(This is the first blog in a multi blog series about what the Lord took me through this lent season)
“Hot sand on toes, cold sand in sleeping bags,
I’ve come to know that memories
Were the best things you ever had
The summer shone beat down on bony backs
So far from home where the ocean stood
Down dust and pine cone tracks.”
Old Pine, Ben Howard
Sometimes all it takes is the opening of a familiar song to transport you back. Back to the exact point and time in your life you were first introduced to it and how it became the anthem of that season for you. Like an old ghost of your past, the music infiltrates your mind, tantalizing your ears, reminding you of what once was.
As the guitar and lyrics start up, so do your deep emotions, forgotten memories, and everything else attached. This happened for me a couple of months ago during the end of our time in Zimbabwe. I was wedged in the back of our tiny car with Stefany and Nicole when the guitar started up and Ben Howard’s voice came out of the speakers.
Ben does it to me every time.
But play ‘Old Pine’ and it is like I’m sitting on the beach during the summer of 2013 drinking an ICEE and dreaming about a future to come.
That summer was my last semester at the University of Florida. I had to complete an internship for my major, so I chose to do research in a sports psychology and biomechanics lab. So for 40 hours a week I was trapped in an icebox of a lab with no windows and a lot of down time. So every chance I could, I chased wherever the sun was.
I drove off to the beach more days that summer than I had in all of college. I found adventure and excitement and joy in the salty air that whipped around me as soon as my toes became engulfed in the rough sand. It was my escape.
This was also the summer of the last time I seriously liked a boy. I know how cliché and childish that sounds, that I liked a boy, but this story is less about him and more about what my feeling for him brought out in me. About how my feelings that summer showed me about the character of Christ and how His feelings go far beyond falling in like with someone.
This boy introduced me to Ben Howard. He had crystal blue eyes, a smile that could slay any female within distance, and bleach blonde hair that immediately told me he had grown up with salt water in his veins. He knew the importance of a healthy love for Angie’s Subs and opening the door for a girl. Time spent with him was always an adventure and he had this way about him that made me be overjoyed to talk to him but be completely tongue-tied whenever I got to.
During a lull in one of our phone conversations, I told him that the house I was living in for the summer did not have any spoons in it. I could hear one of my best friends and roommate at the time, Kate, uncontrollably laughing in the other room at my awkwardness. This will forever be a joke between us that I am sure will follow me to my grave.
But that is how it goes when your heart takes over and the feelings come out. Too many embarrassing moments and lapses in brain function follow it.
And He loved the Lord. Oh, how he loved his Jesus. Which only made me like him more. Surely this one’s right for me, Jesus.
Then, the end of summer came and he moved away. What am I supposed to do with feelings and a 900-mile gap between us? This is not the first time I have said this, and surely will not be the last, but feelings are the worst.
But this is why my story is not about a handsome blonde headed boy who is no longer in my life, and all about my feelings. Then how the Lord revealed to me the power in them and what He wants to do in my life because of them.
The feelings have long gone, but at the time I was at a loss for what to do with them. Sitting back in my lab that summer, the Lord revealed to me that if I could have strong feelings for some other human on this earth, how must the Lord feel about me. How much more and vast does the Lord love me in comparison to a summer crush?
Sitting in the back of that car in Zimbabwe, sweat rolling down everywhere, I closed my eyes and let Ben’s voice infiltrate my eardrums. My mind unconsciously taking me to back that summer.
For a split second this boy’s face popped into my mind, friendly, but unexpected. I had not thought about him in years. But there he was on the inside of my eyelids.
I implored with Jesus, “Why? What significance is this in my life, what significance now, on this Race?”
He then reminded me about my feelings. My freaking feelings.
And He told me exactly what I needed to hear.
“This is why. Where are these feelings for me? Do you remember how you pined after this boy, how you could not wait to spend time with him or hear his voice? This is how I pine after you, and how I want you to desire after me.”
“How quick were you to let these feelings fade? My love for you will never fade. I need you to start believing this.”
“Where have you been, my daughter? I want you to come back to me. I want to show you how I view you. It is time you started believing it for yourself.”
That was it. He wanted me to start viewing and seeing myself the way He views and sees me. Something I have told countless other women throughout my life that I have done ministry and life with, but for 24 years never once believed for myself.
I wrote a blog in month one of the Race about how painting a mural helped crack open this subject in my heart. But man, when the Lord wants to get a point across, He really wants to drill it in, and I am a stubborn child so He has to pull out the power tools. So He challenged me during this Lent season to instead of giving something up, to do something instead.
I have been able to exercise pretty regularly on the Race, which I have been so thankful for. But for 40 days the Lord wanted me to shift my focus on what my motive behind exercise has been and see how He can meet me in those moments.
For 40 days I wanted to exercise with the intention of hearing from the Lord and actively listening to new and bolder statements He wanted to teach me about myself and how He views me. With every run, crossfit workout, or construction work I did, He had something He implored me to listen to Him about myself.
At first I felt like I was lying to myself. Because when you continually tell yourself you need to be better, you are not skinny, you are not beautiful, and you are not good enough for 24 years, those become your truths. Those lies of the enemy became my truths. And for whatever reason, I found comfort in them and did not want to let them go.
But it was the exact opposite of those statements that were the actual truths. Jesus would never say those words about me. I am His creation He carefully and with pain staking detail put together. He did not falter in me.
So Jesus decided to do some whole body and soul pruning. Ouch.
But this is when the story gets good.
