one day

some days i’m okay.  some times i don’t hurt at all.  but then other times…

i see a picture of you and me and we are laughing and i remember when that picture was taken.  and it wasn’t that long ago.  and my heart thinks you should still be here, laughing.  but my head knows you are not.

i hear a song that reminds me of you and me and a trip we took.  i think i want to take another trip with you and listen to some cool tunes, but i know that our road trip days are over.

i see something funny in the newspaper and i want to clip it and send it to you.  but you won’t be there to read it.  and i have the last silly clipping that you sent to me.  i think it was about this time last year.  and i know i’ll save that clipping forever just because you sent it to me and we laughed about it.

i come home to trash in my yard because somebody trash picked from my trash pile and threw what they didn’t want out on the ground and left it there.  and i want to dial your number because i know you’d laugh for hours with me about that.  but your number doesn’t reach you anymore…and i still haven’t taken it out of my phone.

sometimes i just want to talk to you, its been longer now since i’ve talked to you than i can remember and i keep feeling like any day my phone is going to ring and it’s going to be you.  but i know it never will be you again on the other end.

i had a dream the other night that you were still here…still here with me, still here with all of us.  i knew in my dream that it was just a dream, but i held on to you with all the strength that i had, i didn’t want to let you go.  i will never be okay with you gone.

and i don’t like to talk about you and how much my heart hurts because i think i should just be able to get over it and move on.  i think maybe no one wants to hear me cry over my friend that is gone…so i write it out instead because i can’t contain the incredible sadness in my heart.   i can’t stop the feeling of not being able to breathe because my chest is so heavy with the pain.

but i know that one day it will be easier.  one day i won’t feel so sad and the best thing of all is that i know that one day i will see you again.  i know that one day i will never have to say goodbye again.

 

Hiking in the Snow…in the Fall

I made plans a couple of weeks ago to go hiking with my friend Rexanne.  We planned to go to VA to  Grayson Highlands State Park, where I had gone in the spring.  On Wednesday I checked the weather there (lesson learned from the last trip) and saw that the high was going to be 40 degrees with a 40 % chance of snow.   We just sort of shrugged our shoulders and said “Why  not?”  People called us crazy.   I preferred adventurous.  Maybe there is a fine line between the two…but to those who mocked and scoffed, there were 100 other people out there on the trail that day…some crazier than us for they were planning on sleeping on the trail!  I think at the top where we were, the temperature was around 30 degrees with about 25 mph winds.  Nice.

Alice and Chloe in the Christmas tree grove...

Do not molest or harrass the wild ponies.

Chloe getting an accumulation of snow on her.

View of some nice fall colors.

Snow Covered,frozen highland thistle

Hikers on the Appalachian Trail

Rexanne with the AT sign.

Winterscape

Wall with a view

Fallscape

Leaving

Will it ever stop raining? And will the sun shine again?  These are the thoughts I had this morning as I awoke to another gray, dreary day.  It seems the world has looked like this since last Thursday when I received a phone call telling me that my best friend Libby had only days to live.

The Hospice people are good.  On Thursday they said she had 3-4 days and on Monday morning at 1:30 a.m. Libby left this world.  I was there with her almost until the end.  I missed her end by about 5 hours but I was there the rest of the time.  I even got to share a little secret with her on Saturday night: the last conversation we will ever have on this earth.

I think the hardest part of all this, was watching her go.  Now that she’s gone, there is an empty space in my heart but watching her leave almost killed me.  To watch someone who had been strong, independent and unshakable slowly sink into helplessness and frailty is the most gut wrenching experience you can have.  I kept remembering all the trips we had taken, the hikes we had gone on, and I almost couldn’t believe it was the same person.  Dying a slow death strips away everything that was beautiful and makes it meaningless.  Or at least that’s how I see it.  I wanted so much for her to just go home to Jesus and not go through what she went through.

I still have not figured out what God’s glory is in this whole situation and truthfully, I may never know.  He may chose to show me that at a later date or not.  I know that she has touched countless people’s lives, even people who never met her.  I have received many emails from folks all over the world telling me they never met her but had been praying for her and others who knew her as a teacher 15 years ago telling me how they could have never made it through school without her.

I know she changed my life.  I told her that if God had not placed her in my life when He did, I would not be standing here today.  I know that.  I know that He used her to turn my life around and she has had an impact on my life for 20 years. I know she will continue to impact my life.

I also realized what a gift God had given me in that last trip to Florida.  We had planned that trip back in July and I was able to be there when she was taken to the hospital, I stayed with her, helped her in the middle of the night and had a quiet time with just the two of us to say what needed to be said.  I could not have known that I would not have that chance again.  When she and I were talking in the hospital she looked at me and said “This isn’t the last time I am going to see you.”  But it almost was.  And I am so thankful for that last short time we had together just the two of us.  And now I can’t wait to get to Heaven to see her because there’s so much I need to say.

The Day the World Stopped Turning

So you understand why I have not been able to write very much I will share with you about the day my world stopped turning.

Almost five years ago my best friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  That was the day.  I heard the words her husband told me but I didn’t believe them, there had to be some mistake.  For any one who has been given this sort of news you know how it unreal it feels to hear that you or someone you love has a terrible disease.

But my best friend is a fighter and so she fought.  A year after the initial diagnosis and six months after being declared in remission, my world stopped turning again.  The cancer was back.  I remember standing out on my balcony at 3 in the morning, tears streaming down my face and I looked up to the heavens and I said to God “I can’t talk to you right now.”  And I didnt, for three months.

She fought.  She fought for her kids, for her husband, for her family, for her friends.  She battled with God, she loved Him, she was angry with Him, she looked for Hope and clung to the Promises.  And she fought.

Last week I went down to visit her for Labor Day, we had planned to go to the beach.  Instead we spent the weekend in the hospital.   One night she turned to me and said  “Baby, I don’t know how much fight I’ve got left in me.”  I knew we were in trouble them.

We were given the news that in addition to the gallstones preventing her from receiving chemo to hold the cancer at bay, there was an infection in her lungs, which would prevent her from having the gall bladder surgery.  It turned out not to be an infection, but tumors on her lungs.  There was nothing more to be done.  No more options, no more surgeries, no more anything.

And then the sky went dark, the stars fell and for the third time my world stopped turning.And it still hasn’t started back up for me.  My best friend has fought the most courageous fight and lived longer than many thought she would.  But she is finished fighting.

Now she is in the care of hospice at her parents house where she can be with her family and it works out nicely for me because I can see her more.  I wish I could be there everyday, but I can’t and we have never lived in the same place anyway so it’s just par for the course for us. 

Sometimes I am struck with such an incredible and profound sadness that I can’t even describe it.  Sometimes I wonder how I’ll make it throught basketball season (our favorite).  But I know I will. I know the anger will come. I know the tears will never stop falling but I know that my best friend will be waiting for me in the arms of Jesus.

Silence

I know it has been a really long time since I have posted anything.  The truth is, I have sat down more times than I can remember to write something and it just won’t come out.  I have had a lot on my mind and a lot going on in recent days and I think the stress and the weight of it all has completely left me silent and mute.

The good thing about all that is that for the first time in a long time I am clinging desperately to Jesus.  Every day this week at lunch I’ve had what I call “Lunch with Jesus” and I just spend the time reading the Word, praying, journaling thoughts and listening to what He wants to tell me in regards to many things.

Being back in ministry has really reminded me of how desperately I need to cling to Him at all times.    The past two years when I wasn’t in ministry, it was really easy to lose my grip on His hand.  But now, it’s not just His hand to which I cling, I’m like a small child clutching relentlessly to the leg of mom or dad.  It’s like I think if I let go I’ll never grab on again, so I hold on with all that is in me.

Sometimes its okay to be silent.  God whispers to us and if we are screaming to be heard, we’ll never catch His voice.  Sometimes we just need to listen to someone else for a while and words are not necessary.

Thanks for your interest in my life and for coming back here to read.  I promise that I am okay and I didn’t mean this to be so melancholy, life is just, well, intense right now.  But through it all I see more and more of the character of God.  My heart longs to see His face and in the silence, sometimes I think I do.

The Journey or the Destination?

Oops! Sorry folks, I have missed like 2 posts!  Sorry for my slackness.  I’ve just been busy…really, I have.  Busy having fun maybe but still….

As I was out taking an early morning spin on my bike  Sunday morning at 7 a.m. I was thinking about the journey vs. the destination.  See, when I go riding, it’s not about the destination for me, its about the ride.   I go riding to clear my mind, to feel close to nature, to enjoy the rush.  Sometimes I have specific places that I need to go, but usually I just go where the road leads.

Now that being said, sometimes that’s a bad thing.  I often find myself near major interstates, which I can NOT ride on and I have to find a new route, or I get out on little country roads and end up a few counties away.  But so far I have always found my way back.  I don’t go fast, I’m not in a hurry, I’m just enjoying the ride.

Sometimes I think that in my life I forget about my destination (Heaven) and focus too much on the journey here on earth.  And too many times that journey pulls me away from what I should be focusing on.  I end up in dangerous places, just hoping to find my way back to safety.  Other times, I get so caught up in reaching my destination that I forget to enjoy the journey.

Unfortunately, my journey is not always smiles and roses.  There’s pain involved and fear and regret.  Sometimes I want to just run away from all of that and just get to the destination.  I have actually prayed that Jesus would return NOW so that I could avoid pain.  Those were some extreme moments.

What I need to remember is that both the destination and the journey are important.  I know that my destination is secure, and its the journey that refines and grows me more in the image of my Creator.  I know one day I will stand before Him on the day of reckoning and be called to accounts for what I’ve done along my journey.  I want to live my life so that I have many crowns to lay at His feet and with as few regrets as possible.  I already have my share…

Oh, but how often do I forget that!  I am guilty of complacency, of apathy, and general wickedness and sinfulness but I am just so glad that with Jesus, I can always find grace.  And He always gets me home safely.

Center

A few nights ago, at about 1:30 in the morning, I sat on the edge of my bed and thought “Wow, so this is what it feels like to be in the center of God’s will.”  I can honestly tell you that I have never actually had that thought ever before in my life, much less felt it.

Even with being so many years in ministry, I had never felt that peace and calm like I did just a few nights ago.  Maybe I just took it for granted all those years that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, maybe I just didn’t sit long enough in a quiet place for God to whisper to me, I don’t know.  But I do know that finally I’ve found my way back.

I realized that being in the center of God’s will is analagous to being in the eye of a hurricane.  Not that I have ever been in the storm’s eye, but a friend of mine was once and he told me that it is sort of eerily quiet and calm.  All around the storm rages but there, in the eye of the hurricane all is still and quiet and safe.  Stray too far away and all hell breaks loose.

And isn’t that how it is in our lives?  When we are exactly in the middle of what God has for us and wants for our lives, we can find that peace and rest, even though all around the storm rages.  It doesn’t mean we won’t get wet though or that stray limbs may not blow across our path, but while we are in the center of God’s will, we  find the calm.

Now, I always say that all analogies break down sooner or later so I’m not going to ride this very much farther, but I just wanted to in some way convey the depth of what I am feeling.  It’s not just that I think that I am doing (in terms of ministry) what God wants me to do but that I myself am exactly where God wants me to be.

It’s more a sense of knowing that He has brought me to this exact point in my life for a specific purpose that has absolutely nothing to do with me or what I want.  Maybe you’re thinking “Duh, Alice, really?”  But it never ceases to amaze me at how slow we are, or at least I am, at learning the simpliest truths.

Sometimes I think we stray outside the calmness that comes from being in the eye of the hurricane and we have to fight our way back in.  The winds and rains beat us down and sometimes we just grab onto anything we can just so we can survive.   I had remained content to just survive and was content to live that way.  But oh what a difference there is when we finally tumble back into the calm, back into the center.

Eye of the Beholder

One of the things that annoyed me about living in Latin America was the inefficient, often “backwards” systems  and the run around you’d get everywhere you went.

It never ceased to amaze me that no one used checks or credit cards.  Almost everything was cash only.  Including paying bills.  In the States we can pay pretty much anything online or at least by a check.  In Mexico you have to either go to the actual physical locale of the business or to the bank.  For the cable bill, I had to go the cable office, for the phone bill I had to go to one certain bank, for the light bill I could pay in a bank or at the Oxxo (like a 7-11) to pay my water bill I had to go to the water comission, you get the idea.  So literally, paying bills could really take all day and you could run out a tank of gas doing it.

When in a restaurant if you got the wrong thing, even if you KNOW you ordered correctly, there wasn’t much that could be done about it.  You either take it or leave it.  If you go to Burger King or McDonald’s, they don’t do substitutions.  You know, here we order a number 3 combo and switch out the soda for a shake, there is actually a button on the cash register for that.  In Mexico, you could only get a shake with your numero tres combo if you bought a shake separately.  And you’d argue for days about it because you’d keep trying to order everything separately and they’d keep telling you that you wanted a combo and you’d say you wanted to substitute a shake for a Coke and they’d tell you “well, what happens is, the combo comes with a coke if you want a shake, you’ll have to order that separately.”   And they could never understand why you wanted a shake instead of a Coke in the first place.

Today it hit me that America is just as desperately inefficient.  Or at least some things are.  At work some guy came in with a Medicaid card.  Let me explain something…people who have medicaid either have Carolina Access(meaning a doctor or doctor’s office name is printed on the card and you have to be seen at that place.  If you try to go somewhere else, they won’t see you because Medicaid won’t pay because they don’t have the access number).  So this guy has Carolina access Medicaid with NOT our name on it.  The place whose name was on it told him they wouldn’t see him because he was too old (17-it was for a pediatrician).  But we can’t see him because our name isn’t on the card.  So I had to tell him to call Medicaid and take the name off and then we could see him in October because that’s when our next appointment is.   And I thought “Wow that is terribly inefficient and inconvenient for this guy.”

The funny thing about that whole situation is that this guy is not a native born US citizen.  And he’s probably thinking “Wow this country is backwards and inefficient.”

Thank You

I have always loved being outside.  I grew up on a farm.  I rode horses.  I roamed through the woods and I played in the little streams that ran through our land and the neighbors.  I always loved going to the mountains and the beach.

I have also always loved to be around people and always have had a lot of friends.  When I was 7 I went away to music camp for one week and when my parents came to collect me and were so excited to see me, I said “Oh hey. Well, I gotta go!” and ran after my newly made friends.  I always enjoyed camps because there were always old friends to see and new friends to make.  I am a very extroverted person and have no trouble meeting people.

These are two big parts of what makes me me.  After I entered into full time ministry and being involved in my church in Philly, what I found out that I didn’t like was sitting around singing Christian praise and worship songs.  Singing in church during the service is fine, but outside of that, it just bored me.  When we would be at conferences or retreats, inevitably, someone would have a guitar and organize an evening (or six) of praise.  I never went and I always felt like a rebellious Christian youth worker.

A few years ago I learned something that really freed my guilty conscious.  We did a study called “How Do You Connect with God?”  There are several ways that you can connect with God and really feel His presence.  Not surprisingly, my biggest two ways of connecting with God are through nature and relationships.  I scored on big fat zero on worship.

Our God is a God of relationships.  He created man and then woman for He said it is not good for man to be alone.  He gave us friends because we can’t do it on our own.  Think Moses, Aaron and Hur; David and Jonathan; Paul and Silas; Jesus and the disciples…and there are many more but you get the idea.

Two years ago I moved to the Greensboro area only knowing two people and their four children.  For a long while, I despaired of ever making friends and having anything to do other than come home and watch t.v.  But just the other day it was like the curtain was moved and I saw how many friends and relationships I have made here.  I commented about a year ago to someone that I could probably move away from here and not care because I wasn’t close to anyone.  Now I can’t say that.   God has always been so gracious to provide me with friends who make me laugh, friends who listen to me cry, friends who go on silly adventures with me, friends who lead me astray with motorcycles and on and on and on.

I have friends that I used to see or talk to almost everyday, I have friends who live far away and I have friends that I haven’t seen in years.  But each one has left a mark on my heart and I continually thank God for the relationships that he has placed in my life.  Thank you.

A Perfect Fit

It’s amazing how we don’t always get what we want when we think we ought to get it but God always gives us exactly what we need it at the point when we need it most.  Did you follow that sentence?

I used to always say that I live my life one year at a time.  I think for some reason as soon as I left Crusade staff and moved back to NC I thought that I should be planning for the next fifty.  I also began to think that life (and God) should operate on MY timetable.  But of course, neither does.  “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9.

Ever since I left Mexico I just missed it so much that it actually hurt my heart.  I couldn’t hardly stand to talk to my friends who were still there because it was too hard.  Talking about it only made me cry.  I couldn’t understand it.  I mean, when I left I knew that I was going to miss living there and all my friends but I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was bringing me back to the States.  So why was it still so hard to think about what I left behind?

I think I finally have the answer:  it’s because until now I wasn’t doing what I was gifted at doing.  That is, youth ministry.  I have a job that pays the bills and there are one or two things I like about it, but it’s not the fit for me that I know I am just barely surviving, not even close to thriving.  About 2 months ago some nice folks approached me and asked me to head up the youth program at their church for the summer.  I readily agreed.

I LOVE WORKING WITH TEENAGERS!!!  It’s the gift God gave me.  It’s not that I am good at it, but God in me is GREAT at it.  Last week we had VBS (okay small kids are not my forte, but the teens were there working and I got to be around them) and I am actually sad that we don’t have VBS this week!  And when I am there, guess what?  I hardly think about Mexico at all.  It’s because finally I am back where I belong:  ministry.

And the bonus of all that is that I am making great friends.  Being new and single someplace where you didn’t grow up can be hard just because I usually always go everywhere alone.   But God is so gracious to me in that He always provides good friends in my life.  Even if my best friend is far far away and my other buddies are too, He brings new ones into my life.  From church, from work, from softball teams that I crashed.  And He always brings people that meet deep needs in my life that I couldn’t even express that I need.

This is just a “eureka” moment that I have had in the last day or two and I just want to encourage you, that if you are not where you “fit”, first of find out what it is you do well and then hang on until God places you there…don’t worry, He will!