How I fell in love with 45 people

It was late August and the sun baked the high school track as I stood keeping time for runners looping the football field.
"Hey, Ms. Martin."
I turned around surprised to see one of my students shyly walking up to me. He stands and talks for a few minutes about nothing, running, football, school. He leaves for practice, and I go home.

A few days later, the same thing happens again.

Not long after this in class, we were talking, and he randomly says, "You love me." I was taken aback, we had barely spoken in class or even up at the track. And yet he knew the truth.

Why yes, I do love you.

***
"Ok, it's your turn. You can share your high and low points from the week," I say to her as I scratch her back one Wednesday night in small group. The Christmas tree glows with a rainbow of colors freckling the wall. Her face is barely lit.

"My high is that I got to come here tonight and see my friends. My low is that I really hate my stepdad."

Then a flood of words gushed out. She had been holding it in for so long. She talked for ten minutes,and during that time something miraculous happened. The other girls in the small group started standing around her. They began encouraging her and telling her that she wasn't alone. They prayed for her.

***
"How is your day today?"

"Not good," he mumbles.

"Why?"

"That teacher..." he began and proceeded to spell out why she wasn't fair and how he felt mistreated by her.

"You know what?" I replied. "I know you are a good student. I know the kind of student you are. In this class you get a fresh start, and it is always a good day in here. So come on in and let's get started."

His face immediately transformed. His smile captivated me--so much to love.

***
There are so many others that have grabbed a hold of my heart and their fists won't let me go. The girl who is rejected because she is a lesbian, the girl with a crush, the boy who feels trapped with no where to go, the boy whose mom just got out of prison, the girl who just wants to be seen and heard, the boys who play basketball, the boy who is afraid to answer a question for fear of being wrong, the boy whose heart was broken by a girl but he can't help but still love her, the girl who is pregnant, the girl who doesn't believe in herself--all of these are the ones with whom I spend my days. And my heart feels like it  has never known such love. How can it hold love for all of these? And yet it does. It swells and grows each day.



I confess...I've never fallen in love. Not the kind of love anyway, where a girl meets a boy and goes crazy over him.

So, who am I to say that I have fallen in love with not just one person, but 45 people?

I am a little girl, 24 years old with mousy brown hair and mossy green eyes. And I, well, I am a teacher.

And I have fallen hard, fallen head over heels in love with 45 fourteen year old. I feel the Lord pressing the boundaries of my heart up against my rib cage as He pumps Isaiah 53:1-3 through my veins:

“Sing, barren woman,
    you who never bore a child;burst into song, shout for joy,    you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman    than of her who has a husband,”says the Lord. “Enlarge the place of your tent,    stretch your tent curtains wide,    do not hold back;lengthen your cords,    strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left;    your descendants will dispossess nations
    and settle in their desolate cities."

This year, the Lord has enlarged my tent and strengthened my stakes. My heart has been enlarged to hold more beautiful people than I ever thought it could. He has been the strength of my heart and my portion in difficult times. Each little moment has served to expand my heart and soul a little more so that I can fall in love with these people a little more each day. 

The Most Important Things

The sunrise over Chattanooga just before the Chickamauga Half Marathon.

Recently a friend and I were talking about money. Anytime I think about money, other than when I am about to spend it, I cringe. I hate numbers and math and all things related to these two things. And since there are numbers on dollar bills, well let's just say I am not a fan.

We discussed the difficulty of finding balance with money, even with a budget. What we realized is that we want to be intentional about the way we spend money: not frivolous, not frugal.

One of the greatest and most universal symbols of value is money. The ugly truth is this: I fall for this value system. I seek to accumulate more money and things to reassure myself of my own value and create a threadbare security blanket.

But what if instead of focusing on myself, I directed this resource toward other things that I value. What if I use all of the force of my resources (not just my money) to say to the world, "This is what is important to me."

Thinking about money made me question myself--What do I really value?

The first things that came up are

People

My relationship with God

Learning and growing

Being a healthy individual in all facets of my life

Mornings

Naming a few of the things that are important to me gives me direction and helps me to realize that I want to give my best to these things--not just my money. There are countless ways that I can choose to cherish these things, sometimes that included saying yes, sometimes that includes saying no, and sometimes it means just being present. But I want each decision, conversation, action to be guided by the force of intentionality.

This morning while reflecting on why mornings are so important to me, I wrote this poem, just one way I can choose to cherish mornings. Words are another currency for me that communicates value.

Awake

Mornings are better slower,
misty,
glazed in light.

Words are better early,
in methodical typeface
and unspoken whispers.

Mornings are better unseen,
hidden,
noon's rumors not yet spread.

Mornings are better quiet,
nestled, safe,
here--my place in the world.


What are some of the things that you value? What does living intentionally look like for you?

Resurrection

"By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures." Proverbs 24:3

Lent, though a time for lament and repentance, holds such beauty in the life of a believer. In this time of seeking out areas of our heart that need cleansing and renewal, the Lord meets us in such sweet ways. He has shown me the rooms of my heart with news eyes. He has opened my mind to understand places in my heart that were unclear before this season. He faithfully walked with me into the shrine that I had set up to man's praise and showed me the alter I had constructed on which I sacrificed anything to get people to like me. He opened up dusty boxes of fear, lies, and emotions and cradled each of these in his tender hands. For me, Lent was a time of walking into the darkness with the Light of the world.  

And then Easter came.

Not coincidentally, I was with some of the people who most help me to experience abundant life on Easter Sunday. I traveled to Greenville, Illinois with the precious Abby Brown to visit some dear people from college whom I had not seen in over a year. While I was there, each person I encountered (even people I met for the first time) welcomed me into their lives and showed me love so uniquely. This time with these people made me come alive. Praise God for His tangible gifts that reflect the inner movement of the heart! Truly, this Easter, I experienced the Resurrection in a new way. When God cleans out the junk in your heart, leaving seeming emptiness, He also increases your capacity to receive life and love.

Upon returning from Illinois, a certain house in the Park Ridge Community in Knoxville caught my attention. On a street lined with Victorian style homes restored to their former beauty, this house hides shyly behind a giant tree, veiling itself from the critical eyes of those passing by. The home needs paint, and seems tired from years of wear. But there are curtains in the window and furniture on the side porch and a ladder stretching along the side of the house--signs of life.

This house whispers hope and restoration  through the sun-speckled leaves. Despite its past, and its state of disrepair, its owners saw beauty and began the process of renovation. This process will take a long time, maybe even years, but life is being lived inside of this house. Light shines in its doors and windows, and the dirt and grime of the past is being scrubbed away.

It's no wonder this house caught my attention, for my heart and soul are experiencing a similar renovation in this Easter season. I praise God that in His wisdom He restores me because He "made His light shine in [my] heart to give [me] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6

Boxes and Rooms

Boxes and Rooms

Revelation 3:20

If any man opens...

I have a can opener that is so dull it is basically useless. The slender metal handles open like scissors and two round disks clamp the rim of the can. The top disk is smooth and sharp--meant to puncture the can--while the bottom disk has grooves like a gear to create traction as you twist a rectangular crank, similar to a wind up toy. Such a practical design, but it has one flaw, the can opener is at least fifteen years old. Fifteen years of slicing through tin renders it essentially useless. Each time I open a can of beans or corn or some kind of veggie, let's just say, the struggle is real.

A can seems impossibly impenetrable without something to pierce the metal that protects and preserves its contents. So it is with my heart.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.

I was sitting in church three Sundays before Christmas with my forehead resting on my knees in confession. This week, acute awareness of how vulnerable I felt overwhelmed me. Part of this was exhaustion from ending my first semester as a teacher, another part was that my grandmother had passed away the day before, and another part of it was that the LORD chose to intervene in my life.

He gently whispered that he stood at the door of my heart knocking and waiting to come in. 

It was in that moment that I realized He had been knocking for a long time, but in my pride I wanted to tidy up a bit before I let Him in. But now, I could not hold out any longer. Too many things crowded in corners and hid in boxes. Cobwebs and dust accumulated. The darkness of those rooms I lived in kept smirking at my attempts to shine a flashlight and chase it away. In my vulnerability, I finally saw all of this clearly. So I opened the door.

Opening that door felt like opening a can with my worn and weary can opener. Choosing openness and exposure requires strength and perseverance, and over the next few weeks, the LORD gently reminded me that I was slamming the door again and again. He would then wait patiently while I opened it back up and let Him in. 

If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with Me.

Slowly but surely, God would ask to come into the various rooms of my heart where I had boxes of emotion, pain, fear, and desire locked away in darkness. He gently asked me for each box and opened it with me. The things that I saw reminded me why I had shut these things up and cut them off. But I have such a good Father who loves me so much that right there on the floor in the dirt with ugliness strewn all over the floor, he set a table for us and we ate. I tasted the sweetness of His presence and savored the flavor of His peace. What rest I found in dining with my King.

And of course, I tried to clean up, as always. I wanted to organize and purge and dust and mop. 

But yesterday, the Lord reminded me of this: 

Hannah, the only way you are going to find yourself is through Me. I am the Source of life. Stop looking at the boxes and rooms and look at Me. I have come to dwell with you--yes, to live with you always. Do not worry about the things that you have hidden and that I am bringing to light. Surrender them to Me. Allow Me to do work. All I am asking of you is that you seek Me more and more. Allow Me to do the renovating and renewing. I covet your mess that I may transform you.

I realized that I had been living in a dark hallway and looking at the Lord through a tiny peep hole in the door. But now that I have let Him in, I can know Him in a fuller way, and that is the goal, not me getting my act together.

Prayers appreciated :)

He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction, to the comfort of your table laden with choice foods. Job 36:16

Sidewalk: hope in unexpected places

The past few months of my life have been challenging, heart wrenching, beautiful, hopeful, painful, exhausting, fun, hilarious, and hard. As a teacher, I have learned far more than I ever did as a student. But this growth came through those tough moments when all I could see was the ways that I screwed up. But as for me I will always have hope. 

One day driving home from school exhausted and discouraged, I saw something that gave me hope--sunlight. I captured the above image while waiting at a stoplight. It was such an ordinary place, but the light still shone down on the crumbling pavement outside my window. Beauty transcended brokenness.

These few stumbling words explain more:

Sidewalk

Orbs drifting through blades

of grass--

remnants of

that celestial light,

that sapphire sky

clear 

as water sitting still

after dust, pebbles, algae

settle.

Flares float

above

white styrofoam and

a muddy sock

nestled in chaos:

weeds sprawling across

cracked cement.

Shadows sketch 

rough lines on asphalt--

an untrained artist

hiding flaws with inky darkness.

But sky and air and light,

these wash the world with clarity,

through a lens 

Uncapped, 

Unblinking, 

Untarnished.

Words and the Intangible

Ars Poetica

by Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit,

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown--

A poem should be wordless 

As the flight of birds.

           *

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves

Memory by memory the mind--

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.

           *

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea--

A poem should not mean

But be.

Words and the Intangible

"Why do we have to know this?" This is the question that every high school student wants to know when we start reading A Vindication of the Rights of Women or Macbeth. What they don't know is that question haunts me, their teacher, as well. 

Why do we have to know about these works that were written hundreds of years ago? I have been struggling with this question for a while, because how can I help students love English if I cannot pinpoint exactly why I love it, and why my heart overflows with joy when I read perfectly paired words?

So many questions, and the answer kept escaping my grasp. But yesterday I caught it. The answer glowed in my palms like a lightning bug at dusk. 

Literature, words, stories--these make the intangible tangible. Those things that we cannot grab or touch, those things that we know are real but cannot rub between our fingertips. These are the things that rest in our palms when we hold a book. The intangible becomes real through printed words because we can run our hands over the porcelain pages stained with inky letters. 

Not only this, but authors use this thing called "imagery," the art of creating a real image in the reader's mind. In "Ars Poetica," the poem above, the author makes vivid images for the reader that symbolize universal feelings we often cannot express. My favorite is grief being linked to the emptiness of a doorway and a lone maple leaf. I also enjoy the images of love being like two blades of grass swaying together in the sunlight and wind or like two lighthouses communicating back and forth in the darkness of night.

Love and grief, among other intangible things, find substance in literature, or any form of art for that matter. But what really made my heart skip a beat was when I realized that human emotion was not the only intangible thing to be made tangible through words.

Another Word actually took on human flesh and lived among his people. Jesus Christ came to make God Almighty tangible, a God who His people had a very hard time understanding and knowing. So Jesus actually make Himself into something physical, something we could grasp and understand. Through the Word, we have been reconciled to God!

I am always amazed at the ways in which literature reflects and flows from our great God. My heart rejoices that He has come and been made like us so that we can know Him! Rejoice with me today!

Hospitality & Hope

There are things I can barely manage to hope for, perhaps that is why this story sunk into the dry places.

A man, who lived very long ago, who traveled much. Once he stopped in a town where he happened to meet a rich woman who invited him to dinner. After their first meal together, she welcomed him to come to her and her husband's home whenever he passed through the area.
The next time the man came through he stopped at the couple's home. While their stomachs filled with food, their conversations dwelled on a God who extends endless mercy to His people. Then the man traveled on his way, but he returned again a few weeks later. In fact, he stopped so frequently that the woman went to her husband with a request, "I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let's make a small room on the roof...then he can stay there whenever he comes with us." Because her husband loved her, and they had no children, he allowed her to open their home to the man.

One day when the man was staying in his room, he called his hostess to come to him. He said to her, "You have gone to all this trouble for [me]. Now what can be done for you?"

But she replied that she needed nothing.

She went away, but her guest called her back again, pondering, "What can be done for her?" When she returned he said, "About this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms."

But the woman responded by saying, "'No, my lord,' she objected,. 'Don't mislead your servant!'"
How could he have known the deepest desires of her soul? Why did he draw out the things she dared not even hope for?
                                                                           
A year later, the young woman held a baby boy in her arms, just as Elisha had told her.
                                                                               
                                                                              ******

Some time later, this very same son died. But this time the woman's hope, bolstered by a promise fulfilled, went to Elisha. She spoke not a single word of his death to anyone, for her hope was steadfast even in the face of her great fear and uncertainty.
But when she saw Elisha, and he alone discerned her deep distress, she crumbled, "Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn't I tell you 'Don't raise my hopes'?"

But little did she know that God was about to display great power.

Elisha went back with her to her son and after he prayed for her son, he returned to life!

                                                                              ******

The beauty of this story lies in its simple beginning--sharing a meal with a stranger. The woman was faithful to the small task the Lord placed before her that day that she met Elisha. She invited him home to share life with her and her husband. She welcomed him into her life. Because she used the unique gift of hospitality that God granted her, not only did she gain a lifelong friend, but God blessed her immensely.

As I talked about this story with one of my friends, I became aware of how wonderful the gifts of the Spirit are. For He uses us not only to bring Him immense glory (hello, a kid was brought back to life!), but as an added bonus He throws in blessings for us too.

In confidence of this, we can walk forward into the good works God has prepared in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10) hoping in the glory that will be revealed in our cracked and leaky vessels and that God will satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts, even the ones we haven't quite realized yet.