I love beginnings. I love new journals and the feeling of starting a new planner. I love the possibility of something new, and the beautiful organization of starting at the beginning and working sequentially through something.
This month, I’ve decided to tap back into the creative roots that once upheld me, and to do so by beginning to writing poetry again. It’s a practice I haven’t done regularly since college (hashtag: English major) and certainly not one I’ve ever done more publicly than in my own classroom back when I taught creative writing.
Everything in me wishes this inspiration would have struck me on August 1st, so the challenge of writing a poem a day for a month could be neatly tucked within the 31 days of August. But, it didn’t. It struck me last night and has held onto me all day. I could wait until September begins, but I know I would lose whatever prompting to capture life now is, well, prompting me. I would miss this, whatever this is and whatever this will be. I could write these quietly, privately, and maybe some days I will. But tonight, I’m inviting you in: to August 9th, and to join me in a practice of presence for the next season of life. I would love to read your words, if you would be willing to share them as a gift in the comments below or via email.
Instead, I sat next to my best friend in Alaska and wept as she held my credit card and booked me a flight back to the Lower 48. I read and re-read the news articles that confirmed my worst fear. I deliriously walked circles around the village at 2 AM, and again at 4 AM, in the near-24-hours of summer sunlight. I wrote last minute goodbye letters while my laundry tumbled in the dryer. At one point that night, I knelt on Heather’s living room floor and sorted my belongings into three piles:
Books to ship to Colorado.
Clothes and gear to pack back into my suitcases.
Things that didn’t fit in my suitcases to burn.
Everything seemed surreal as panic attacks and and waves of uncontrollable crying washed over me. The text I’d gotten at exactly midnight that night had undone me entirely. It was the text that brought my time in Alaska to a close two weeks earlier than I’d anticipated and put me on a plane to Iowa to be with my “adoptive” family after an unexpected death.
In my final hours in Port Alsworth, I walked outside with my arms full of my “burn pile”– clothes that had been loved-to-death in Alaska, odds and ends that wouldn’t fit in my luggage, and books I couldn’t pawn off on anyone– and I threw them in a burn barrel. With tears streaming out of the corners of my eyes and freezing on my cheeks, I lit my torch and touched it to the items I loved. I watched the fibers of my once-favorite sweater smolder burgundy, then blue. I touched the flame to the corners of a few books that protruded from the side of the pile. As the wind shifted, the small fires slowly melded together to form one giant flame. I stood there mesmerized by the fire, overcome by another wave of panic and grief. I’m leaving Alaska. Today. This can’t be happening. This wasn’t supposed to end like this.
It really wasn’t. I’d planned to leave Alaska just before Memorial Day with a girlfriend of mine. She’d bought a car in Anchorage and I’d bought a map of Canada off of Amazon. We’d planned to road trip from Anchorage, down through western Canada, to Seattle. We had dreams of adventure and excitement, photo ops, camp outs, audiobooks and a lot of awkward car dancing. Kathryn and I had traced our route not three days before; we had a plan, but it seemed that God had another. And honestly, I hated this plan of His…
That’s all I could think as I stood there staring at the flame that had now engulfed my belongings, slowly turning them into a pile of ash and embers.
I don’t know how long I stood there in a trance watching that fire. All I know is that a text from the friend who’d arranged my flight into Anchorage snapped me out of my delirium: You need to leave earlier than planned. ASAP. The weather’s getting worse. Can you come now?
I hugged the few people I crossed paths with on my way through the village. When I got to the plane, I huddled under its wing with the few friends and members of my team who’d gotten the memo of my earlier-than-early departure. We cried and prayed and hugged, and before I knew what hit me, the plane was wheels up, flying out of Port Alsworth while I ugly cried in the back seat. Thick fog hid the blue glacial water that my heart loved so much. When I looked back to see my Alaskan home for what felt like the last time, all I could see was a thin column of black smoke coming from the burn barrel that once held my belongings.
It’s probably the combination of sleep deprivation, shock, confusion, over-caffeination, grief, and loss, but most everything I remember from May 21st seems enlarged and uber traumatic– as if I survived a wildfire instead of an unceremonial burning of a few of my belongings and an unexpected move. And most of this summer was colored by that day and metaphor.
Months later, I sat with my roommate in Denver and sobbed. “I just feel like I’m on fire all the time… And ya know what sucks?! Even in the rare moments when I don’t actively feel like I’m on fire, I feel like I could spontaneously combust at any moment. I’m ready to stop grieving and crying and feeling all of these feelings. I’m sick of it. I’m done.”
“God’s refining you, Kace. I know you’re sick of this season, but from the outside I can see the ways He’s working and it’s beautiful… even if it hurts and is a little bit, okay a lot, like He’s refining you with fire. ”
For months I’ve fought situational depression to feel more like myself and less like a pile of smoldering ashes left behind after a wildfire. And oooooh some days it has felt like I would never be myself again.
But in God’s infinite grace and goodness, He provided an opportunity (and the airline miles/funds) that allowed me to return to Port Alsworth this last week over my fall break to surprise the ones I love there so dearly.
This time around there were tears of joy as I said an unexpected hello instead of tears of sadness as we said an unexpected goodbye. I warmed my hands over campfires with friends instead of crying over burning belongings. At one in the morning, I stood on Heather’s guest bed next to her and looked out the window for the Northern Lights instead of sobbing on her floor as she booked me a flight to Iowa. There was simply so much sweetness and redemption in Him allowing me to spontaneously return to Port Alsworth.(I’m still overwhelmed by the way He loves me and cares about the simple desires of my heart.)
As I left Alaska on Saturday, a friend of mine (completely unaware of my five-month wildfire analogy) pressed a tiny packet of seeds into my palm and simply said, “You’ve said you feel like God is calling you to plant a garden and stay a while in Denver, right? Maybe that garden needs some Alaskan fireweed…”
I smiled and flipped the seed packet over in my hand. As I read the bold print on the back, I knew in an instant that she couldn’t have been more correct given what that little packet said:
Alaskan Fireweed
(Chamerion Angustifolium)
Alaskan fireweed is often seen as a symbol of life and rebirth in the Alaskan Native culture. Fireweed is often one of the first plants to grow in the ashes after wildfires in Alaska.
The Lord is faithful to bring beauty from ashes, even when His timeline is so clearly not my own. He is faithful to work all things for His glory and the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28)– Trial and sanctification by wildfire, transition, death, and grief included.
After all, there is nothing too permanent for the Lord to redeem, too far out of His reach or too big for Him to handle, or too burnt out to revive.
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and ostriches for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.”
It had been a long, emotionally-charged week and it dawned on me that somehow it was only Tuesday evening.
At that point, the majority of my belongings were already packed and I was sitting on a sofa that wasn’t mine in a house that I have considered my home for well over a year.
The mixed emotions of leaving and staying, investing and moving on, packing my home while I unpacked my classroom for a month more at the Denver Street School were making me even crazier than I usually feel. I tried to quiet my mind and focus on spending time with Jesus, but my brain continued to eavesdrop on my roommates’ conversation about some tv show in the front room. I pulled my headphones out of my bag, shoved them in my ears, and flipped open to a new page in my journal, fully intending to word-vomit at the foot of the Cross– something I’m a professional at.
As I traced my pen around the edge of my journal, my brain spun in a different direction.
Two days before, we had read Psalm 50 in church, and as I sat with my Bible balancing atop my knees, I heard verses 10-12 in my pastor’s voice ringing in my head:
“For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are Mine.”
“There is no sacrifice that you could give God that He needs. He does not require anything of us except an offering– a sacrifice of thanksgiving, verse 14 tells us.” I replayed Brian’s sermon yet again in my mind.
Lord, I know you don’t require my sacrifice, but I want to give it all for you. I mean, I’m leaving everything here in Denver to follow you. Do you even give a rip?? What kind of God would call someone to follow them and then say that they need nothing? Not even my love? What does sacrifice look like if it’s not something I tangibly give up? Is that even a sacrifice at all?
I sat on the couch and scribbled furiously in my journal as wave after wave of confusion and emotion washed over me. A conglomeration of this summer’s Psalms sermons all came to mind at once.
He doesn’t need our sacrifice; He doesn’t need our love. But not because He is uncaring, no. He doesn’t need our love or admiration because He is already complete. He is all powerful. All knowing. He is the God that delights in us– the one who sings over us and mends the broken hearts that we bring and sacrifice to Him.
As I sat and wrestled, unsure of what sacrifice looked like– in my life and just in general, my Spotify shuffled and Adoleo’s new song came on.
“My God, I seek you; I solely thirst for you. Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You. Like a treasure in the field, I’ll sell everything. To find You, to find that You’re worth everything. For you are my treasure and none compares with you. Your love is greater than all else I run to.”
As I took in the lyrics and haunting melody, I flipped to Matthew 13– “The Parable of the Field” that Emily was singing about in my headphones.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
(Matthew 13:44)
Lord, I’m selling everything. Well, technically I’m putting it all in storage.. but You get the point. What are You trying to show me with this? I am sacrificing for You, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I feel like there’s something else that I’m supposed to see here…
I sat in semi-annoyed silence, my pen paused on my journal. And from the weird, deep Spirit place inside my brain, it came:
I am the one who sacrificed for you. You are my treasure– the one I sing over– the one for whom I am so jealous that I gave up everything I had and came for you– dying on the cross. I gave up my throne. I gave up perfect unity within Myself and I came for you. And not only did I come for you, but I came in Joy and bought you at the highest price. Because I love you.
After a week of meditating, wrestling, and praying through the way the Lord flipped this parable on its head for me, I have realized that it is true.
My sacrifices are not in vain; no, He see’s my sacrifice and He sings over it. Not because He needs it, but because He acknowledges my paltry offerings as the most that I think I can give and He loves them because He loves me. Unconditionally.
He sees my heart that is breaking as I say my good-byes and pack my favorite belongings back into boxes to be put back into storage for the umpteenth time in the last eight years.
He sees me and He sees you.
He knows what sacrifices we are making and yet even in the midst of those sacrifices, He reminds us– begs us to remember that all He wants is our hearts: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a repentant heart. O Lord, You will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)
May we lay down our hearts today as we lay plans and dream dreams because God will not despise or shun our hearts if we are offering them up to Him.
He knows we are imperfect; He knows we will probably always strive to please Him and be caught up in the web of trying to work out our salvation in good deeds and sacrifices. None of that surprises Him and none of that could cause Him to look down on us or stray from His steadfast love.
The steadfast love that caused Him to give His life for us– to call us His treasure.
You are His treasure. I am His treasure.
Do you hear that?!
He came for us, died for us, and in His unbelievable power raised Himself from death to come back for us once more.
May we remember that today and live out of the truth of Love.
Two weekends ago I spent my Saturday carefully planting the beautiful plants that I’ve had growing in our dining room since March. My garden this year had grown to be my pride and joy.
I watered it and rotated every pot, every morning to ensure each plant was getting sun in the fickle Colorado spring. I replanted things when they got crowded. But eventually my vegetables got to a point where they simply needed to move into new soil in the great outdoors. I dutifully checked the long-term weather forecast and saw nothing but sun and rain for the foreseeable future. Seemingly the perfect time to plant.
And so, I tilled the soil and planted everything in the cute little garden plot in our yard.
For a week, everything flourished. My veggies seemed happy with the rain and sun and their new room.
And then freaking Colorado weather happened and last Saturday a slushy snow storm blew through. Tuesday night, I stood by the garden fence and surveyed my mostly smushed, dead garden and dramatically thought: Seems about right.
It seems about right because there’s so much about the end of this season that simply feels like a death has occurred, or rather is occurring. Slowly.
My sweet high school girls whom I have spent months (with some, years) winning over, have spontaneously turned into waterfalls in the last week. They hug me goodbye at the end of classes and school days with tears in their eyes because we both know that I won’t be at DSS for much longer.
My heart has felt like it’s shattering into a million pieces as I’ve slowly begun to pack up my classroom, write graduation speeches for kids I’ve been with for four plus years, and sign yearbooks urging kids to follow Jesus… and this blog to keep in touch. (Hashtag: Shameless plugs. Oh well.)
But work isn’t the only place where I feel death occurring.
No. I feel death sneaking into the depths of my heart when I look at my best friends, my roommates, and my wonderful church. When I hear about the weddings that I’ll be missing while in Alaska or see the bumps that I know will bear babies when I’m 2,500 miles away.
These are the moments when I feel death in the midst of such happiness and newness.
It sounds obnoxiously dramatic, I know. But it is death because with each of these wonderful life giving sights or event invitations, I have to die to myself.
I have to die to my career and identity as a teacher at the Denver Street School, and with that death comes the laying to rest of the giggles and fighting with the girls who both feed my soul and suck the life out of me…somehow all at the same time.
I have to die to the false notion that I’m somehow protecting my girls by being a physical presence in their lives. I have to die to my control issues and mom-brain, and the fact that even when they are cussing me out or throwing things at me, that I absolutely love my students from the bottom of my little breaking heart.
I have to die to my desire to be in the same state as one of my best friends after being on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean for a year.
I have to let some dreams die and be obedient to the calling that Christ has put in front of me. The calling to lay down my life as I know it, pick up my cross, and follow Him.
It’s been a wrestle, for sure. This process has (re)exposed just how much of a control freak I am underneath my easy-breezy hippie attitude.
I feel like I count the cost of following Jesus daily. In fact, I feel like there’s a small part of my brain that is constantly keeping a running tabulation of just how great the cost of moving to Alaska seems to be.
Some days the cost seems far too high. Those are the days when I dig my heels in, refusing to go to God, let alone want to follow Him anywhere. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to die to myself. I want to live the wonderful life that I claim to have made on my own. I want to stay and grow and keep my feet firmly planted in the Colorado soil.
But some days (few and far between as they may feel lately) God has my head screwed on correctly and He gives me the strength to lay everything down before Him and sing the Rend Collective song that is almost always playing in the back of my head.
“I’m saying yes to You
And no to my desires
I’ll leave myself behind
And follow You
I’ll walk the narrow road
‘Cause it leads me to You
I’ll fall but grace
Will pick me up again
I’ve counted up the cost
Oh, I’ve counted up the cost
Yes, I’ve counted up the cost
And You are worth it
I do not need safety
As much as I need You
You’re dangerous
But Lord, You’re beautiful
I’ll chase You through the pain
I’ll carry my cross
‘Cause real love
Is not afraid to bleed
I’ve counted up the cost
Oh, I’ve counted up the cost
Yes, I’ve counted up the cost
And You are worth it
Sing with me now
I’ve counted up the cost
Oh, I’ve counted up the cost
Yes, I’ve counted up the cost
And You are worth it
Take my all
Jesus, take my all
Take my everything
I’ve counted up the cost
And You’re worth everything
I’ve counted up the cost
Oh, I’ve counted up the cost
Yes, I’ve counted up the cost And You are worth it“
As the song says, “I’ll fall, but Grace will pick me up again.” I don’t need to be perfect.Thank God.
And you don’t need to be perfect either.
If there’s one thing that God is teaching me right now, it’s that following Him and choosing to die to ourselves is an everyday choice– an everyday struggle. Sometimes it hurts like hell and you cry a lot. But His mercies are new every morning.
As followers of Christ, we are called to die to ourselves and our desires. And trust me, this death stings like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Jesus knows… (Literally.)
On the days when I’m struggling to lay down my life and my loved ones, sobbing in coffee shops, or just generally fighting Jesus tooth and nail, He brings me to a place of quiet consideration that He gets it. He died. For me. For you.
So even when I’m bitter and soggy, I’m learning to consider myself thankful that I have a Savior who provided the ultimate example of what it looks like to lay down your life for the flourishing of another.
Jesus was obedient and faithful to the plan that God laid before Him, even though it was more difficult than I can even begin to fathom. He was obedient even unto death on a cross, Philippians 2:8 tells us.
Laying down your life probably doesn’t look like moving across the country to a tiny village in Alaska. (If it does, we should definitely chat…)
No, I don’t know what laying down your life and dying to your desires looks like for you today, but Jesus does. And I urge you to reach out to Him for the strength to do so. Just as He is trying so hard to teach me to do.
Death sucks, but it’s necessary. After all, we cannot experience the beauty of resurrection and new life of Christ if we do not first experience death.
(And I know, because I know, because I know that Goodness and life and joy is just round some corner… Both here in Denver and eventually 2,500 miles away. But I also know that it’s okay to mourn and weep in the changing of seasons because we also have a Savior who wept.)
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith– that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain resurrection from the dead.”
Louise in the Light 