Little Man Theology

"D" is what we will call him...

He is the little one I get to play mama with, love, and care for, but most days I feel as though he is caring for me. 

There are some days, like all of us, where I come into work like every other but my eyes feel leaky, and my heart full of unexpressed weights desperately in need of being lifted. 

"D" helps me with that. 

He, in his startling and unassuming youth, does not allow those days to slip past his ability to reach out. He seems to notice every time pain or panic pricks my heart, addressing it in ways only he knows how. 

One time, he stopped mid lunch and laid his tiny, ketchup smeared ( "D" puts ketchup on everything ) hand on mine. "God loves you really much, and he thinks you're special the way you are," he offered slowly with diction, still chewing. He removed his hand and picked up his fork for another bite. "Ok?" He asked pointedly, probably due to the fact that I was sitting a cross from him in silence with tears rolling down my cheeks. "Ok," I sniffed. I was in a whirlwind of identity crisis when I arrived at work that morning, wanting to be all that God had for me, hating who I was instead. Did "d" see that in my eyes? I thanked him after lunch, using words he would understand. He said that I was welcome and he loved me. 

He is three years old. 

But he hears God's heart better than most of us I believe. 

Later that week he would ask if we could pray about sin. We were barreling down the road but I stopped the car and pulled over anyway. I climbed in the backseat with him and we prayed. My heart seemed murky next to his, but in all reality we both had confessions to make and forgiveness to ask for. 

There is something God knows all too well of me. There is a large portion of my heart that still wears footie pajamas. I am younger than I let on, or maybe it's that I see things as if I am looking up at them. At any length, I am still very childlike in spirit. 

Because of this, when "D" says something hard, or true, I hear it. Maybe it's because his face has dirt on it, or could it be that he just called me "mama bird" ... Tweet tweet. Even so, I believe it is due to the fact that when he speaks truth, the piece of me that understands youth resonates. Child's heart meets child's heart. 

When "D" confronts, I accept. 

Today, as he fastens his superD cape around his neck, he turns to me and proclaims, " sometimes when we can't save the world we say, nevermind!"

I laughed, and then sighed. Letting my agenda, and my ability to save the future float away In the wind sounded like a lovely... If not daunting, idea. 

I get locked in and pulled down. 

Wouldn't it be so much better to adopt "D's" mindset? 

I can't save the world today. I'm too tired and God will do a better job anyhow. 

Nevermind. 

Now doesn't that feel like freedom?  

Cold. Foggy. Apples. Farm.

I took little man to a farm out towards the mountains last week. It was crisp and we wore matching flannel. We packed a lunch of cheese quesadillas, apples, and lots of water. The drive was about an hour. An hour of my windshield wipers beating fog away in time to the lilting sounds of Jack Johnson. An hour of road beneath tires, and a tiny voice asking earthy questions. Ahh, moving.

We arrived just as the tractor full of suburban farmers come to visit was pulling away. Armed with cloth totes we jumped aboard the slow moving wagon of hay and set out to the fields. 

The farm was huge! Mountains looming over us and expansive fields stretching as far as we could see. 

Little man and I don't mind dirt at all. We roll up our sleeves and dug for those potatoes!

The carrots were our favorite by far. Grabbing them by their leafy hair and heaving against the soil's grip. A crumbling, shifting quake and... Viola! Carrot resurrections everywhere. We yank them up, like a backwards baptism. 

Our entire haul included both green and purple kale, cabbage, carrots, sweet and brown potatoes, peppers, pumpkins, Indian corn, onions, celery, and one magnanimous rutabaga. 

It was a lovely, dirty, wholesome day. We drove home, took baths, at a whole carrot each and then little man went to bed. 

While he slept... I made apple butter. :) 

• Apple Butter
• 2 lbs Granny Smith or honey crisp apples
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinager
• Water to cover
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tbs cinnamon
• 1 tbs cloves 
• 1 tbs ground ginger
• 1 tbs allspice 
• The rind and juice of one lemon

Rough chop the apples and put them in a large pot with the vinager. Cover with water and brig to a boil. Simmer them until soft. Purée with an blender and return to the pit with the sugar, spices and lemon. Cook on low heat until the cot is amber and the consistency thick and smooth. 

Your house will smell amazing at this point. 

Let the apple butter cool completely before canning it. 

  

Beauty Matters

"Sit with me and tell me once again
Of the story that's been told us
Of the power that will hold us
Of the beauty, of the beauty
Why it matters

Speak to me until I understand
Why our thinking and creating
Why our efforts of narrating
About the beauty, of the beauty
And why it matters

Like the statue in the park
Of this war torn town
And it's protest of the darkness
And the chaos all around
With its beauty, how it matters
How it matters

Show me the love that never fails
The compassion and attention
Midst confusion and dissention
Like small ramparts for the soul
How it matters

Like a single cup of water
How it matters"

-Sara Groves, "How It Matters"

This I have learned. It is entirely possible to find beauty when you don't feel like it, or when nothing around you seems to be beautiful on it's own. The fact that I have woken up in the morning and the first thing that happens is a tear rolls down my cheek can mean two things. 1. This is the end of all happiness, and I should just relinquish myself to being hurt. 2. The tear was beautiful. Not because it felt good, but because it was telling of change occurring in my heart. 

Some random monk once said, (I don't normally quote monks so try not to be too impressed with my intellect) that we should embrace moments of loneliness fully, because in that moment of pain our hearts are softened towards God in a way they would never be otherwise. 

I think that is very true. I didn't want to see the beauty of anything God was breaking in my heart this last month. But I got to a point that felt as if holding onto what I wanted was hot, and would literally burn the inside of my hands if I did not loosen my grip. It hurt so much less when I opened them. 

I have not written in a long time. Partly because my summer has been full to bursting and there was not time to sleep much less pontificate. Secondly, if I wrote, it would expose things in my heart I wasn't ready to deal with yet. I think we all know why I chose to keep quiet. Selfish. Ouch. 

But I'm writing now! Good. 

Things in my intimacy with God, and identity plunged low this summer. Because of the way I feel things deeply it often requires God to do something to get my attention that hurts deeply. 

It was the kind of thing where you get caught up in a whirlwind of self and when you stop spinning for a second you realize you tore the flowers around you right out of the ground, and completely missed the rain every time it fell. 

I stopped spinning, don't worry. God is so sweetly good. He is good in a way I never supposed good to be. My good, is His glory, which in all reality means that my good is not what i want. My good doesn't feel good. That's so strange, but true. God took things away that I thought I could not do without. He showed me my own brokenness deep behind layers I did not know existed, and He showed me that He is both good and dangerous at the same time. 

Funny how you walk into ministry thinking of how YOU will impact others, and then walk out in pieces yourself. 

This is what I really want to talk about...

Beauty matters. 

There is a piece of our soul that longs to be shown something beautiful. The word means different things to all of us, but regardless, we go to such great lengths to experience a little of it. That's because God hides there. Most things we long for are connected to the heart of God, and we have just pinned that desire onto something else. 

Flowers on the mantle 

An organized list of things to accomplish

Tears

Homemade macaroni and cheese

Macaroni and cheese out of a box

Blue eyes

Someone finding out what they are good at

Dirty hands that need to be washed

A child

Rosy morning light

They all have a place in our lives, not because they heal a wound, but because God uses them up against scary, hurtful, dark things to show us he is never NOT good. Just good in a way we don't always understand, or even in a way that needs to be sought after. 

My expectations for the "hope and future" God promises me have fallen by the wayside. My definition of beauty has changed. But they both still matter. I pray that God continues to line my heart up with His.

Please go seek out beauty in your day, and in the seeking, hopefully you will find the treasure of where your heart truly lies. 

Home is here

What an odd thought home has become. Not what it used to be, but better than I thought it could be. I don’t think that home is a place any more, or else I would be wandering around trying to find it. I don’t think it’s a person, or a feeling, those tend to move in one side of your life and out the other in some form or fashion. I have come to believe that home is a heart matter. It’s a place where we meet the fulfillment of deep connection. We long for a place where we feel we can take our shoes off, and stretch out on the floor, but in fact, what is involved in that action that speaks to us so is our guard being let down, and hearts feeling free to be who we are. It’s comfortable, but more than that, its where we should always find ourselves. When we are truly at home… we stay there, no matter what moves in our lives.

Being here in Colorado surrounded by mountains, and new things, I find myself “at home.” Yes it helps that the air I breathe feels clean, and I have a jasmine plant hanging in my new room, and the love of my life kisses me on the cheek when he sees me in the morning, but all of those things are nothing in comparison to the home my heart has found in my sweet Jesus. He seems so bright and clear in the face of the strange and unknown.

Don’t get me wrong… I am in fact quite shaky, and vulnerable. I don’t know how to drive the roads here, and getting lost goes deeper than forgetting which turn to take.It bleeds into lots of places. Lost isn’t a great feeling. It isn’t prominent and doesn’t come often, only in small moments when I feel like a little girl who is pretending to be a big one. Just part of the process right?

I drove here in a car that didn’t have a prayer of making it…. but lots of those were offered up and I half glided, half dragged myself here, spluttering into the parking lot of my new home just in time. God kept filling my gas tank, and I drove all the way from Kentucky to Denver Colorado paying a little over $100 in gas for the WHOLE way! Provision. Miraculous. 

There are lots of words to use here. But mostly I will just say that I am learning the art of homemaking in a new way. Not just hanging pictures and picking flowers. But making a home for my heart, even in unfamiliar places. 

I have a bed! It’s big and fluffy, and far beyond what I expected to receive in my first week here. I also have windows that look out on the mountains, and a closet the length of my room. My stuff has found a home mostly, I just need to do a bit more good-willing. I am finding myself in cooking and rearranging. It feeds my soul and speaks to the places that are unsure of themselves. No matter where I go, I will ALWAYS feel at home in a kitchen, and in loving people through hospitality. Due to the fact that I process things through creating, and serving others.... my roommates and my boyfriend have been eating very well. :) 

Here are a few pictures I hurriedly took a few mornings ago... I made a gluten/refined sugar free gallette. Pear and rosemary, with orange curd. Lots of sea salt on the side.

The post where I say goodbye and hello at the same time.

Some of you, but not all of you, know that I am moving to Colorado.

If your response to that statement was, "what!? since when? what are you doing with your life Rachael??" Then click HERE.

If you are still calm, and fairly confident you know the reasons why I'm moving then read on.

Indeed it is happening.... FRIDAY APRIL 5TH!

 

 

I am so excited but it comes with a lot more than just excitement. There are a long string of emotions all tied together into a very awkward, unstable, complicated chain. And that chain is securely attached to my person. Somehow (God) I am staying grounded, and there have been no major meltdowns as of yet.
This is what I am:

-Expectant
-Overwhelmed
-Worried
-Thrilled
-Alive
-Too excited to sleep
-A little broken
-Fragile
-Determined
-Giddy
-Nervous
-At peace
...... and sure. Very sure that this is where God wants me. Sure that it is good for my heart. Sure that it I am doing the right thing.

Even if things feel weird. I am sure.

Today as I go through my desk at work there are little scraps of paper that are all that's left of moments in a season. When I stop by my mom's house to gather up my gluten free flours in a box I feel a bit pitiful that this is what I choose to carry across country with me.
I walk out doors and know I won't be walking back in them any time soon.
I hug people... I hug LOTS of people, and some of them would never hug me under normal circumstances, but all of them leave an imprint, and in that moment I realize whether or not I made an impact.
I do things for the last time.
And it's good! It's so good. It's just... that it's the last. time. 
I have been ready to move for awhile now. Not just to Colorado, which so happens to be the place God picked out for me, but I have been shuffling my feet under my desk at work and fidgeting with anything my hands can find for some time now, asking "when?."
When do I move? forward?

Awhile back God had given me the verses in Genesis that talk about Noah sending the dove out of the ark after the flood to see if the waters had receded. Noah let's the dove fly free out the window, but she circles around and never finds a place to land, so she comes back to his arms. He waits a bit, probably puts her back in her cage lovingly, and promises another flight soon, and then sends her out a second time. This time she comes back with an olive branch in her mouth. A sign of hope, but not one big enough to build a life on. The third time Noah releases his dove into the great beyond she never comes back.
She never come back because she found a home. A place that was good, and contained what she needed. A place to build a nest, and live a life, and do whatever doves do. All of the exhausting trips over the face of endless water when her wings ached, and her hope faltered were not in vain. They taught her that she needed to come back to the arms of her Master for seasons of rest, and that she wasn't in charge of when or where she got to land. They taught her patience, and that even when her cage felt like a prison, it was only meant to teach her to wait.

God told me I was that dove.
He told me that almost a year ago when I was still in the "going out and not finding anything" stage. I thought then, so there will be a day when the waters recede?
That day is Friday, April 5th 2013
This dove is off, flying on the wings that will always know their true home is in the arms of The Beloved, no matter where she lands.

In Colorado God has given me the gift of a ministry and suits who I am and what I'm good at. He has given me love deeper, and more precious than I thought I would ever find in a person. He has given me arms full of possibility. And he makes all things new.
I am fully aware that Colorado is not a state of perfection, and that it holds still more moments of failure or disappointment, but I am not going to let go of the olive branch that is His promise to be faithful to me.

So there you have it. This blog WILL remain! For my sanity, and creative steam-blower-offer (no, that's not a real word thing) but also because I want all of you to come with me!
I have no idea what life will look like for the next month or so, so bear with me. I may be able to post often, or hardly at all, and the posts could either be about food, or emotional outpourings you all know I'm so talented at producing. Either way, stick with me... It promises to be magical.



Your prayers are so needed as I make the two day trek in my disheveled car full of.... well, let's be real... dishes, and food. Mostly.
Isn't it lovely?
Also, I am still just short of my financial goal in raising enough to live on through the summer, so praying with me for God's provision would be so encouraging as well.
Love!


Talk more soon.