Ramblings of a hot March

Its hard to remain intentional about living radically for God when you are surrounded by a society that involves basically no community. And the only community there is gets together to go to a movie or consume or spend.  I want to live more radically and intentionally even here.  Away from Taiwan and daily and weekly challenge and encouragement.

Today I am sitting looking outside my office window at the clouds floating by.  Green trees are everywhere and it is awesome here. I wonder if this really could be my office. It if would be a bad idea, when I am done house sitting if I just came up here multiple times a week and sat and worked.  looking out on beauty with little to no distractions.

But then comes back the isolation.  This morning Danie and I were walking down the path talking about life and praying about writing. And we passed this man and another native american man. The man just sat down a look of depression on his face.  I didn't know what to do...I should have stopped right then and asked him how he was and if there was anything I could do to help him.  I think that he must have come from the day labor office but it didn't hit me until later that he may have come from there.

My heart felt heavy because I know that look where you feel you have nothing...what do you do. We prayed for him as we left and walked by...I thought to go back but by that time I was quite a ways a way. I consoled myself thinking that most men don't want to think of themselves as failures or let anyone know when they are down so it was better we left him to himself but it just made me sad.  Next week we are going to try and buy donuts and give them to any men that we see or women and then hopefully we will also take our bibles and pray for them and encourage them.  Its a little but if we can give some hope and love...that will be good.

I am so sad that the hills are dry, but the one good thing is that in this hot weather God is helping families save money on heating and utilities.  This will be the most random post ever...

I watered aunt Karla's plants outside and pulled Bensons cage outside, he is a macaw.  I thought he would enjoy the sunshine.  I also learned that it is not good to do to many things at once because after turning off the water I realized I had left my mini coffee pot on the stove while I was gone...it had completely boiled over.  but I cleaned it!!  

wrestling with waiting

Waiting is inevitable...but enjoying the waiting that is the challenge.

Its easy for me to look at a situation, evaluate it, come up with a plan of attack and execute it.  Its hard for me to look at a situation not be sure what to do and have to trust that someone else does. Especially when their plan often seems to go in backward motion or no motion and something inside feels like it would be better to at least jump up and down and do some crazy running silly pointless dance than sit there and watch grass grow waiting for something to appear.

And when that someone is God...I think He knows this about me.  God :-) I think that is why He told me to stop thinking about or worrying about marriage and he gave me a more and equally less ambiguous task to pursue.  It was easy to look at a relationship and say "Ahhh HA this is what is to be done!"  Even if it wasn't but it seemed good to me.  To love a person and pursue their friendship and give them all they want that I can give...that I enjoy.  To love a person and withhold from them what they want, knowing it will make them angry and even possibly hurt them because I know and God has made it clear that this is what I must do in order to keep God first in my life and love them well...this I hated. Tough love requires more faith than I have.

So God said just pursue writing...  and this...this...well yes this makes me feel very lonely and lost.  This requires me to really and absolutely trust God and I see how incredibly miniscule my faith truly is.  I feel like a girl on top of a hill surrounded by miles and miles of prairie grass with no tree within visible sight or walking distance.  This place is incredibly vulnerable.  Told to wait and trust and enjoy.  But sometimes its hard to enjoy when the terrors of your mind are greater that the minor fears of reality.  This however is a perfect place to be because I am expressly told to not pursue love...my favorite (and to this day fruitless) pursuit.

No...I have been commanded to Trust. And to wait to be pursued... Which would be far easier if I could put myself out into the middle of a highway with an oncoming Mac truck forced to hit me a.k.a pursue me. But how I ask myself as I sit on my hill digging my fingers deep into grass and periodically typing away on my computer am I to be found and pursued alone in the middle of no where surrounded by ...grass?

And how will they know that part of pursuing me is to get to know my family and friends and love them as I do...to cherish my life that is not here...when those people aren't even around me and how will I even know....and more thoughts and questions with impossible answers swirl through my head and then...I hear that voice again...and its laughing! with all of the audacity of mocking my questions. Only its not a cruel laugh its a tender knowing laugh.  more of a rolling chuckle that makes me laugh too. Makes me forget about the stupidity of perfection and things looking the way I think they should. It makes me take up my pen and begin to write again of the stories that are so much easier to see on a grassy knoll than in the business of the city and the chaos of people's lives.

yes a grassy knoll is the place to let life go...and trust.

His Tenderness

I woke up this morning again plagued by all that I need to do, have not done and may never do well.  The enormity of life and doing it alone. Not having anyone to tell me what to do overwhelms me some days.  I think maybe God is trying to teach me to trust His voice to take responsibility in my life and not to rely on others.

But that doesn't relieve the weight of today's failures. Of each nights dreams of all that I need to do and am not accomplishing.  Of the pressure of a list of to dos that I can't see or touch but that weighs on my head and spirit. And the inevitable fear of failure.  Maybe that is why school is so nice because the plan is laid out in front of you and you just do it, but its boring too because it is safe.

I reached over and turned on a praise song.  I don't remember what it was now.  I kind of fell asleep again after it played...but there was such joy and beauty in the song.  Maybe it was Majesty, worship His majesty.  Because as the song played the burden on my soul seemed to lift up and as I fell back asleep I could sense God's comfort and I was lost in conversation with Him. He seemed to reassure my soul that He is THAT BIG>  HE IS SO BIG!

When I thought about His majesty and greatness and ability to do all that He does and has done I was almost overwhelmed.  WHAT a GREAT GOD! I felt Him say "Crystal, its going to be ok.  I am bigger. Don't worry about taking care of all these things. Let it go.  I am not the one in your mind condemning you.  I am not putting this on you."

Later that morning as I was reading a devotional, what a single woman had recently learned from her pastor's sermon series on marriage. She said "God is harsh towards false teachers and those who twist the gospel, but He is tender to the woman who is alone." and I started to cry.  Overwhelmed with the knowledge and truth of that statement and the comfort of it, that I am not alone. That He is tender to me even as I am often mentally beating and berating myself.  Tender, what a word.  It makes me think of the times I have been able to pick up a baby goat or lamb or kitten, so fragile and scared, and everything in my body just relaxes and my heart screams out to try and comfort that little one, to let it know its not alone that its ok and it can trust me.  Tender...God is tender like that to me.

My dad and my uncle just left the country for awhile.  Under their protection and covering of love I often feel the courage to stand and walk confidently. But now they are gone, a picture of my future when age finally takes them for good.  A single woman has a great life ahead of her, but sometimes the picture of its loneliness can be overwhelming.  So how could I not cry having just seen myself as a girl alone on a hill. Alone against the world, with no answers to all of life's questions. Tossed back and forth by the wind and potentially beaten down and destroyed by all of the great hardships of what ifs.  And then suddenly realizing the truth, that the God of the universe, so fierce against injustice and those who harm the innocent and the sin which destroys us...that fierce warrior was by my side...not fiercely but tenderly. That He would drop it all to hold me, to care for me. A tiny insignificant failure, running in circles, not always keeping my word, full of doubt and selfishness and lack of self control...extremely needy...in fact me someone I tend to despise...He would tenderly care for me.  So of course tears filled my eyes as I was overwhelmed by His goodness to me. 

My spinning mind transition

To step back into one's old life after having been part of  a new life feels a little crazy and a little insane. I find that I don't have the energy to meet and see everyone I once did all at once. I have to hold back and take my time. I am so happy to meet them, but at the same time my heart races and I have to catch my breathe even with old friends and even family like there has been a time warp and my mind is swirling and I see them smiling and hugging but a part of me holds back in a bit of a panic is this real? Was that real? How can they both be real? Who are you and who am I and how are we here? And in the moment of greeting I think they think I have lost the joy ...am not happy to see them, but I am! Overjoyed in fact! But my face is to slow to react and I stand their smiling and hugged speaking but not sure of what is coming from my mouth hearing what is spoken and hoping I am responding appropriately ...want to laugh and smile and hug and cry all at once but managing a dazed and confused look that is misinterpreted as indifference when really its just screaming WAIT. HOLD ON WORLD I need to catch up, but it just keeps buzzing on and by.

I need a person or people to simply sit with me and then slowly ask me questions don't jump to this and that and keep moving like a ray of light but just be with me. When I start to talk can you askme more? Because before you asked I didn't know to think that way. and I want to complete that thought but now you've added in and moved on with chagrin to the next two minute topic ... catch my heart?

Where is my heart.

Yep there it is, safe and sound within the bounds of HIs hands. Maybe thats the truth its feels the same for them but since I have stepped back in I come right on in stride into their world where as my world is slowing spinning back around not on dry ground.  They catch the weird off kilter tip of our worlds colliding but its just with me so they can quickly move on by and I will catch up....

But how gracious my God is because there are a few who take the time out of their lives to selflessy sit with me and look into my eyes and ask how I am and not rush on by to their next thing.  They let me ramble on and come undone and help me up again. And they do the same for me, they talk out their days that slipped away on their differing rivers of life. We share our thoughts and our insights. The ideas that are perculating the wisdom we are hopefully gaining...

And its ok. I need those who are fast and I need those who can go slow. But mostly I need to remember God is in control. It doesn't have to make sense to me because He is truly taking care of it all.

I miss you

I miss you I said through my heart today

The miles are so long you are so far away

Do you know that I thought of your nose at noon? How it nuzzled and kissed mine I miss that too...

I wanted to write, I wanted to cry, I wanted to hold you and deeply sigh

sigh out my heart, sigh out love, sigh out peace in your arms again

I hope each day that you'll come and stay. That you'll want me like I want you.

But the truth of the day is I'm alone here to stay.

you're not here. I 'm not there. We're not going anywhere.

The rain falls like my heart cries, to long to know any more. ITs a heart song its a love song. You're long gone. So long gone.

Will you find me? please find me.

Whoever you are. Whoever you've become.

once you chased me around a couch see, and you said you'd never leave me.
That you'd find me if I left you...but your not here your words did no come true.

but i still miss you.

My wild, wild ...East

I grew up reading all of the Little house on the prairie books and many other westerns. I used to always dream of discovering new land. What it would be like to pick up and move out into uncharted territory and try and make a go of it. And i thought those days are over. There is no more adventure and excitement. Everything has now been discovered.

however, as I was walking back to my apartment here in Taiwan. Surrounded by foreigners and pavement. A language and world that is completely not my own I had this thought that I a too am discovering a new land. Only in a new way. Survival is still unknown, the future full of possibility, set back and unknowns. BUt there is this idea of adventure because for me this is all new all foreign and completly different from anything I have ever known.

Its not easy. Some days its really hard. Living with 9 girls is never easy throw in 5 different cultures let alone personality and its like you are on a different planet.  But its amazing...its wonderful....I have never felt so alive.

This frontier though peopled with incredibly smart individuals. Is still a vast unknown. There is ground and territory I have never covered and never seen. I ask myself about my future and my calling the purpose for which I was created. AS I prepare to go home in two months and part of me wonders...am I called here?

Was I made to not live at home but to be a vagabond and world traveler? I don't know.

Stella and the knight of Lockheart wood

"Stella there is another tournament. I think you should go." she looked at him with eyes of disbelief.
"You know I always go and nothing, ever happens. How many years of rejection should we go for and the last one! you know how long it took me to recover. I am still recovering"
"Yes but after 5 years and besides he has moved on, so should you."
"But I only found out he moved on Monday!"
"Welp there is no time like the present for you to jump back into the saddle and go and enjoy another good joust."
"Which will only be a good joust until the man realizes, its me he is fighting for and hightails it to another waiting girls arms! Good job girls! way to be creative with that toilet paper, keep twirling!" Rose said in two voices, one addressing her friend and one her charges.
"His horse has your secret name." That stopped her.
"Fine." She said fighting the terror twisting her stomach. The pain of rejection so many times it was a wonder she wasn't more hardened to it. Surely vomitting would have been appropriate but instead it was silent agree ment. And the two stood there watching the girls laughing and dancing on the village grass. Unaware of the turmoil inside of their leader.  Happy to dance away never knowing and never caring.

"You will go with me?" Stella asked silently.
"HAve I ever not?" They both smiled though fear still twisted her gut.
-------
The Joust
It was not your normal day for a joust. The air was not electrified the crowds were not even paying attention. When the knights lined up to compete.  She sat there nervously, not sure which knight was the one she was to watch that day as several were about. The horse bore her secret name, she scanned them there was only one that caught her eye. A Paint white and red with a crystal blue eye and a soft brown one. ITs rider didn't look like the other knights. He must be a foreigner she thought as she saw him sitting there twirling a leaf upon the back of the Mare. He was actually laying down, not even sitting up preparing and his armor did not look like a man prepared for battle. His helmet was in goofy colors and he just twirled the leaf smiling. Even his armor was a bit of a rag tag assortment. Perhaps that should have warned her off, been a sign. Maybe it would have saved her from heart break...but she liked him.

There was something warm and care free, confident and awkward all at the same time. Like a boy waking up from a dream and realizing he is a man but unsure exactly how to be one, caught in a world he never fully wanted to be a part of. Almost like a man broken out of a long dark spell and cast back into a world of light, rediscovering truth and beauty.

She liked it. The bell was wrung and the joust began. She had almost left before it started but her friends told her to wait.  He went out and it wasn't epic. He did not arrogantly sweep her off her feet or kill the other opponents he faced that day. BUt he seemed to know her heart, her mind and he ran each phase of the course like she would have, like she had in the past ...or so it seemed.  Something in it all felt so right and something in it felt off, just a hair but not enough to stop her interest. not enough to keep her from jumping on the back of his horse and riding to the top of a cliff over looking the valley of all of her dreams and watching the sun set in his eyes with only the soft nuzzle of a horses warm breath between them.

That had been the first test and he had past. not 100% he had forgotten dinner, but he had passed. With more flair and poise and love and passion than anyone she had ever met, and her heart skipped a couple beats and she couldn't help but wonder.

She wasn't supposed to go down to wear the knights stayed and stabled their horses, but she couldn't help it. And he was supposed to tell her to leave but he didn't. HE always welcomed her with open arms and a beaming boyish smile that more than melted her heart. They never kissed but their eyes were melded to one another and he nuzzle her neck and her nose with the tip of his and she would giggle and run away and he would catch her and they would walk and talk and she would sing to him. And he liked her singing like no one had ever liked her singing and she feel madly and passionately in love with him, unlike any man who had ever tried to win her heart before.

And though the High King knew they were breaking protocol he never seemed to stop them, or maybe they had stopped listening.  Hadn't it already been stated that moonlit walks unchaperoned were unwise? BUt still Stella found her melted heart enraptured and she didn't care. Didn't care that merely a month or two before she had received a summons to leave the country for awhile didn't care that he had been called somewhere else. They had waited forever to finally meet and surely this love was one that could never be defeated that would find a way...or so she hoped and she melted beneath his gaze and waited with expectation for the King to announce him the winner and set them apart as the Lord and Lady of the Lockheart wood. To reasign her to another calling or a different way...to change the heart of the knight from the quest that he was on.

But alas they were two that never should have met. Or should they have, as we know God is sovereign...

There had been lapses of judgment and two times when the lovers had fought so bitterly with that they almost ended a couple of times when her heart had wanted out for he had neglected it, but over all he had won her and she stood in the stands waiting for the High King to declare that this was the day, the day the knight and his lady would become one.

But that day never came. Instead the knight was sent off on a quest. Stella did not want to let him go on the quest fully so she held on to him.  He had been called to battle a mighty dragon and the woman who had once enslaved him with her intoxicaitng liquor. The girl did not want to leave the one she had finally found but she was never made to be a lady who stood and waited. For she had a calling on her life to go. Quests she too had to fulfill. Something in the knight scared her to let him go and fight this dragon. Some how she knew this woman and this beast still held him in their power. She had caught faint traces of their lingering spells on him. flares of their magic at moments, old wounds on him not quite healed. Things that made her love him more.

Instead of the King sending them into life together he seperated them and sent them to different worlds. Where they could not be together. SHe yearned to know how he was and everyday they would talk so much that neither was focused on where they were and then one day she saw it, something had changed. His eyes were not his own, his voice...
Stella fought hard she did all in her power to get to him without denying the kings calling. But she was held back her hands tied in another world her heart and tears unable to reach him, to free him.  She wreathed in agony as she saw him fall deeper and deeper under the spell of the woman, and her beast, the spell that she didn't realize, but had caught her paritally too and now threatened to destroy both of them.

The knight saw it before she did and tried to cut their ties, lashing out at her trying to seperate her but he was so trapped that all he did was cut her through the connection she held.  FInally broken and sobbing she ran to the King and laid bare her soul and He said she had to let the knight go completely. BUt he won't make it she begged Him. SHe had tried to get others to go to his rescue but no one could enter the land that he stumbled into. ITs my fault she cried if I had let him go sooner maybe he would have defeated...."No," the high king said. "He made his choices and they are his and his alone. You bear no responsibility as he bears none for you. Be faithful to me I will see you through."

And turned one day as minion from the drag snaked its way between their worlds and cut into their heart and she shattered their connection. Destroyed it best she could.

And there was silence for two months. During that time the King was finally free to work and He allowed the enemy to capture the knight and bring him down as low as they could.  unti lthey thought he was destroyed.  But at that point the king had created a door that he set the man through and rescued him back out into the light.

When Stell heard that her knight was free she quickly without the Kings say connected and did her best to begin restoring the relationship. Only to later realize how foolish her hasty actions were.

Shoot no time to finish this story but to make a shortened story even shorter she realized that this knight though free of the strong hold was still not finished with his quest and neither was she. The high king showed her that he had to fight this battle alone as did she and so once again only this time, with both  of them not under a spell they prayed and severed their ties so that they could focus on the missions before them.

Neither know if they were together to be brought back forever or if their lives and love was only for a season.  IF another knight in a far away place is fighting for her and if a maiden he has not yet met is in need of him...or maybe their paths will cross again...only this time forever.

ok needs major editing but since I don't know how to save and come back to it...here goes!


The next day he rode up on a different ride a