i am thankful for...

My goal was to list 10 things but I came up with far more than that.

* A wonderful home away from home and a family stand-in. Thanks to the Harris'.
* Spending Thanksgiving day on Beck Lake at The Andersons' cozy log cabin. The setting was amazing. There are a total of 3 or 4 houses on this fairly large lake and none of them visible from their cabin. The lake was frozen over with a couple inches of snow on top. I always wanted to walk out into the middle of a lake and Thanksgiving day I got to do that. The house was full of friends: new and not-so-new. The food was scrumptious. I remember sitting in a rocking chair by the big picture window, just observing: Jeff and Cassie sitting on the sofa looking at the Alaska picture book; Laura, Judy and Kris in the kitchen cooking and getting ready; Ian sleeping in another rocking chair with Kodiak at his feet; Al, Glen and Ron out in the sunroom/entry, more than likely talking about guy-things; a couple others round the eggnog bowl; and still a couple others in the cozy upstairs tv room watching a movie; then the phone rang. It was my family calling me from Topeka, Kansas. It was a classic Alaskan Thanksgiving. Yet another postcard moment. Click the picture for a slideshow of some of my favorite pics from that day.
* Walk the Line, a movie about love - a man's love for music, and his relentless attempt at pleasing his dad, but mostly about a woman's love for her man. The depth of June's love for Johnny hit me hard. She loved him through the really hard stuff, the stuff that's ugly and hard. She gently pushed him into it and she pressed into it with him.
* The time available to spend several cathartic hours (nearly all night) by the fire, feet propped on the hearth, afghan in my lap, hot tea in my hand, Celtic Christmas music softly playing in the background, two dogs at my feet, nothing to think about but my date. There's something quietly restorative about sitting for hours, listening to the "snap, crackle, pop" of a wood fire and just being present. Letting him tell me that this is all he wants for me - a life of quiet contentment in my heart, and that I can have that with him.
* Pollo and Raphie - Apollo, the 9 year old, 90 lb Boxer and Raphael, the Whippet puppy - who have lent my heart much joy this weekend and without whom my feet would be cold.
* Sleeping 'til 11am and not scraping my lazy self from the bed until 11:30 or so.
* Having a nice, extended break from school.
* Man from Snowy River marathons. Thanksgiving night, after we got back from the Lake us girls all gathered together to watch The Man from Snowy River and Return to Snowy River - two of the greatest movies ever. They've always been some favorites of mine. I would love to live a cowboy's lifestyle: saddling up one of many horses and riding through the mountains whenever I feel like it, spending nights by the bonfire with strangers - either them at your's or you at their's, living a romantic life.
* Family meals around the table, night after night. This is something I have missed in my life lately.
* The snow. Thick blankets of white, beautiful, elegant snow coating the ground.
* In about 3 weeks I will get to see my family and friends back home. I can't wait! I just have to get through finals... I'm not too worried though.
* Friends - current and past, those I have met and those I haven't yet. You have all left footprints on my heart and changed me in some way.
* Tomorrow I get to make my famous, special-recipe green bean casserole. Mmm-mmm good!
* That I get to live here, in this beautiful place and study God. I said it before, I will say it again I get to live in a postcard and I can't get over it. God blesses me daily through his creation.
* Books like God Thinks You Are Wonderful and You are Special by Max Lucado. Read them!
* Getting back to campus last night I realized how much I missed everyone and hugged everyone I saw. And when several people told me they missed me too my heart was warmed!
* Lotion. It's rather shallow maybe but not to me. It's very dry here. And without lotion I would be just one huge chunk of cracked and bleeding skin.

My friend has this quote on her blog and I love it, so I am stealing it. Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. ~ Garrison Keillor

a date made in heaven...

I had a date last night. It was not just any date; it was THEE date. It was perfect. It was surprisingly simple yet impossibly romantic and extraordinarily intimate. We sat for hours, sometimes speaking, sometimes not. I sat there by the crackling fire, feet propped on the hearth, in a rocking chair, afghan on my lap, hot tea in my hand, two dogs at my feet, Christmas music softly playing in the background, as thick, heavy snowflakes came gently drifting down from Heaven piling in thick white blankets all around.

He started off sitting across from me. We talked. We strolled down memory lane. I told him about dates I had been on in the past. I recounted those that happened before I lost myself, my innocence, while I was still untainted. I told him how those were the dates I missed the most - effortless and pure, lacking in self-doubt. And he told me how he'd been out with a prostitute or two and how deeply he loved both of them despite what his friends thought. I told him of some favorite childhood memories: how we, as a family, used to gather in the family room on snowy nights around the wood-burning stove and all sleep there together, cozy and warm; how we'd all pile in the car and drive to Truman State Park and go sledding. He told me how he and his friends would have water fights all the time; how he would playfully tease his mom; and how he worked with his dad in the family business.

While the conversations were nice and easy, it was the comfortable silences we shared, when we were just "being" together, that the most was said. I would start thinking to myself that I didn't want the night to end and he would look at me with knowing eyes, as if to say It doesn't have to, Love. I would think to myself that I could see spending all my tomorrows with him. One glance from him and he quietly told me I want to be a part of all your memories. I thought to myself how I wished I could erase all the memories from all those other guys. Then I could feel him telling me If you let me love you, you'll never think about them again. I would start thinking how I felt out-of-place, out of my league, in his presence. As if on queue, he would squeeze my hand as if to say Shhh. You are here with me because I sought you; I pursued you. And I love you.

He started off the evening sitting across from me. Throughout our time together last night he got a little bit closer. By the end of the night he was in my heart. Forever.

i love you...

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeign there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

~Roy Croft~

This is one of my favorite poems, if not the favorite. I like it because it can be written for a friend or a lover. But I like to read it like I am reading it to Jesus.

iirpak...

I have been given an Eskimo name. It's iirpak, pronounced ik-bok. I know it's not spelled like it's pronounced but it is spelled correctly. It's the Inupiat Eskimo word for Big Eyes. Harvey, one of the other students here, said to me one day, "You have big beautiful eyes. I am going to call you "Iirpak" from now on." And some days he does and some days he doesn't. I just feel honored that I was given an Eskimo name so soon. Others have been in Alaska their whole lives and have never received one.

more myself now than ever...

I was just rereading some old posts and came across this one. It's from August 11th. Just a few short days before I got the call to come to Alaska. It's interesting to read it now and see just how "depressed" and down I was at the time - unfulfilled, hopeless, purposeless, empty. Man how things have changed! It was just a week later that I applied to ACC and then another short week after that that I made the long move up North. I can't fully describe the fulfillment I have experienced these past few months.

Hosea 2:6-7 says, "Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now." God led me to a place of intense dissatisfaction and an overwhelming desire for something more, a yearning for him. And then he gave me the desires of my heart - to live in Alaska and to go to Bible College where I could immerse myself in him and root myself more deeply in him. He is my husband in this verse. I love that verse! I can see how God has done this in my own life. That verse has really come alive for me since I've been here.

The posts from then compared to now are different. They seem to be more uplifting now; but I feel more uplifted now than I did then so I guess it makes perfect sense.

It's occurred to me that my journey here has been a long time in the making. The desire for adventure that I have I remember having as a little girl. I began climbing the ladder to the roof where my dad was working at no more than 4 or 5 years old probably. I would dig in the creek parallel to our house for crawdads. When we went to Colorado on vacation I remember feeling I belonged there, on top of Pike's Peak. I was not a girlie girl by any means, at least not that I remember, my dad might tell you different, I don't know. But I don't think I was a girlie girl. I am not one now either. I prefer sweatshirts and jeans to frilly tops with lace and flowers. I prefer the outdoors to shopping. I prefer the smell of a campfire to room freshener. I prefer the crackling of a fire to the tv blaring. All of these things have been a part of who I am for a long time. God gave me these desires for a reason. And God arranged the time that these desires would be fulfilled. For a time such as this. I desired this for so long that it makes the blessing of it having been fulfilled that much sweeter now. I am more myself now than I have ever been.

And, really, hasn't that been God's plan all along?

just loosen your shirt a little...

So last night I went to "Home Group" - once a month the students split into groups and go to the homes of different staff people for dinner and dessert and to play games and such. Last night I went to my favorite professor's place, Scott Pitsch. We ate some caribou lasagna and corn souffle and settled in for a game of Worst Case Scenario. The gist of it is that you are given a scenario and then you're given three options, a, b or c, to get out of the situation and you pick the best one depending on what each option is. They could all be correct, you just pick which one's the best. We split up in teams: Scott and Sarah and I; Louisa, Andrea, and Mikala; Trinity, Cameron and Lindsey. It's my team's turn and Krista, Scott's wife, reads the card:

To best prepare for a plane crash into water you should, a - loosen your shirt a little and prepare for two jolts, one when the nose hits and one when the tail hits; b - put your hand on your seatbelt so that when the plane hits you're ready to get out since there's limited time to evacuate; or c - protect your head from windows breaking under the pressure of the water.

We discuss it amongst ourselves and decide that c is probably the best, who wants little shards of glass imbedded in your head when you're trying to escape from a plane crash in the middle of a large body of water before it sinks? Well, we were wrong. The answer is a - just loosen your shirt a little. Good to know. When I am in a plane crash all I need to remember is to loosen my shirt and I will be fine. "Attention passengers, this is your Pilot speaking. We regret to inform you that we will have to make a crash landing into water. Please loosen your shirts." What does that mean?

some things i've been digesting today...

By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the Land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah - from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities - and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:23-26.)

I am 28 years old. In the 28 years I have breathed the air I have faced hardships and endured sufferings. My past is a past full of shame, full of pain, full of anger, bitterness, and trials. Trials of all kinds: of the heart, of faith, of life in general. Like Lot's wife I so often find myself turning around and looking back on what lies behind me. Chaos. Despair. Anguish. Desperation. Insecurity. Grief. Deep heartache. Longing. SIN! Mere survival. I focus on what I've been through and from where I've come instead of where I am headed and instead of focusing on the Promise I've been given. I should be a pile of salt, so big it would remind you of the columns found in old Roman architecture.

This promise I have been given is so much greater than the sum of all the pain of my past. Why do I not ALWAYS see the value in it, in my future? Why do I get so hung up on past hurts that I can't see the healing? Why do I focus on the wounding and on the injury rather than on the surgery that the Great Physician has performed on my life? When will I realize that there is nothing for me back there but just ugly reminders of an even uglier past?

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ACC's Board has been on campus this week and has board meetings all weekend. They have worshipped with us and we have taken communion together. It's been a wonderful week just getting to know the 20 or so people that serve on our school's board. All very wonderful people! Just today one of them was sharing about a man that robbed a bank for $6000. He went to jail or had some other fateful demise but the gun he used to rob the bank went to a museum. It had been made in 1918 and was a very rare weapon and was now worth $100k. How ironic, eh? He unfortunately did not see the value of what he already had in his possession and instead sought elsewhere to fill a need and in return what he got was far less valuable. And such is the way of the human condition.

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At the end of the movie The Notebook, Ryan Gosling's character Noah and Rachel McAdam's character Allie, are talking about their relationship.

Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fightin'!
Young Noah: Well that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Young Allie: So what?
Young Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now? What's it look like? If it's with him, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.

Noah is talking about marriage and how you can't be afraid to draw out of the other their faults and push their buttons a little bit, to force them to press into things that might be a little difficult at first but that will produce growth in them more than anything else. Not only do you grow each other but you love each other even in those "pain-in-the-ass" moments.

It occurred to me that of course marriage was and is God's idea. He created it as a model of Christ's relationship with the church. Just like Noah, Christ is not afraid of bringing out those things in us that require our attention. He's willing to say those things knowing that we have the option of walking away from him. But why would we? He loves us even in the moments when we're being difficult and if we let him he will show us when those moments are.

I read an excerpt from Sacred Marriage, a book by Gary L. Thomas, and in it he poses the question, "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" I think it is designed to make us holy and face the "bitter juice" as Gary calls it. We have to own up to our disappointments and ugly attitudes, and confront our selfishness and a marriage relationship can help us do that, just as Christ helps us in the same way.

Now, I am not married, so I have no inside scoop, so to speak, on what it's like to be married. I just found the excerpt that I read insightful and kind of fitting with the few lines from the movie. I want to be married one day and know that it won't be easy. It will be hard work, there will be tough times and at some point one or both of us will want out. But I also know that the commitment of staying together will be worth it in the end. I have my mom and dad's relationship, and then my dad's relationship with my stepmother, as a physical model of this. There have indeed been trials in both relationships but all agreed to see it through and they're stronger for it.

There have been and are and will continue to be trials in my relationship with my Groom. There have been times when I wanted to walk away and throw my hands in the air in frustration. But I haven't. And I have come out stronger. Thank you Jesus for loving me that much! I love you too!

"we can talk about normality 'til the cows come home..."

"What is normal?" "What is home?" "What are cows?"

Okay, so I saw Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy last night. Hilarious movie by the way... But I have one question... What's with the towels? I just don't understand the big deal about Ford and Arthur always keeping the towels with them. Can someone explain this to me please?

I think I am going to have to read the book and then watch the movie again for the full effect. I have heard that helps one understand the whole thing.

Also, for some reason, my favorite character was Marvin. "Life! Don't talk to me about life."

"so long and thanks for all the fish, so sad that it has come to this..."

prayer requests...

Look for my prayer requests in the sidebar. I will update them there periodically.

pictures from trip to Anchorage last weekend...

I finally figured out the slideshow feature on flickr. So click on the picture below for the slideshow. Truly evidence of God's glory here... Enjoy! And yes, I get to live in one big, giant postcard. Aren't you jealous?