However long & hard I strive, I will never arrive.

I listen to podcasts almost daily while I do chores or drive.  Sometimes, I have to pause, dry my hands, and take notes.  But lately, with blogger Edie Wadsworth's new "Grace Talks," my notes turn into full on self-evaluation sessions.

In Edie's "The Life You Love Manifesto," she describes our Life of Faith as a life of receiving, not of doing.  She lingers on the point that "we bring nothing to the table except sin and despair" and every good thing at the table is from God.  I look back on each guilt-generating seminar and self-help book that I have raved, craved, and prayed over and am finally comforted.  Truth that I already knew rings truer.  Peace sweeps over me.  God brings grace; grace leads us to hope because it grants righteousness.  On my own, I am not righteous.  Nothing I could ever do will ever change my status- neither of my two statuses:

1) I am totally bad.

2) He makes me totally good.

Edie shares her personal experience (I hang on the wise words of older godly women) of trying trying trying for years and years to get it right, stuck in the endless cycle of spent energy and guilt.  I am so there, my friends.  I have created and renovated self-improvement lists, habit-breaking strategies, and personal schedules for which there is not enough time in the day.  No matter how long and hard I try, I will never arrive.  The more likely scenario is that I will spend another decade striving, failing, and guilt-ridden, possibly bound for the stress that beautiful and redeemed writer Ann Voskamp once felt when she wrote,

“I wake to... the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always, the failing. I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning the toilets. I live tired. Afraid. Anxious. Weary. Years, I feel it in the veins, the pulsing of ruptured hopes. Would I ever be enough, find enough, do enough?"  

We can spend our lives on earth lamenting that we cannot reach godliness not realizing that, when we see Him in heaven, we will more so lament not having fully experienced the freedom and rest that He offered while we were still on earth.  Oswald Chambers so beautifully describes the "delight of despair" you will feel at the moment when you fall prostrate, as John did in Revelation 1:17-18, and Jesus touches your shoulder,

"You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father... it is an ineffable peace... full of sustaining comfort and strength.  Once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again."  

In this mortal life, we should not expect to continually feel the utter fullness of His patient love- for we cannot remove ourselves from the context of our earthly circumstances and daily conditions constrained by our mortal needs and faults, surrounded by the devastating faults of others, and filled with sympathy or sorrow (Bernard of Clairvaux). But, when we see Him, we will be given understanding.  We can delight here and now in believing that moment will come.  I choose to fall into that happy rest that he offers now.  I will put forth effort, but I will not put my hope in that effort.  I will never "arrive" or be "enough," but He is enough and His grace is sufficient for me.

As women, inside us is this longing-

 -An insatiable need for validation, adoration, affirmation, affection, and devotion.  And we are like, "Where is this coming from?"  And where should we channel it?  After we find comfort in the realization that we are not alone in our deep quiet longings, should we suppress them?  Should we alter expectations of our husbands?  If unmarried, should we seek men who may satisfy these?  Should we kindle deeper friendships?  Or should we consider that there may be an entirely different source altogether? 

I long to feel adored, beautiful and treasured.  It is good and right for my husband to be sensitive to those needs- he was created with the desire to treasure someone after all.  God created both men and women in his own image.  As God placed in us His own desire to be loved, sought after, and cherished, He placed in men His own desire to be relied upon and affirmed by the words of the one he cherishes.  The puzzle pieces fit perfectly, actually. 

God intentionally placed in men and women an even greater need for Himself.  No person was intended to provide these needs anymore than we were meant to be fulfilled by their attempts.  Therefore we should neither burden them with impossible expectations nor set ourselves up for disappointment.  Christy Nockels suggests, "By posturing our hearts to look to God to meet the God-needs and acknowledging that He alone can meet them, we've positioned ourselves for the next posture: fulfillment."   Our security, validation, self-worth and identity should not be rooted in men's compliments or lack thereof (or anything else for that matter), but in the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. 

Proverbs 13:12 says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.  Many women are heartsick from deferred hopes of relationship or of fulfillment within relationships; but if we let God provide the God-needs, we will feel like a flourishing tree, lovely and fruitful Jeremiah 17:7-8.  

Ephesians 1:4-10

Chris and I plan to complete a Study-Discussion-Decision Emersion over Christmas break.  One week is dedicated to distinguishing God-needs and Spouse-needs in our lives and in our marriage.  I will likely post the exercises soon.  

We are moving and I feel...

Coffee and watching petals fall with morning rain from courtyard tree.
Sound, comforting.
Site, lovely.
Sentiment, sad but hopeful.

In a few hours, our tree will no longer be full of bright blooms.  While I am sad to see the change, I have hope because that tree will not be bare.  It will turn a new and vibrant green. These last months, as we prepare to leave our dear friends here, God has given peace and comfort much like this sweet petal-tugging rain.  We have hope that our transition will lead us to a life no less beautiful than that we are leaving, just different.

Our three years here have been like a springtime in our lives.  God has taught us new and wonderful things about community, redemption, and justice.  So, I believe that God gave us this period of growth as a springboard for what is to come.  I am thankful and will always remember our beautiful time in New Jersey. 

The Autumn Post

Nov. 10- Were I not ever picking leaves out of my 5-week-old's carriage, he'd be camouflaged within 10 minutes.  We picked a perfect day to go on a long walk and the trees picked a perfect day to shed- 65 degrees and sunny.  I sit now on a red park bench under a canopy of bright orange.  The audible breeze gently tugs leaves free and rattles the rest.  When I walk again, the peaceful sound will be joined by a pleasant crunch. 
My eyes trace the leaves from the sun-illuminated clusters above to the crowded ground below.  They seem to fall in slow motion and twinkle in the sunlight as they tumble.  My son's eyes are closed, but soon he'll be able to trace things too since he is currently learning tracking.  There will be no leaves then... maybe snow flakes. 

...but I can't say I like it.

Two of my favorite sites are leaves falling in late autumn and blossom petals falling in late spring. (I also enjoy watching rain fall and snow fall, but those occasions are far more common than the other two and therefore not so special to me). Today's site is a very rare one indeed. I'm watching leaves fall in summer.
Hurricane Irene's effects remain in effect. The rain has subsided, but strong wind gusts still cause green summer leaves to shower down like petals, rain, snow or autumn leaves. I find the site intriguing, but I cannot say that I like it. There will be fewer leaves to turn orange in October.

An Announcement.

Heather's Text to Paige Marcella Rieck Hill:
Hey Paige, guess what I am.
It's a sort of state of being or a condition if you will. an unplanned and unanticipated but never the less (after a bit of adjusting) welcomed one.
The condition itself is temporary, but the effects are pretty darn permanent.

Paige's Response:
You have a parasite.
That you will name.
And grow to love

Heather's Response:
Yes.

I remember once in college (I don't know why Paige and I were talking about child rearing), Paige said that God gives children to parents on loan for a while to love and to train. Correct me, Paige, if you can say it better than that.


Chris said it looks like a peanut, but I can kinda tell that it is going to be human. See the big head on the left and the little body with arm and leg nubs on the right?

My sister, Katie, commented "I showed my friends at work and Laura said it looked like a gummy bear. Everyone loves gummy bears and they are cute, so tell Chris that it looks like a gummy bear or I thought it looked like a black eyed pea..."

But since he/she looks so much like a Peanut, he/she has been dubbed Little Linus.  Let it be known that the birth name will not be Linus.  

Good Morning

Either this robe is warmer than I thought it was or my interest in watching snow trumps my cold sensors. I am sitting in our front porch chair with two of my favorite things: my journal and coffee. Watching through the densely falling clumps is like watching a movie through a fuzzy television screen. Dozens of red berries still hang on a stout sprawling tree in our front yard. Snow stacks on branches and berries alike making it into a lovely post-Christmas decoration. Across the street from our little house is a wooded ravine. In the summer time, the green is too thick to see the houses on the other side, but today the white is too thick to see much more than a window.

Wedding Vows

I have moved. View the new post on the new website at http://www.heatherpaiges.com/wedding-vows/ 

Chris and I hand-wrote our wedding vows to hang over our nightstands (I love his manly script). It is so good to have these promises posted as a daily reminder to love one another well.

We chose Ruth 1:16 to be read at our wedding, "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay." because we knew Chris' service in the Coast Guard would send us bouncing from one coastal town to another. So he and I would be one another's only constant relationship through the years. In each new home, we would hang our vows. I loved them in our first Mainer colonial rental and I love them in our new little NYC/NJ apartment. With no further ado, the vows:

Vows written by Pastor Butch of Living Hope Church in College Station, TX.





Chris and I wrote up our wedding vows then I framed them with these collages. We are going to hang his vows to me over my night stand and mine to him over his night stand. :)

I wrote a song.

Glory be to God above
May Your love and mercy overcome

On earth as it does in heaven.

Let our every deed proclaim Your name
And our hope for justice prove our faith
In You, the author and perfecter

You bring rest to the weary
You bring strength to the weak
You give peace to the restless
Inheritance to the meek

You call us, Holy Father,
To imitate your selflessness
To feed and comfort,
To pray and listen,
To give our time to the fatherless

To teach and mentor
To help and rescue
Devote our lives to your purposes

… ending:

You bring us hope when we are weary

And strength when we are weak
You give peace when we are restless
Inheritance for we are meek

We commit, Holy Father,
To respond to what you have done
To love the orphan
Forgive our debtor
For such is how you treated us

To feed and comfort

To help and rescue

For such is how you treated us

Well, this is new. I journal on paper but don't think I will on the internet. We'll see if I successfully wasted time by joining this popular trend or I actually do something with it.