The Value of Keeping a Journal

Thinking today about the importance of telling my own story as it's happening, instead of retroactively. There's something useful about that, I think. Not knowing how the story will end, but telling it anyway.

I've been a nearly lifelong journaler, though not with any sort of rigorous discipline. I do it when I feel like it. Sometimes I write two days in a row. Sometimes a week goes by. Sometimes a year. Somehow I've managed to fill several volumes over the years. These are the ones I've managed to preserve.

In the green box at the top of the heap are my earliest scratchings when I was an angst-filled, love-starved teenager. I didn't have a fancy book with a built-in ribbon bookmark back then. It was simply lined paper ripped from a spiral notebook in which I also did homework, folded up, and tucked away some place where no one would find it.

I don't know how they survived intact and unread all these years, but I found them this morning, stuffed in a storage bin in my closet, the breathings of my 17 year old heart, and I read them for the first time in nearly 20 years. When I plucked a random folded paper from the box, unfolded it, read my old bubbly script, tried to recall my world, my circumstances, and my heart, I cringed, as you might imagine.

It was painful to see how confused I was about the world, how obsessed I was with trying to figure out what would make me happiest, and especially, how far I was from God.

I was headed down what, I am confident now in saying, was a path to destruction. I was dating a boy I had no business going out with, probably as an act of rebellion against my parents, who I was sure were disappointed in me, and who, I frequently admitted in my writing, had no reason to be proud of me. It was also a rebellion against my sister, who had been doing things right, and was about to be married to a wonderful man.

I suppose you could call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. A head-first dive into a whirlpool in which I would be sucked voluntarily into a downward spiral. My shame in my poor decisions was compounded by each deliberate step I took down that path. And when shame doesn't result in repentance, it turns into something altogether different: contempt, anger, haughtiness, and pride.

I wrote many rambling pages before and during my relationship with this boy, justifying, rationalizing, and explaining why it was okay. Despite the youthful bluster, there is a sadness in my writing. A reigning cluelessness, a desperation to avoid pain and regret.

I spent a lot of time thinking (I had forgotten this) about moving out of my parents' house before I graduated. I had a job, after all (in 1997 minimum wage was about $5.15 an hour). And the people I had been hanging around--the family of this boy--were my picture of what this life looked like, which, in a word, was poverty.

But I didn't care. I wanted to be independent. I wanted to be away from my parents. I didn't see it at the time, but now I recognize that what I really desired was to be done feeling ashamed, which I felt every time they looked at me, or tried to talk to me.

That was a powerful longing, but there was a still more powerful being at work in me, and I didn't even know it.

I broke up with the boy before summer was over, though I feared he would probably never talk to me again (he didn't). I wrote on one of these folded up papers, "I don't know what changed. I just see things differently now."

That chapter ended--just like that. The page was turned and a new chapter began. Within a year I would be far away from that town and that life, studying for a teaching degree, and reconciled to my parents. I didn't pull myself out of that pit by my own maturity, wisdom, clarity, or strength. I had none of that. I was dragged out by my collar with a mighty hand, unwitting and unwilling, by a God who had already ordained my eventual salvation.

It would be another 6 years, a college education, a husband, a teaching position, and a child, before I would be converted. But the work was begun during that awful time of rebellion. My journaling revealed that to me.

God saved me by his restraining grace and I didn't even want it at the time. He took me off that path of destruction and set me on a path that will ultimately culminate in righteousness, and I can take no credit for it.

How I thanked him this morning when I read those cringe-inducing words of my youth. How grateful I am that he prompted me to write them down, even while I was in the pit, with no desire to get out of it, so that I could, 20 years later, sit on the floor of my closet, with tears in my eyes, praising him for the good work he began in me so long ago.

That's why I spend my days writing and editing a fictional story for young adults. It's why my heroine is 17 years old, why her heart churns with the same dangerous concoction of pride and shame that mine did so many years ago. It's why she teeters on the edge of a family that expects more of her, and comes dangerously close to missing out on sharing their great destiny.

This story is my witness to the world, in the way I know best how to communicate. It's my testimony to the faithfulness of God, my response to his saving grace.

Where would I be if he hadn't pulled me from that path of destruction?

Where would any of us be?

What's your story?

How are you sharing it?

Responding to Grace

Tis not the work of force but skill

To find the way into men's will.

Tis love alone can hearts unlock.

Who knows the Word, he needs not knock.

Richard Crashaw - 1652

Grace loved Chester but Chester didn't love Grace in return.  She knows it.  You can feel her insecurity in the letters she wrote to him in the summer of 1906. 

My Dear Chester,
...I think I shall die of joy when I see you, dear.  I will try not to worry so much and I won't believe the horrid things the girls write...

You can also tell that Chester wasn't a very good person but Grace didn't mind.

...You have said you would come and sometimes I just know you will, but then I think about other things and I am just as certain you won't come....

She loved him anyway and held onto the hope that he would come for her.  She had given him everything there was for a girl to give to a boy and she waited anxiously for him to respond to her proclamations of love.  He never spoke affectionately in the 3 letters he wrote back to her dozens.  She even apologized in one letter for how affectionate she was in hers and tried to mimic his curt, businesslike tone.  But by the next letter, she was back to worrying over why he hadn't written, and proclaiming her love again, and wondering when he would come.

Unrequited love is so unfair.  I see Grace as a young woman who has taken a gamble by baring her soul to a man who may or may not love her back.  She stands there trembling and naked before him, while he remains fully clothed and buttoned up, from his hat all the way down to his boots, arms firmly crossed over his chest, revealing nothing, risking nothing.  That way she is the only one who stands to lose.

This happened once in the bible.  Not in a romantic way but the risk was no less inherent in the gamble Jonathan took when he proclaimed his undying loyalty to his friend, David.  1 Samuel 18:3-4: "And Jonathan made a solemn pact with David because he loved him as he loved himself.  Jonathan sealed the pact by taking off his robe and giving it to David, together with his tunic, sword, bow, and belt."  We don't know what David's response was because the bible doesn't give it.  The scene shifts abruptly and Jonathan is left standing there, naked and defenseless, and without a response to this lavish display.

We know a little bit about Chester's response to Grace through her letters.  He accepted her affection enough to get her pregnant before almost totally ignoring her.  She begged and pleaded with him to take responsibility and not be a coward, to come to her parent's house where she was burdened with her secret--his baby--and take her away.  She worried to the point of making herself ill and confessed to fainting when she received a letter from a girl Chester knew, admitting to things that Chester did in Grace's absence.  But it was too late for her to walk away with any dignity.  She needed him to come for her and she desperately wanted him to love her. 

Forget for a moment that life was different for an unwed mother in 1906.  These are things we all long for.  When we have physically, emotionally, and spiritually given all we have to give, we want it to be given back in full measure.  We will be forever incomplete and feel cheated if it's not.

In the surprise of the young century, Chester did show up at Grace's door, told her to pack her bags, and took her away.  You can just bet that everything about that day got instantly brighter for Grace, can't you?  The twinge of morning sickness evaporated.  The shadows on the front lawn, which once seemed so ominous and foreboding, were now merely dappled evidence of the sunshine which was finally going to beat down on her face as she joined her savior on the front stoop, carpetbag in hand, future secure.  I imagine the relief, the feeling of pure joy, that must have seeped through her veins at the sight of him standing there before her.  I imagine the way she must have thrown her arms around his neck and basked for a wonderful moment in the assurance of his love for her. 

They went to a resort in the Adirondacks and stayed in a hotel for the night.  Grace must have assumed he would take her to a chapel or to a Justice of the Peace to marry her quickly and quietly.  But he didn't.  The next day he killed her and dumped her body in Moose Lake.

Tragically, Jonathan lost his life too in a senseless killing.  Not because of David, though.  In fact, we learn in 1 Samuel 20 that David fully reciprocated Jonathan's friendship and loved him just as fiercely.  They often risked their lives for one another and kept each other alive when King Saul would have killed them both.  It was the original bro-mance!  So why did the prophet Samuel, author of his first book, leave us hanging for two whole chapters, wondering at David's response to Jonathan?  Maybe what's left out of the bible can be just as telling as what's left in.  Maybe by leaving David unresponsive, Samuel is giving us a sneak-peak at the coming of a Savior who would give of himself so lavishly, all that would be left would be his naked body, trembling, and dying in front of people who didn't know what to make of Him.  He still evokes a range of responses in us.  Some of us fall on our faces in a twisting anguish of undeserving gratitude.  Some of us weep quietly and make a simple promise to start going to church again.  Sometimes there is no response at all.  He knew this was a risk He was taking but it didn't stop Him from coming and giving everything there was to give.

What's your response?  Are you preoccupied like Chester?  Are you too busy living life, and having fun, and skirting responsibility, and doing things your own way to stop and notice what's already been given to you?  You can stand there with your mouth shut like David in chapter 18 and leave Him hanging.  You can even turn away from it and ignore Him.  That's your right as a human being who was made to choose.  But it's been done so you have to choose one way or the other.

You can choose to respond like Chester did when he dumped his gift in the lake, preferring life without it.  But your choice won't be ignored forever.  Grace was known by the people in Chester's life.  She was missed when she was gone.   The authorities drug the lake and recovered her body.  The truth could not stay hidden and Chester would have to answer for his choice.  He went to trial in a case that captivated America.  Grace's letters were read to the jury and when they heard her plaintive cries for his love, and felt her vulnerability as she sat and waited for him, it moved them to recommend execution for young Chester, who only ever wanted to have fun.  He died by electrocution on March 30, 1908.

Friends, if you think there is nothing more to this life than having a little bit of fun before you die, go ahead.  No one will stop you.  You may not go to the extremes Chester did to cling to that thin thread of independence, but you know your life will one day come to a grinding halt.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe in 70 years.  But know too that you have been given a lavish gift.  Consider it with awe and wonder.  Respond to it.  Reach out to Grace now.  Take its hand, and then let it throw its arms around your neck and say into your ear, "Finally.  I've been waiting for you."



Quotes from Grace's letters come from the book, "A Northern Light" by Jennifer Donnelly.  Information about Chester's execution comes from (I know, I know) Wikipedia.

Lot's Lot In Life

My first college roommate was named Lindsay.  She was tiny, athletic, artistic, had a ton of friends, and was an identical twin.  She was also funny.  One day, while hanging out in our room in Phillips Hall, her sister took a wipe off marker and wrote on the full length mirror that was on the back of our door, "I like to get naked and poop."  It was just good, harmless fun all the time with them because they were, above all, Christians.  I was not at the time and they drove me crazy. 

In 1998 the internet was still relatively new.  I lost my internet virginity in that room in Phillips Hall by signing up for my first ever email account.  Lindsay was much  more worldly than me, and had been online long enough to have an assortment of AOL messenger friends.  She would chat with them at all hours.   I would be laying in bed at 2am and hear the thunder of her fingers on the keys: "dadadadadada."  Followed by the cheerful AOL, "Ding-dong!"  And then she would giggle at the screen, her face glowing white in the otherwise darkness of the room.  At 2-freaking-am!!  It was all I could do to keep myself from pressing my pillow into my face, writhing around on the bed and moaning, "For the love of God, STOP IT, PLEASE!" 


And she had 8am classes and I didn't.  Every morning she was up before me.  I didn't mind that.  But there was something inside one of her drawers that she kept in a walmart bag.  The rustling of that stinking walmart bag at 7:30 am when I didn't have to be up for another hour was enough drive me batty.

But I never said anything. I may not have been a Christian at the time but I was a nice person and I was polite.  She and her perky sister didn't have the market cornered on "nice."  Even us heathens could pull that off.

Before long Lindsay had a boyfriend from third floor Phillips.  It was common knowledge that Lindsay and Nick had never "done it."  I don't know if he was a Christian or not but he respected her enough to hold out for her.  He was incredibly smart.  One of those people that you can just tell will go on to get a masters, or maybe even a Ph.D.  (He had a fondness for Carl Sandburg.  Being an English major, I thought I should too so I bought a book of Sandburg poetry at the college bookstore.  I never even cracked it.  The following year, some of my friends who stayed in touch with his visited the house he shared with several other guys.  I went into his room and saw that he had copied lines from Sandburg's poems with a sharpie on his walls and ceilings.  Out of a book he borrowed from the library.  I had never felt like such a fraud.  Last I heard he was attending a Grad school in Wyoming and was married to a girl named Sadie.)

I had a boyfriend too.  I wish I could say that I took advantage of the wonderful, godly example that God placed in my path.  But I can't.  I threw myself at him like a love-starved teenaged girl and held nothing back.  At the end of the school year, he had already packed up his room and needed a place to sleep.  I said he could sleep in my room (which I had hardly been in since we had met--couldn't stand to be around that holier-than-thou crowd, y'know).  Lindsay put her foot down and said she wasn't comfortable with it.  My boyfriend and I had to unload his car and sleep on the floor in his room instead.  I was so mad at her, I don't think I ever spoke to her again after that.  School ended (and so did our boyfriends) and we moved on and our paths never crossed again.

It's painful for me to dredge up all those memories.  I don't really like who I was then and I can't help but think of the what-if's.  What if I would have let myself be influenced by Lindsay?  How would my college experience and consequently, my life, have changed?  How much shame and regret would I have been spared? 

The reason I am thinking about them this morning is because I have been looking back on Genesis at the completion of my monumental nine month study and the story that haunts me the most is the story of Lot.  He seems like a relatively minor character.  Though he survived the destruction of Sodom, he will forever be remembered for his wife being turned into a pillar of salt and for offering his virgin daughters to the pack of disgusting animals that waited outside his door.  Great legacy, right?

He did have a small portion of faith.  How could he not, having spent so much of his life in the shadow of his uncle, Abraham?  To Lot's credit, he believed the angels who came to warn him about the impending destruction.  Though he had become desensitized to sin after so many years in Sodom, he knew enough of Abraham's God to know that He didn't mess around.  He went to his daughters' fiances (I bet he neglected to mention what he almost did to their future wives) and told them in Genesis 19:14a, "Quick, get out of the city! The Lord is about to destroy it."  The bible doesn't describe Lot's life in sodom but one can pretty well guess how far he had strayed from Abraham's godly influence by the reaction of his future sons-in-law to his terrible news.  "But the young men thought he was only joking," Genesis 19:14b.

After dragging his butt, arguing with the angels, hesitating, and waffling, he barely makes it out.  All he has are his two daughters.  He has influenced no one in Sodom, not even his own family.  He had an opportunity, having lived in a depraved land and having witnessed God move in the life of his uncle, of saving hundreds or thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands.  God would have spared the city for 50 righteous people.  45 righteous people.  40, 30, 20--even 10 righteous people would have saved them all (Genesis 18:24-32).  But Lot's witness was totally wasted.

Well maybe not wasted.  Nothing is wasted, right?  Every word that finds its way into scripture is there to teach us something.  Lot's life made no impact on the world around him but his story still shows us today how a person can be saved and still be useless to God.

Do you see why that haunts me?  I was like Lot back in college and Lindsay was Abraham.  I had been baptized.  I attended church as a child.  I knew God.  He gave me Lindsay to show me and teach me but I was not interested in that.  I wanted Sodom.  That was a time in my life when I was useless to God. 

But it wasn't wasted either.  The story ends well.  I followed that worthless boyfriend around, working where he worked over the summer.  After he dumped me and fell off the face of the earth, I continued working at the same place.  Three years later, near the end of my junior year of college, I was walking back from my lunch break and crossed paths with a handsome security guard with a dark crew cut and light blue eyes.  A year later we were saying, "I do."  Eleven years and three kids later, we are still going strong.

Lot's story ends well too, eventually.  One of his surviving daughters gave birth to Moab, whose family later became the Moabites.  Though they fought with and tormented Abraham's descendants, the Hebrews, all was not lost.  Ruth, grandmother of David, ancestor of Jesus Christ, was a Moabitess.



Friends, how would the people who know you best react if you told them about God?  Would they think you were joking?  Would they laugh in your face?  If so, then something needs to change.  We don't have the same sense of urgency as Lot.  Our world isn't going to end by dawn tomorrow.  But it will end some day.  And what we do with our time here--it matters.  The people we influence for good matters.  Lindsay's influence, though it was not felt at the time, it mattered.  Don't let your witness be wasted and drag your feet when the time comes to follow God out of this world like Lot did.  Who would have followed me if God had spoken to me at that time in my life and told me to warn everyone?  We get to read his story today to learn how to leave behind a better legacy than he did.  Take advantage of it.  You never know how your life will make an impact.

Taking a Risk

I've never been what one would call a risk taker.  Except for when I was an ignorant kid who couldn't see my future past the end of my nose.

I did a lot of my growing up years in a small town with a very busy highway running alongside it.

One day when I was about 16 years old I found myself in an old beat up S-10 pick-up truck sandwiched between two guy friends, who, one can only assume, had nothing to lose.  On a quiet little road that crossed the highway, the driver got the sudden brilliant idea to floor it and race across the intersection without stopping.  I held on to the rickety dashboard for dear life, envisioning for a split second what it would look like for us to get side-swiped by a car going 65 miles per hour.  Another split second later, we were safely on the other side and the two guys laughed like idiots and high-fived each other.  Pretty much an idiot myself and not wanting them to know I nearly soiled myself, I probably laughed too.




I took other risks too.  Risks with my heart, with my soul, and with my reputation.  It is only by God's grace that none of these risks resulted in consequences that lasted a lifetime (except for one garish and regrettable tattoo that still makes me cringe when I look at it).

I think it's interesting that I was so willing to take a risk when I so proudly (and foolishly) boasted that I was the only one looking out for me.  Now that I know God, and I know that He made me, He has plans for me, and He'll never forsake me, the thought of taking a risk makes me break out into a cold sweat.

When my husband was unemployed for just a few short days, the thought of not making a house payment, losing the house, and (horrors!) having to change school districts struck such fear in my heart that I found myself weeping in the arms of my pastor's wife who I needed at that moment to quiet my fears and reassure me that this would not, in fact, be the end of the world.

When did I turn into such a wimp?  I think it happened when I became a slave to the false hope of worldly security and personal comfort.  God gave me this gift of my life, not so that I could pursue home ownership and full retirement accounts.  He put me here to do big things.  Risky things.

And time is running out:

"Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.  Remind me that my days are numbered--how fleeting my life is....  My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.  We are all moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.  We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it.  And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?  My only hope is in you."  Psalm 39:4-7

It's true, when you believe in God, you know that this life is not all there is.  But you also have a responsibility to make this life count for something.  I can't do that if I'm going to be a wimp and cling so tightly to security and comfort that I miss the opportunity to take a risk.