You are my hiding place

I can't believe it's been almost five months since I wrote last. I suppose that happened because I talk with many of you on a regular basis, which is okay, it just means that I don't write posts like this. Five months is a whole lot of time, and so much has happened.

I finished my sophomore year back in May. Yeah, that was a long time ago.
The Lord answered a tremendous prayer I have had for many weeks, months, years. He gave me my best friend back, and with him, the ability to determine what our role together may be.
I worked for three months at White Sulphur Springs, a Christian military retreat center located near Bedford, Pennsylvania, as the preschool and kindergarten teacher. What an adventure.

The most recent is that three weeks ago, I came back to Messiah for the start of my junior year of college, of nursing school. This is the semester where everything steps up a couple notches. And remember how I posted about needing to surrender one day at a time in order to get through last semester? Yeah, I'm needing to do that just as much now as I did last semester.

There are two songs I've been repeating to myself. One is called "I can't do this" by Plumb, and the other is an older hymn.

You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance
Whenever I feel afraid, I will trust in You
I will trust in You
Let the weak say "I am strong
In the strength of the Lord."
I will trust in You

Pray for me when you have a moment. Going through nursing school is hard work.

This Oozing Ache

Several months ago, I counseled a young woman via email about the "oozing ache" of lovesickness. The email that I wrote ended up doing wonders for myself as well as this other woman, and many of the points mentioned, I think, should serve as help to others in the same or a similar situation. Most of the quotes are from either Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot, or Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman. Both books have been a constant companion to me, and I would highly recommend both of them, but that's a post for another day when I'm not preparing for finals. I've edited it slightly for anonymity, but otherwise it is still in the complete, original form. May this comfort you as well as it has comforted me.
-Sarah

---

“Lovesickness may seem a trifle compared with other maladies, but the one who is sick with love is sick indeed, and the Heavenly Father understands that.”

-page 72 of Passion and Purity

Thank the Lord that He understands this pain, for “waiting silently is the hardest thing of all” (62). We are in a position where we see that our hearts are changing, angling themselves towards this greater love for which we have been created, but we cannot speak. It is not time. It is not our job. So we sit patiently, waiting. What else can we do? We should not wake up Love before its time (Song of Songs). Patience is a forever fruit. And the fruit will bear if the season is right.

“Steadfastness, that is holding on;

Patience, that is holding back;

Expectancy, that is holding the face up…”

-S.D. Gordon

“Hold on, my heart, in your believing--
Only the steadfast wins the crown;
He who, when stormy winds are heaving,
Parts with its anchor, shall go down;
But he who Jesus holds through all,
Shall stand, though Heaven and earth should fall.
"Hold out! There comes an end to sorrow;
Hope from the dust shall conquering rise;
The storm foretells a summer's morrow;
The Cross points on to Paradise;
The Father reigns! So cease all doubt;
Hold on, my heart, hold on, hold out."

I found the poem above in Streams in the Desert by C.B. Cowman one morning early in the school year when doing my devotional. The poem struck me so much that I wrote it in my notebook, wrote it on a dry-erase board, so that I would see it and memorize it. I memorized parts of it, but those parts stick with me “only the steadfast wins the crown” and “hold on, my heart; hold on, hold out.”

Hold on dear friend. These trials do not last forever. It will be difficult. Not because of the separation. Perhaps for reasons entirely different. At college, surrounded by some of my friends already in dating relationships, I found it hard to be single at times. Overall, I was content, but there were moments that would hurt. Hold on, dear heart. Hold on. Paradoxes occur. Once I found myself “both wishing for an earthly dance partner and yet [was] glad that the Lord was the only one.” Your heart goes in two different directions. But one direction, the direction of peace in God, pulls stronger, and that’s where you can finally rest, content.

2 Cor 4:17-18 “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.”

I think this verse can apply both to the weight of glory in being with Yeshua finally, and also to this prayer and hope for love. This pain that we feel now is momentary – will last only a moment in comparison with the rest of the journey, let alone the rest of time! (I say this to encourage both you and me!) And yet, we must be careful, because, “by reliving the past and anticipating the joy of the future, it is quite possible to waste away the present entirely. As Jim said, “Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living”” (p. 78, p. 80, Passion and Purity).

We shall continue living then, “casting our cares upon Yeshua, for He will never let the righteous fall.” I wrote while at school, “Oh, will this period of waiting never cease? Not now, not for a long time. The trials have not yet come. They have seemed like trials, but they are not. Oh, they are far from the trials that will come. It will be hard. It will be difficult. It will be painful. … My spirit groans in agony – when will this end? O beloved Lord and Savior, give me the strength to hold on and fight while I am able. O help me press forward!”

Yes. We must stand firm and steadfast. Lord Jesus, take us by the hand and help us stand firm and courageous, even in the pain of silence.

Song of Songs 8:7 “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the rivers overwhelm it” and Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I am there. You are mine.”

I hope some part of this brings you comfort. May the Lord see us on the other side of these fires, cleansed of the dross so that our joy can be made complete.

To finally end this, another quote from Passion and Purity (I think Elisabeth quoted from someone else, but I can’t remember) that kinda summarizes how it feels with love…

“I cannot love you if I love not Him

I cannot love Him, if I love not you.”

-Sarah

 

Surrendering one day at at time

The spring semester started last month with a bang. By eleven am Monday morning, I had already been through three hours of nursing class orientation, including signing a HIPPA form (confidentiality), as well as other confidentiality agreements for our clinical sites, received our nursing uniforms, nametags, and lab coats, and a huge blue bag full of medical supplies for us to practice on.

Maybe not hit by a speeding train, but this
is a pretty good representation of how I'm
feeling some days.

No wonder I was overwhelmed.

By the end of the first week, I felt like I had been hit by a speeding train. I got myself into this when I picked this major, I reminded myself. God, are you sure I can handle this?

For those who might not know the story, I did not grow up imagining myself as a nurse. I think we had a pretend doctor's kit, but I had plenty of other ideas for when I grew up.

When I was nine, I wanted to be an astronaut. Okay, okay, the love of the stars has always been with me, but by twelve years old, I was convinced that I was going to be an author. I wrote stories by the dozen, many of them starting off as fan fictions, and later developing into independent story lines. I had several notebooks which I always carried around with me, should I stumble across a new idea during algebra, or history, or dinner, or carpool. By the time I was fifteen, I had already been to one writer's conference and was preparing for my second.

I loved everything about being a writer. I loved delving into imaginary worlds, allowing myself to go where I had never been before. Some say that reading can take you on any adventure you have ever wanted to go on. Writing does the same, except you are completely in charge of the adventure. It was a wonderful place to escape. I loved what other authors had done for me, and I wanted to pour that out on the world and allow children to be swept away by what-ifs and let their imagination soar.

But by fifteen years old and my tenth year of school, there is a certain question that nearly everyone asks:

Me in my nursing student uniform on the day
I got it. I officially wear it for the first time
tomorrow!

"What are you thinking about for college?"

Ah, the college question! What does a young writer say? One does not need a degree in creative writing in order to publish a book. In fact, far from it. One author I know started out as an computer software designer. So I started thinking about what else I could get a degree in.

I had no clue.

So, just a few weeks after that writer's conference, I asked God a question. A really big question. I asked him to give me a vision of where he was going to take me in life. And he answered, in the most unexpected ways. First, a love for the wayward child. Second, the desire to be a midwife.

I did some research and discovered that the best way to become a midwife was to become a Registered Nurse, and then later do a Master's Program in Nurse-Midwifery. As I started looking for schools and preparing myself for nursing school, I realized how much I really loved the idea of being a nurse and caring for people.

So you see, it was God who brought me here. I have questioned it several times. Nursing is a scary field. I could do any host of things wrong, and it could really hurt somebody.

God has been working on my heart. The fear of hurting somebody is tempered with the joy of aiding somebody in their recovery. The fear that this isn't the right career for me gets flipped around once I slow down and realize how much I love the material. It is completely nerve-wracking at times. Entirely and completely. Most days, I have no idea how I'm going to get through.

When I look at pictures like this, I remember how peaceful
it was to look out over the Makhtesh Ramon. The same
slowing-down of life reminds me to surrender each day.

God has been teaching me. He has been teaching me to surrender each day. To give every day to Him, so He can take care of things.

Nursing school is tough. It is meant to be, and I wouldn't want it any other way. The more rigor I endure in school, the better nurse I will be someday. If I were to leave things to myself, I would be scared stiff, and might not do so well.

However, I am convinced that God has brought me here for a purpose. He would not continually show me how right the nursing field is for me if he did not intend me to use these skills someday. So I walk forward in faith. And I walk one day at a time.

It's a funny lesson. It has popped up in many places of my life. I remember a cassette tape I listened to in a friend's car as a kid which had a song for different memory verses. I remember one as Psalm 139:13-14 "For you knit me together in my mother's womb, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." (I pause here to say YES! This is EXACTLY why I love learning about the human body!)

I didn't have any pictures of birds, but this beautiful,
majestic olive tree is a wonderful representation of how God
cares for every bit of his creation.

The other is "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink. Look at the sparrows in the field. They not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them." (By the way, ALL of that was remembered because of that song. I am so getting memory verse song CDs for my kids when I have them. :D )

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Walk by faith and not by sight.

I read recently in a devotional out of Streams in the Desert that ancient oil lamps only cast enough light to see one step ahead.

Just one step.

Just one day.

One day at a time. That's all that is needed.

Love wins.

A short "article" if you will on love. I prompted myself to write on a recent experience in 250 words. And I got 250 words exactly. ;) Enjoy, my friends, and learn. I don't see what happened as a mistake. I feel more loved than ever.

-Sarah

***

They did not expect it to end this way. They had hoped that perhaps it would never end, or at the very least if something did not fit. If they had to say goodbye, could it have not been done in person?

It could, but not this time. So here they sat peering at a computer screen, wondering what went wrong.

They both knew what it was, and yet, they did not blame it. They could choose to fight or to accept, and they finally, reluctantly, chose to accept. And what is more, they chose to accept with dignity and respect.

After all, that is what life is, choosing to see beauty or pain.

They chose beauty.

Instead of becoming bitter at the could-have-been’s, they smiled at the what-used-to-be. And instead of dwelling on that what-used-to-be’s, they put on a brave face and stepped out into a new adventure.

How is goodbye just as hard as I love you? They never expected to say either, but then the moment came, and suddenly, that was the only thing left to say. I love you, and then soon afterwards, farewell. 

However, I-love-you’s and farewells can go hand-in-hand. That is what they found. They found that in an unexpected goodbye, that love conquered even more.

Just because love could not manifest in a way that they expected did not mean that somehow love had been defeated or that love had failed. Somehow, in farewell, they found that love overcame far more.

Love wins.

The night before Christmas

It was the night before Christmas and all through the world
Everything looked like business as usual
Shepherds sat on a hillside looking up at the stars
While the world fell asleep unaware just how deep
Was the darkness the night before Christmas

And the night before Christmas it seemed to be just a night
But the wind blew like something was coming
And like children with secrets that they're bursting to tell
The cedars danced in the breeze while all of nature it seemed
Held its breath on the night before Christmas

And hope, hope long awaited
The hope of the ages
Would break with the dawn
And the song that all of creation was anticipating
Would start with a baby's first cry

And on the night before Christmas Mary laid down to rest
While Joseph, he paced the floor praying
And in an everyday stable, in an everyday town
In the hours to come God would wrap Himself up
And come down from heaven and the world would forever be changed
After the night before Christmas

-"The Night Before Christmas" by Steven Curtis Chapman

As a child, the story of Christmas was one of my favorites. I deeply admired Mary, young as she was, to accept God's blessing of a child, and to carry it and nurture it for nine months, and then continue to nurture God even more. My grandparents took me to see The Nativity Story when it came out in the theatre, but even before then, the picture painted of the story was this:

Mary and Joseph were traveling to Bethlehem. It took a very long time, so that by the time they arrived, it was time for little baby Jesus to be born. So they ran around (or rather, Joseph ran around) Bethlehem, looking for a place for the baby to be born, but there wasn't any place for them to stay. No one would give them room. But one person would offer an outside shed that smelt strongly of the animals, where Mary would collapse and give birth to the baby with only Joseph to catch the child. The shepherds would be out in the fields, freezing because it was winter, but watching the flocks nevertheless, and then the angels would appear to them, singing, and they would go back to Bethlehem to see the newborn baby.

However, when I went to Israel, I was offered a very different understanding. And let me say this up front: This does NOT change what Christmas is at all. Christmas, whether the Messiah was born in December or in September or in June, still is a time to remember that a Messiah was born, and that he was fully God, and fully man. It is a time to remember it with family, and to come together in one body. Now, on to a new thought of the story of Jesus' birth.

Miriam and Yosef (remember, we're speaking Hebrew ;) ) made the long trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And yes, it is a ways away. It's a couple hours by car (or bus), and there are a few interesting geological formations that would make travel difficult. So you can imagine Mary and Joseph taking their time to travel several days, especially with Mary being pregnant. Bethlehem is right outside of Jerusalem, about an hour or two walking. They would get to Bethlehem, Joseph's hometown, where his family would take them into their house.

People in the public area, with one girl climbing up the ladder
to the sleeping private area

This is a Middle East hospitality thing. People never turn down guests. Almost ever. You don't just leave a man and his wife (especially his pregnant wife) outside.  However, there would be so many people, that the "guest area" - that is, the main public room - would be crowded, so Joseph and Mary would be placed in the storage room to sleep. This is the room where animals would be put during the wintertime, when it is cold (and believe me, Jerusalem gets cold in the winter).

Most of this is the storage area, with people standing beyond
in the public area. It is a bit more private, no?

This is where the common understanding of the couple being placed in a cattle stall. And this would be where Mary would give birth. She wouldn't be alone. Joseph would probably be kicked out, along with the other men around, and Mary would be surrounded by the women in the storage room in order to give birth. This would probably the best place to have a child anyway, because you wouldn't want to do it in the public area, and the private home sleeping area is usually on an upper level - wouldn't want to be climbing up that ladder in labor.

So the baby is born, and Joseph comes in to see the baby like a proud papa, and everyone's happy. The shepherds are outside still - it is not winter, because winters are cold, remember? - with the sheep (I have my own bone to pick about sheep now that I've seen them in Israel, and I'll talk about that some other blog post), and the story goes on.

I kinda like this understanding better, because people generally don't "get" the Middle East until they've lived there, at least visited for a bit. Family is huge. Guests are treated well. You treat extended family and friends with the utmost respect. I like that.

Those are my thoughts this Christmas Eve, now that Christmas Eve is nearly over. So everyone, enjoy your family and friends. Love on your guests. Offer them tea and cookies as soon as they walk in the door (props if you offer Bedouin, chai, jasmine, or some other Middle Eastern-y tea). And remember our wonderful Savior.

Merry Christmas, friends.

Listen to your heart

**I realize that some people are going to disagree with this post. Sorry. I might have something wrong, but this is part of my understanding of the world, and in some ways it needs to be

Many books say it. Movies even more. TV shows, music, media - listen to your heart. And do we? We want to, I think. And then we run into Scripture like:

"All a man's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart." (Pro 21:2)

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." (Pro 19:21)

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." (Pro 16:9)

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Pro 4:23)

And, my personal most annoying verse:
"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9)


Don't get me wrong; it's not the verse itself that I have a problem with. It's really the interpretation that gets me.  Because obviously the heart doesn't know what it is doing, and yet, there are also verses such as:


"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer." (Ps 19:14)

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jer 29:13)

"You shall love the LORD your God will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." (Deut 6:5)


Okay, cool. The heart is deceitful above all things, but we must seek God with it. And love him with all our heart. If we do that, shouldn't that mean that our hearts are not deceitful?

I propose that we have been understanding "heart" all wrong. In Hebrew, the word used is lev. It means the literal heart. As in that organ in your body that has been pumping blood to your whole body since long before you were born. The organ the heart. Or, figuratively speaking, the mind.

Whoa, what? The heart is the mind? Yep. So you are supposed to serve God with all your mind. The meditation of your mind should be pleasing to God (which goes along with Philippians 4:8, whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy, think on such things). You shall see the Lord and find him when you seek him with all your mind.

The reason why I have such an issue is because I think that there is such a thing as intuition. That would be what people consider to be the "heart" in today's English figurative speech. I think that there is something like that. But to equal it with the Biblical heart, I'm not so okay with.

Why?

I trust my instinct. I trust my intuition. I trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (I can't explain instinct and intuition, and don't feel a need to, but the Holy Spirit surely does guide me in some things I can't explain!) Why? Because it has been right before.

For instance, once I was talking with some friends. They were talking about how there had been someone in the same room as them during a worship service, and they felt very on edge while he was there. It turned out that man didn't exactly have the cleanest record when it came to women. He was very carefully watched by someone higher-up while he was in the room, but these two women had still felt edgy. Honestly, as I remembered it, I had felt edgy, very wary, and had kept him in the corner of my eye.

How did I know that? How did those two other ladies know that? And, to make matters worse, they tried to tell one of their guy friends who they thought about as a brother. And he didn't get it! He just couldn't understand why these ladies had felt so wary.

In a world where the secular society is whispering, "Listen to your heart" and the church is saying, "DON'T listen to your heart," who do you listen to?

Who should you listen to?

What shall we expect?

One of the advantages of being in new place for school, let alone a place where everyone feels like a family, is that there is a whole new slew of perspectives to gather. I love it. Everywhere I go, I gather perspectives and opinions and advice. I really value it. Especially the perspectives of women older than me. Most have a very different view on life and being a woman than I do.

Recently, I've been considering the Bible's perspective on men and women. What is the role of a man in a home? What is the role of the woman? What does being the head of the household look like in a man that might not be suited for leading an army into battle (figuratively speaking, of course)? Does it mean that he is not a man?

It would be foolish to say that the quiet man is not a man. Each person has their own strengths and weaknesses.

However, perspectives must be considered. People expect other people to follow their personal expectations for how they should act. In relationships, people come in with expectations on what their loved one should do. Is that wrong? If it takes over your relationship, definitely. It's extremely important to be aware of expectations, because the sooner you are aware of them, the sooner you can let yourself be open to change.

I bring this up because recently I have been facing my own expectations in other people. So I'm doing what I can to compare them to the Bible and see whether it is a good expectation to have, or if I should eradicate it from my thinking.

I don't know yet. Sorry. I wish I had answers. What I do know is that things are not always what they seem, so I ought to view other people that way, and be open with my expectations. By that I mean not turning away from someone who does not meet a certain expectation, because it might not have a strong foundation.

It's a lot to think and pray on. Someday, I might find an answer.