself. To pray. To think. To remind. To stir up. To muse. To linger or to not. My drive time has been a treasure in the past few weeks. More than a respite between commitments, I find myself slowing down, letting others pass me on the highway, taking the scenic route. Where am I off to in such a hurry anyway?

Yesterday I sat on the grass talking on to the phone to my very pregnant friend (have I mentioned that both of my very best friends are expecting? I don't think I have.). While I sat there in capris and sandals, hordes of ants came crawling all over my feet. This is gross. So I moved to the porch, where crowds of flies swarmed around my person. So I moved to the back porch, where for the third time in my life I received a mosquito bite. I went inside--and lost cell-phone signal. Sorry Liz.

Tomorrow I am teaching a Women's Sunday School class at my church. I chose my Bible Character subject in faith, knowing that she was known for a particular area in which I was struggling. I figured, if I knew I had to teach a lesson on her, I might be able to get my act together. In doing my research, though, I've found that our struggles are not the same, but the antidote is: speaking the promises of God keep us from slipping into many sins. I've been learning to speak some promises lately.

Last night it was quiet for a moment at Hurleys. I'm not sure that's ever happened at Hurleys, especially during a Battle of the Bands, but she has that gift. She played her twenty minute set and laughed and was gracious and I think for a minute the Holy Spirit blew through and rested on the shoulders of people who couldn't know what that strange sensation was. But we did. We were waiting for it and we knew.

We're no fools in these parts. We know what's hitting us square--it's really no surprise and it's a welcome sight. Spring and summer in this area is the closest thing to heaven that I've found here on earth. The lessons are multiplied and the experiences are just beginning. There's enough time to take it all in and enough daylight to make it last. We make it count.

Here in the tundra we don't waste time. At the hint of spring we discard our wraps and don our summer best--there isn't time to mess around with semantics, the first day of summer is really just the last day of winter. It's pretty simple you see. We've got these few months and then lots of winter again.

And so, for me, summer commences with the side porch sitting. We have two rockers and a porch swing here on the side of the house--we're encased by grapevines waiting for life again and a vegetable garden waiting for planting and lots of air. We're serenaded by multitudes of birds and did I mention the air? The air in these here parts is the best parts. I know because I've been a part of a lot of air. And it's not always pretty, or clear, or fresh, or all mine. But here, in St. Lawrence County, with the seaway on one side and the Adirondacks on the other--air is in plenty.

I love that.

This past week, in case you didn't click, which I know for a fact many, many of you did not, was our Annual Prophetic Presbytery Meetings at my church. I capitalize those four words not for grammar's sake, but for my own. Because capitalizing on these four days is absolutely necessary. Unlike the use of redundant adverbs like absolutely. I digress (because that's what you're supposed to say...).

In truth, I capitalize the past four nights because imagine yourself for a moment in the largest, most happening church in the New Testement: Ephesus. Imagine yourself for a moment sitting there in a crowd of churchgoers and hearing the recently delivered posted letter being read aloud from the front. Imagine a word from Paul from the Lord for you. Addressed to you. Citing names and places and situations. Specifics. Imagine that.

Now imagine 2000 years later, a lively happening church in Potsdam, New York. A place where we have a lot of air and not much else--but along with all that air, we have the Spirit. And He's addressing some things to us, citing names and places and situations. Specifics. And we sit there and marvel. And then we capitalize.

Because hearing the Lord speak means nothing, clanging symbols we might say, if we don't take it and do something with it. Make it practical. Bring it to life. Walk it out. Stir up within us. Kindle afresh. Get excited.

Go big, or go home.

Because God isn't concerning Himself with semantics in these parts--we've got this lifetime and that's it. We discard the wraps, the things that hold us back, down, beneath, and we'll step out in faith that if the air feels like God, smells like God, bears the fruit of God, and looks like the Word of God, than it's God.

And, wow, was it God.

Enough. Said.

It's hard to make a clan this large converge. We pile the represented ages, states, cities, towns, schools, jobs, habits and times and the odds are decidedly out of our favor.

But converge we do--once every few years. We drop everything, drive the distance, cancel meetings, pack up homework and see for a brief moment this family to which we belong. It's not all of us, of course, things like death and divorce don't allow for all of us--but it's most of us and most of us is better than anything else.

They quote movies and wear low slung jeans, hat on all of their heads declaring loyalties--BMXing, Disney, Lucky Brand, Potsdam, and other nondescript sort of things . We all have cell phones save the two youngest and even though meetings get canceled, text-messages don't. We let our natural tendencies toward showing love with physical affection run rampant--back-rubs all around!

Our food is served and no really sticks to their own plate--someone else's portion always looks better. We share, because even though we no longer share space, we're still family and family shares. And so, when we are saying goodbye and I am whispering into blond hair "Be good. I love you. I'll miss you." it's really okay, because we're family and we'll share.

It's not the kind of sharing I envisioned for my clan--I'm more of the great large family reunion every week sort than the broken meets broken for dinner at Denny's once a year--but it's the kind of sharing I'm happy, so happy, to do.

So I cry on her shoulder and whisper "I'm so glad" and I think she knows it's not for tonight that I'm so glad--it's for sharing. She has her beloved boys this week and I won't worry about them a bit. She's, after all, the one who taught me to share in the first place.

Open windows help the soul to breath. I think this as I drive on back roads yesterday, patches of snow still lingering in wooded areas, the secret places. Here, in the open, we spread wide windows and throw back heads, welcoming warm breezes and breath on our faces. Winter has left, swinging the door behind her, glimpses of her icy glare still seen in brief, but mostly gone. Mostly gone.

The forties of Isaiah are my muse recently. I read and think and pray their verses, ingesting their lessons and admonitions. Today I learn about secret places:

For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited): I am the Lord, and there is none else. I have not spoken in secret, in some dark land, I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, Seek Me in a Waste Place. I, the Lord, speak righteousness, declaring things that are upright!

I think sometimes I get it backwards, thinking that because the earth was made first, I was created for it. I think sometimes that I was created as an accessory to it, embellishment on an already perfect ensemble. I think sometimes that I, along with the rest of our concerned citizens, abiders of the earth, get so concerned with keeping my outfit clean, that I forget that the outfit was made to be worn by a person.

Made to be worn by me.

And so this year, as I throw back my head and open my windows, welcoming the Spring, I am acutely aware that I was not formed for the earth, the earth was formed for me. That snow left lying in wooded areas teaches me about the secret places of my heart, where winter is really sin. That green pointed shoots of life poking from the moist earth among dead leaves shows me that even though I'm not perfect yet, growth is still happening. That the sound of spring's wind teaches me that sometimes my soul just needs to pause and breathe. That the rushing wild rivers will soon settle into their normal patterns and flows, and so will the things that feel wild in my heart too.

But mostly, that creation cries out His Name, His Fingerprints, His Artistry , and His Intention, so that we, the best creation He saved for last, might know just how much He loves us.

We feel the earth breaking through, even if it's just that the snow has melted. We see the trees clap their hands, even if it's only the wind. We know the rocks cry out, we hear them crunch and crackle when we walk on them free of ice. And this is how we know: we know because He inhabits the praises of His people, His creation shouts His name and we who have laid low in the valley lift up our eyes to the hills.

Because He's our helper.

I am struck by this truth today, as I watch spring burst forth in the wild Vs of Canadian Geese flying homeward, as the water from the hills rushes and flows and channels and rises, as children wear their light jackets and as I roll down my car windows letting air permeate my lungs--I am struck by how He helps us. He helps us strategize and organize and breathe and let the burdens fall behind, He lightens our load.

Because, I'll be honest, in the wake of winter it is hard to remember those promises from last summer. It is harder to remember the promises from two thousand years ago. It's sometimes hardest to remember yesterday's promise. But, we who are looking, know that we don't necessarily have to see to believe.

We need only to remember what we once saw, what we once tasted, what mountain we climbed before our descent into the valley. We who are looking need only to believe that He is our helper and that He brings spring to our lifelessness and forgetfulness. That he calls to remembrance the things which fill pages and not always our hearts. That it is Him who bursts forth in every pore of the earth, every rock of the mountains, and every stream channeling down!

That He, who condescends to help his creation wake up and remember, is our Helper too.

I went for a long walk today, slipping into a coat from the hooks by the door, feeling inside the pocket, finding an unexpected gift, if one can call a forgotten wad of money in one's own coat a gift. I do though. The gift continued: a long phone call with a good friend who asks how I am, then how I really am, and after I finish, he asks again, just to make sure. I return the favor. It's a joke between us, but it's one for which I am grateful. The gift continued: walking along a back road, my shoes marking in the moist earth on the sides, spotting a herd of deer watering by a noisy brook.

All the water around here is noisy right now, it falls from the high peaks around us, melting faster than it can recede from the banks; rushing wildly, falling madly, white and furious. I think about my Saturday and I think I will take a hike to a nearby haunt and I will sit above the crashing water and listen to its silent roar.

The gifting continues: for the first time we tie in a scrabble game. Impressive scores of 314 points each.

"Are you happy" He asked. And I knew the right answer is "Yes. Yes I'm happy." But it doesn't really matter, does it? Whether I am happy or not. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that He asks, on occasion, because my goal isn't only to know His heart--it's to let Him know mine too. And so He asks and I try to be honest. It's hard to be honest with Him though, because I long so much for Him to not know that sometimes the answer is no. No, I'm not happy. I want to cover over all the weakness, hurt, and insufficiency, and call myself happy because I know that's what He wants.

Or I think that's what he wants.

But today, and lately, I think that what He really wants is for me to know that He's gifting me. Giving to, not expecting from.

So today, I receive.

And yes. Yes, I am happy.