Learning How to Die

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”
Luke 9:23-24

This morning I woke up (against my greater desire to sleep). I opened the window and let the breeze play against my face for a few moments. I thought about all the things I wanted to do today. I thought about getting a cup of coffee, taking a walk, reading a little… What I didn’t think about was how I was going to die to myself today.

Then I heard this song come up on my morning playlist called “Learning How to Die.” I’d never really liked the song- honestly I don’t think I’d listened to it very closely. I thought it was about a terminally ill person coming to face with their death. Really, it’s about the conscious act of learning to die.

I spend so much of my energy learning how to live better. I think of all the ways to make life better for myself. I research recipes for my enjoyment, I go shopping by myself, I read trashy fiction novels to make me happy, I spend two hours watching a silly tv show on netflix. My life is spent on me learning how to have the most pleasure in this life.

What if that isn’t the point of living at all? What if the point of living is dying?

Jesus calls us to take up our cross daily. God turns life on it’s head all the time. He says the opposite of what we expect him to say. Here he asks us to give up all that we can say is ours. It seems crazy because it is, but it is a beautiful crazy.

So today, God, help me to die. Teach me what it means to let my life go and live through yours.

She said, “Friend,
All along I thought I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really I’ve been learning how to die
I’ve been learning how to die”

Psalm of a Future Schoolteacher

I believe everyone experiences a moment where the world stops and they ask themselves an important question, “What in the world am I doing, here?” Suddenly the room you are in- it doesn’t make sense. The conversation you were listening to- why are you having this conversation? A breaking point, if you will.

Well, my breaking point came yesterday. Sitting in class listening to a lecture about my future- all the tests, regulations, classes, and portfolios I had to take and make before I could be a teacher. Sitting in the third row, being assaulted by so so many words, dates, times, requirements, and stupid acronyms, all flying at me like bullets, I broke. Blinking hard to keep back tears and a public breakdown, I wondered, “Why, God? I can’t do all of this…It’s too much. I can’t handle all these hands pulling on me every which way. It is too much for me. I want a time out.” All of a sudden, I questioned God’s plan for my life. Was I really meant to be a teacher? Was I really meant to be at SPU? All I knew so confidently was floating away from me- up in the air as they say.
Could it be that I am simply super stressed, in the throng of finals, unsure about my living situation, and working two jobs? Yes, that is most likely the source of my craziness. But I think there are times when everyone deals with a moment like this. It reminds me of David’s psalms. I always turn to the psalms when I feel strong about anything-strong love, strong anger, strong sorrow, strong joy. I find so much comfort in the psalms David writes when he is completely in distress, despair, discouragement.

He cries out to the Lord, “Why have you left me to deal with this on my own? I can feel the Enemy’s breath hot on my neck. Where are you, God?” Don’t you ever feel like that? Isn’t it amazing that these feelings of uncertainty and despair are in the word of God? And what’s more, they were written by a man “after God’s own heart.” It is so completely encouraging! You can cry to God! You can yell at God! You can ask God what you are REALLY thinking, not just the stuff you think you should be thinking.

So I yelled at God. I cried with God. And like each of David’s psalms, I ended by Praising my wonderful, lovely, forgiving, understanding, beautiful, perfect God. It was my psalm to God, and, flawed and selfish and brutally honest as it was, I know it was beautiful to God.

God calmed down my fluttering heart, steadied my gaze upon Him, and reminded me that I promised to go on this amazing journey called “Life” with Him.

I once read that those who are passionate by nature fly to the highest heights, but also plunge to the deepest depths. If I am anything it is passionate. God, I pray that you would be my autopilot. When I want to dip low, steady my course right above the clouds where I can glimpse your beautiful sun.

Slow me down, Lord!

Life gets crazy. Is it just me, or is America obsessed with busyness? We admire those who are accomplishing most. The fastest, the brightest, the best. A dear friend and I write to each other every week. A few weeks ago she sensed my chaotic heart and enclosed this poem by Wilfred A. Peterson, entitled “Slow Me Down, Lord.”

Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.

…

Help me to know
The magical power of sleep,
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations
Of slowing down
To look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend
Or make a new one;
To pat a stray dog;
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few good lines from a
Good book.

Remind me each day
That the race is not always to the swift,
That there is more to life
Than increasing its speed.

Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
Into the sail of life’s enduring values
That I may grow towards the stars
Of my greater destiny.

Isn’t that just wonderful? My greater destiny. Lord, you have a greater destiny for me than anything I could hope for. Help me to have th faith to follow without fear.
Please comment if you’d like!

Used Book

Step, step, stop.
Scan.

Step, step, stop.
Scan.

Pick up.

First, consider the cover. No, don’t necessarily judge a book by the cover, but consider whether you like the way it makes you feel when you carry it. Does it make you proud to be its owner? Does it pitifully whimper, “Oh please take me with you! I’m so alone here” ? I have many books of both sorts. I tend to spend more time with those needy ones- they’re just so helpless. You must consider the physical attributes of your purchase, for you will be spending many precious hours, nights, days, weeks, and years with it.
Next, breathe deeply. A pleasant smelling book is critical. Can you smell the history? Was its home once a grand library or the simple shelf of a grandmother? Does it smell woody and worn, or are the pages fresh and clean? Both can be good things.
Flip through the pages to see if dreams are hiding in there. Dreams are pretty fluttery glittery things, so you may have to look hard. I find dreams are best preserved in books with yellowish pages…
Lastly, hold it close to your heart to make sure it fits. It doesn’t matter if it fits on your bookshelf- there is always room somewhere- but it has to call out to your heart to be worth anything at all.
Now, go and find a new friend!

The Mess of Me

“If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad”

CS Lewis

Wow! Two posts in a row with Lewis quotes- I know crazy, right? Well I couldn’t pass on this one. It is so unexpected!

At first read, it seems like he is being kind of a pessimist. Think of the world as a place not meant for your happiness? It kind of goes against every American ideal…pursuit of happiness and all that jazz…?

But when I read it again, I realize how incredibly FREEING it is! Like a breath of fresh air in a humid jungle, the realization that my life is not about me is an epiphany. Every time I feel stressed, it is because I think my life is all about ME. Every worry is for MY sake. Every burden is tangled up in the mess of MYSELF. I have made my life intolerable for myself by making it about me. How did I get to this point? I am consumed and enslaved by the snares of my wants, my desires, my worries, my cares.

But one little shift in perspective sets all to rights!

Jesus is the center. In him I have freedom from the monster in myself.

My perspective is so upside down. I forget that I am living for another world; that this is just my temporary home…that everything that is right in this world, is only so because it is a little remnant of what was in Eden, and what will be in that eternal bliss he is preparing for me.

Reader, I truly thank you for indulging me with reading on. I know I ramble and may not even come to a conclusive finish, but I so appreciate that you take the time to tag along. Have a blessed, blessed day!

Tea Time

Sorry I haven’t written in a few weeks: it was a mixture of not feeling particularly inspired and being super busy! Or maybe it was being super busy and not having time to become particularly inspired.

Anyways, I’m glad to see you again.

Today I want to talk about one of my favorite things in the world: tea.

It is a little luxury that I indulge in everyday…sometimes two or three times a day. C.S. Lewis once said:

“You can never get at cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me”

Oh, what a wise man! I must confess, I first became obsessed with tea as a fifteen year old in love with Jane Austen. The idea of partaking in the delicate little ritual Elizabeth and Darcy delighted in every day, was so enchanting to me. The only problem was I didn’t really like the taste of tea. Oh what is a girl to do? It was long past the days where I could put water in my little tea set and pretend I was grown up and refined…

That was my sad state of affairs…that is, until I went to Victoria, B.C. My mom took me to the elegant Empress Hotel for high tea and our butler of sorts prepared the hot dark liquid, with a few cubes of white sugar, and a splash of sweet cream. The mixture was so delicious and soothing. The aroma so ancient and exotic. I was hooked.

In the years since, I have slowly let up on the sugar, switched to milk instead of heavy cream, and started experimenting with the plethora of tea choices out there. I now have a whole drawer filled with teas to fit my every mood.

Tea is more than tea, though. Pouring, smelling, warming, filling. It is a way of life. An escape from life. I take my tea (in a pretty little cup of course), pick up a book, and revel in the stillness. The English knew what they were doing when they made tea a part of their everyday lives…

Thanks for reading and go have a cup of tea!

My Favorite Teas:
Harney and Sons- Paris Blend
Harney and Sons- Vanilla Comoro
Bombay Market
Vanilla Chai

Walk Slowly

Today I was about my normal busy-ness:

Rushing to my 8am class,
rushing to run an errand,
rushing back to class,
rushing across campus to my other class,
rushing to lunch…

Next on the to-do list:
rush to my dorm and get something- anything done.

As I was swiftly leaping up the steps from the cafeteria to my dorm, I realized I was taking the steps three at a time.
WHY? I asked myself.

There is no reason in the world why you should be rushing right now, Olivia. You have an hour and fifteen minutes before you need to leave for work.

So I listened to that little voice in my heart and I slowed down.

How did it feel? Amazing, liberating, delicious!

I thought my quiet times with the Lord only happened in the still of the morning when I have my Bible and journal in front of me. I was wrong! I felt so at peace, and even though I wasn’t saying anything to God, I felt like my heart was. Simply by sauntering slowly up the stairs, pacing across the street, and carefully climbing each stair up to my room I felt different. I could breathe- full deep breaths. I felt my body relax into a new calming rhythm.

Now I’m not trying to get all zen on you, but don’t be sucked into the lie that tells you that YOU have to do it ALL. Make space to do something that isn’t on your daily to-do list. The Lord will use these times when you recklessly abandon the world’s expectations of you.

When it all Seems Like Too Much…

What do you do when you are stressed?

Do you avoid the cause of the anxiety?
Do you face it head on?
Do you cry in a corner?

I think I’ve done all three. I’m in a position of stress today. I feel like the world is against me. I am a gimpy little fish swimming against an unavoidable currant. Well I guess I could avoid it, but all my hopes and dreams lie on the other side of the rushing river. How will I get there?

The answer lies in the loving arms of my Redeemer. He sees my heart, about ready to explode, and smiles sweetly.

He says, “Love, follow me.” Thinking he will take me across those rapids I brace myself. Instead he takes me first to a lushly green pasture dotted with pleasant flowers. He stops and says, “Lie down my Love.” With a sigh of relief I lie down alongside my Savior. Then he leads me beside the still waters. He gives me hope, rest, peace in his presence. (Psalm 23:2).

God, please bring me into the comfort of your love. Take my anxiety away, Father.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thankfulness, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:6-7

If you are a frail, scared little fish like me, take these words to heart. Your Father, Savior, Warrior, and Love wants to hear the burdens of your heart and take them away from you.