biking, going and staying

Today I was able to bike to work. Due to the fact that I have a rotating office, the park that is tucked in between the playground and the prairie path turned into my work space for the day. Hard job, I know. After answering emails, calling a few people back, and attending to some administrative duties, I sat. Book open, headphones in. Not reading, not even listening to the music. I sat and watched the trees. Directly in front of me, a tree of magnificent size and stature captured my full focus. If I were colored blind I would be in awe of this tree. But thanks be to God for sight in all color, (especially when it comes to coral- which may slowly be taking over my closet) because the tanish-brown hue clued me in to its deadening demise. This tree was by far the biggest, most capable looking tree in my line of vision. From the roots upward, the tree was a masterpiece. But, as the wind picked up, my eyes glanced to the smaller trees surrounding it. I noticed something different about them. I watched, in wonder, struck by how God is found in absolutely every moment. Even this one.

 

These shorter, unable-looking trees that neighbored the one, rhythmically danced in harmony with the gusts of wind. Their leaves, lush and green from the connection to their trunk, their life source, (their vine), blew wherever the wind directed them to blow. Each leafy branch followed the leader and swayed in a gorgeous melody of obedience.

In contrast, the massive, decomposing tree towered among the others in an eerie rigidity. It was firm, set in its ways and obviously a little too comfortable in the position it was slowly dying in.

Austin and I are leaving for Africa on Thursday.  Close to unbelievable, but true. If I were to reexamine my heart even a few years ago to see how Africa-inclined it would be, chances are my inward being would resemble that of the rigid, brown tree mentioned above. Gloriously, through connection to the true vine and his word, my heart has expanded and softened towards God and his people. I am learning anew what it means to allow the gusty winds of the Holy Spirit to lead me and motion me closer to the cross. My story is a small amount of proof that a big and marvelous God chooses the unable-looking trees because they choose to say ‘yes’ when the wind blows. Africa will be a continued dance of spirit-prompted opportunities. I am slowly discovering that the more the branches of my heart cling to Christ, the true vine, the better the chance of a faith-inspired ‘yes’ response. I want to say yes so badly, all the time and with great fervor. But sometimes I don’t. Instead, I walk away from a God-breathed opportunity, disconnected from the vine, feeling stuck despite the fluidity of the spirit.

This morning I read the book of Ruth. Foreshadowing outlined each page like a pencil sketch before the masterpiece painting. Ruth desperately loved her Mother in Law and was committed to follow her even into a land she was completely unfamiliar with. Suddenly, the verses below meant more to me than some recent Chris Tomlin lyrics:

“…where you go I will go, where you stay I will stay...” Ruth 1:16

God’s calling me to go. He’s calling me to do something, to move with his spirit, to break out of my natural rigidity. But here’s what’s beautiful about God, sometimes he calls me to stay. I’m not noble, righteous or better than anyone whom has or hasn’t traveled overseas. I am a girl after the heart of God longing to honor him and admonish others along the way. And right now, he’s saying, “Child, go!”

So wherever you are, whether you’re going, staying, or maybe even a little rigid, all that matters is your relationship with the true vine. Jesus. Are you connecting yourself, moving in sync with his calling, or finding yourself deadening from a lack of spirit-led motion? I can assure you that he’s asking you to do something. Go? Stay? Wait?

Whatever it is…

Say yes.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 encourages us,

“But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit.”

a grandpa, a baby, and the sum

Me and Papa- 1990

I spent Father’s Day with my 94 year old Papa, a man who has spent almost an entire century on this earth.  Papa is a proud Ironworker, and his body bears the scars and the aches from all the decades of physical labor.  His hands shake, he can barely hear the conversations around him, and his poor knees have the most terrible time holding his body up anymore.  Every day he fights off pain, but he also fights off pride, as the things he used to do so easily are now nearly impossible.  My Papa is such a good man, with the most gentle and caring heart.  And as someone who has been alive most of the 1900’s, he has lived through a Great Depression, served in a World War, built some of the first buildings in a big city, witnessed the Civil Rights movement integrate white and black, watched his friends' children go off to Vietnam, saw a man walk on the moon and a president be killed, raised children and welcomed grandchildren and great-grandchildren, said goodbye to all of his nine siblings, and saw his own grandson go off to Iraq.  And every July, he had a small garden of fresh raspberries ready to be picked by little hands, cleaned, and eaten with his famous pancakes.   

When I think about my Papa, I see his life as the sum of many, many big things.  I don’t think about the days he worried about putting food on the table or paying the medical bills.  I don’t think about how many weeks he had to heal from his broken back and how painful the process was.  I don’t think about the nights he didn’t sleep worrying about his kids.  I don’t think about the mistakes he made or the fights he had with my grandma.  I just think about the sum of 94 years’ worth of life, and how much I admire about my Papa for really living them.

I am someone who worries a lot about the day to day, much more than might be obvious to anyone but my husband.  But in just over five short months, I’m going to be a mom.  Sometimes I still can’t believe that is a true statement, but I am really going to be a mom.  What I know from living my own life is that there will always be good days and bad days, and a lot of things will happen that I did not see coming and feel totally unprepared for.  What I learn from my Papa’s life is that all of those days, no matter what they bring, add up to a legacy for my family.

Alex's baby blanket, a gift from his Mom

A funny thing happened to me when I found out I was pregnant (that is after I panicked first and called my mom and dad way too early in the morning to ask what to do…), I started to think about the sum, not as much about the individual parts.  I am beginning to think that Alex and I really can love and teach this little baby even with second-hand furniture and a real small fiscal safety net.  I am already watching people show up for us and God provide in ways we had no idea we could expect.  It’s like I am really starting to believe that the sum of my life might just be one big story of me having no idea how I was going to make it through something, and God showing up again, and again, and again.  I have no misconceptions that having and raising a baby will be hard, but I want to believe in the sum, the big story, not in the nights we won’t sleep and the things we won’t be able to afford or the days when life feels anything but peaceful.  I want to always believe that what God is doing in and around me is about the end, it’s about all of it together.  It’s about all of us together.  And it’s about Him. 

My hands have never been so open in expectation, and it is not because I finally get what God has been trying to tell us from the beginning, but it is out of necessity, because I know Alex and I cannot do this alone.  We have a God who cares deeply about the details as he writes the big story, and as this little heart beats inside of me, my own heart is clinging to that beautiful truth.

I am so grateful for the big stories of great lives, including my Papa’s.  They remind me to put my heart only in safe places, to hope only in things that last, to invest only in what I can take with me in the end—God’s word and God’s people.  I don’t think I want to be known for great things, but for a lot of small things that made the sum of my life much more about others, and much more about Jesus, than about me.    

hotel stock

This month has been anything but June gloom. Not only have there been unseasonably warm spans of days that have turned into weeks, but there has also been a sunny, revolving door at the Stockfisch home for visitors ranging all the way from Florida to Arizona. We have housed meaningful conversations, bbq’s, FCA prayer meetings, loud laughter, old friends, and shopping bags. Many a tired head have collapsed on the guest bed, air mattress or couch, sleeping soundly after a buzz of activity and reconnection.

I absolutely love housing these faces, hearing their voices and knowing their hearts. But one thing I am not is a natural hostess. I embrace guests. I love how they bless our home with their unique passions, and get to leave filled up on Christ’s love and deep-dish pizza. I love the crash-course of catching up and the late nights that organically call for late mornings. But despite the ministry God’s called me to, and the people that I cannot live without, I am convinced more now than ever that I am one hundred percent introverted. I gain energy in the quiet. I lavish in the alone time. I am restored in the stillness. And sometimes I feel like an introvert thrown into an extraverted calling.

Today, I am tired. I’m flat and exhausted. Bruised (literally for those of you that know the train station story) and battered. I’m coming face to face with my frailty and getting to know my weakness on a very personal level. So on a cloudy day in June, I am sitting awhile in my weakness. I’m not going to sweep it under the living room rug, or turn on the smile to reveal a façade-driven, stronger self. I am weak. I am unable. I have an expiration of self-sufficiency, and a line in the sand of personal power. My own strength has been steadily decreasing and in a bizarre turn of events, I feel strangely secure in my delicacy.

In John 3:30, John the Baptist talks about how we must decrease so Christ can increase within us. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul talks of how the grace of Christ is sufficient, and how his unmatched power is made perfect in our weakness. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says one beautiful, hard, yet simple command, “Come.” Come to him, all who are weak and heavy laden and he promises us rest.

The tragedy is, I rarely sit in my weakness when I am not forced to. I freshen up, put on my big girl pants, and ride the train of self-reliance into the ground.

If I am not constantly, consistently, and whole-heartedly humbling myself before the cross, God will creatively find ways to get me to that spot. Pride comes before the fall, but it’s my stubborn human strength that makes me trip on the way down.

Without the abiding, abundant love of Christ, I am nothing. Nothing. But it is only when I make myself nothing that I truly can experience his love. Our God is full of these supernatural paradoxes, and I’m finding that the end of my rope is the beautiful beginning to the lifeline of Christ and his available power. So, the next time I sit across from a friend and pity the tough spot she’s in, I will rethink, budding with loving jealousy of the ways God is revealing himself to her. And the next time tears well up and stream down my face, I will see clearly through blur to the face of Christ, thankful for the avenues of weakness that lead straight into his glory. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

bits of inspiration

“The life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of awed adoration.  It does not grow elsewhere.”  –J.I. Packer

One of the greatest things about our world can be summed up in one word: unique.  God just knew that we would need to feel awed, alive, and connected, but He crafted our hearts and minds in such a way that some of us need a beach and an ocean, others would need a mountain and a climbing pack, and still others would need a telescope and a clear night.  But I believe he gave every one of us an ability to be inspired, to be taught, and to be humbled in the most redeeming way.  I think when God made me, he thought about the many ways he would grab my attention and then inspire, teach, and humble me, and then I think he listed books right up there at the top of that list. 

This season of my life has been full of inspiration and lessons and most of them have humbled me.  I thought I would share some of the heart and soul-shaping thoughts that have been planted in my mind, written in journals and on bulletin boards, and constantly gone back to for reminders.  These words inspire me, they make me want to not stay where I am, and they remind me that the life so surely worth pursuing is found in the simplest and purest of places…

The three laws of relationship are “observation, observation, observation.”  People who give life to us are people who notice us.  They know what we love and fear.  When we work to truly notice someone else, love for them grows.  When we work to truly observe another person, in that self-forgetfulness our own soul flourishes.
-John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I’ve seen the hungry and the guns that go to war.  I have lived pain, and my life can tell you: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and the good things that a good God gives.  Why would the world need more anger, more outrage?  How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us?  Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering.  The converse does.  The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.
-Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

"if you learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks.  You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it..."
-Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird


"Without prayer," Catherine Doherty once wrote, "the life of the Christian dies."  Her words scare me; I have edged closer to them than I'd like to admit.  The problem is that your Christian life gets sick before it dies, and it is hard to keep praying when you are sick.."
-Lauren Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis


Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget.  Their dreams become one of those "we"ll go there next time" deferrals.  The sad thing is, there is no "next time" because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.
-Bob Goff, Love Does

Criticize by creating.
-Michelangelo


There is very little cohesion in all of these words.  They are scattered and random, and yet I think true and inspiring.  And as I mentioned, they make me not want to stay where I am.  What things do that for you?  Where are your bits of inspiration and are you filling your life with those things?  God gave us an endless supply of wonders, words, places, and people to be inspired by, all in the hope that we would stand in awe of him.  We simply have to pursue those things... not what anyone else is pursuing, but the unique things that make each one of us stand in awed adoration.