gratitude and longing

Dearest friends,

Before I begin my first post, I just have to say thank you for inviting me into the blog community. You all are so dear to me, for so many different reasons each of you. And I'm priveleged to get to keep up with you this summer.

I spent the last few days with the fantastical Ashley Miller. We began our journey late sunday night, and drove pretty much through the entire night down to Lancaster. In separate cars, mind you. It was not an easy journey, staring at the back of Ashley's tiny red car in the dark, wishing I was sitting next to her so we could celebrate sights like ferris wheels along the highway, and dig into the well of each others' thoughts after ending such a full semester.

We ended up talking on the phone so that helped accomplish such things. :) And we both agreed how terribly difficult it is to process and reflect on things while driving alone. It seems like such a great environment for that, but inevitably you sink into the mode of watching the white lines in front of you and allowing your thoughts to bounce all over the place without finding somewhere to settle.

My time in PA was far surpassing of any expectations. Not only did I get to see Philadelphia, but I got to walk practically the entire length of the city with a great friend by my side, meet some cool new people, sit on a street corner eating ice cream, and come back to Lancaster to pick strawberries and hang out with the Millers and company. I even got to see Hannah Becker's lovely home and friends! Such a treat.

On the drive home from Lancaster last night (en route to my mom's in NJ), my heart was heavy with a mixture of deep gratitude and sorrowful longing.

First, the gratitude: The only word that even slightly encapsulates the praise I owe for how much God has done in my life. For how richly he has blessed me, how far he has taken me, how clearly he has moved in my heart and my world, particularly since coming to Gordon. He's taken me from a position of isolation to one of community that I had never known before. And to the point of overflowing: I can't even make sense of how extravagently faithful he has been through the gift of relationship- authentic, real, Christ-loving relationship. And with models of this relationship in friendships and in marraiges and in families like the Millers, and the Strauss's and the Curtis's and the Andersons at Gordon...

Then, the longing: A longing to see those I care about in Virginia and New Jersey come to know the same fullness of life in Christ. I look at the lives of people like my older brother Matt, an atheist since my parents split 12 years ago, and my best friend Erica, caught up in an empty lifestyle of drunkenness- and I long for them to share in the joy and truth that I've come to know.

I think I haven't been grieved enough about these things, and many, many more things. I don't think I've spent much time being broken over the brokenness of my own family and friends, because I've been afraid for what that actually means.

Yesterday I brought these things before God, with a lot of tears of frustration, wanting so badly to finally hand the most stubborn, long-standing circumstances over to him in faith, but feeling incapable of doing so. It's as if the things that matter most to us, we are afraid to pray for because we are afraid of ultimately being disappointed.

So, if you could pray for me, it would be for the ability to pray for people like Matt and Erica, and many more family and friends and broken circumstances for the first time. Believing that just as He intervened so surprisingly in my life many years ago, he can do the same in these.

Also, as I tried to explain to Ashley yesterday, it's such an encouragement to see the community that she and others have at home. Yet it's so easy to then compare this to my "community" of friends and family at home, and to be aware of how different the culture is, how challenging and lonely it can feel, and how sometimes I (pridefully) fall back into thinking it's "me against the world" and feeling all sorry for myself.

I guess my prayer shouldn't be that I find all sorts of new, cool, Jesus-loving people at home, but that I return this time with more strength and courage to face the same patterns of living with a counter-cultural love. With the courage to continue loving people to the best of my abilities, even though sometimes I get discouraged and fail at that. (of course, I only fail when I'm doing it in my own strength).

Okay, I should stop blabbing. Thanks for reading, and I hope I didn't share too much (wrong: see, that's my isolation-self talking). I love all of you.

Today I'm going to work in my mom's vegetable garden. We are planting seeds this morning!!!! :) Brocolli and string beans here I come!!

I really do thank God for all of you.

Neens