Checking In

It's funny how nothing seems to be going on in life until you set out to give a monthly update.
My initial summary of this month is that we handled a lot of bamboo while we waited for everything to be processed with Word Made Flesh (still waiting). While this is true, we also had many wonderful opportunities to spend time with family and friends, make new friends, and learn some good lessons about communication and prayer.

I had the opportunity to visit my dear friends in Colorado at the beginning of the month and returned with some borrowed books and a lot to think about.

The next weekend Ben and I were down in the Portland area, catching up with old friends, receiving some much needed counsel, and making new friends at the Church we had the privilege of visiting.

Back home, we celebrated Ben's birthday with a climbing gym membership and dinner with some good friends.

My parents and little brother came up for spring break the following weekend. It was a treat to introduce them to our dear brother in Christ who was visiting from the Middle East and to take them to Church with us. It was an eventful Sunday since the transformer down the street blew up and started burning. The guest pastor gave half his sermon in the dark.

My brother stayed for the week, and we put him to work playing music for us and working at the bamboo farm.

Easter weekend, our car started going haywire about 40 minutes into the drive down to Portland. We turned around, went home, switched all of our gear into a second vehicle recently gifted to us by a friend (more of a blessing than we realized), registered that car, and finally made it down around midnight. God is good. 

Easter is always a time of remembering the goodness of God in my own story and the very real Truth of His resurrection. He is Alive! We are walking miracles, raised from death into His life.

I love these lines from the song "In Christ Alone":
"There in the ground His body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain. Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave He rose again! And as He stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me. For I am His and He is mine, bought by the precious blood of Christ!"

Now March is almost over, and we are back to cutting and packaging bamboo. There are many stories and good conversations that linger with me as I work. Each dear friend and family member forms a part of the pattern, a beautiful image of God's intricate weaving. Words and memories circle in my mind.

"There comes a season in every Christian's walk where God asks, 'do you love me, or do you love my stuff?'"

"I told God I had nothing left to give and then He asked me 'So are you going to let me carry you?'"

Stories. Laughter. Abandonment. Blessing. Poetry. Painting.

"There is a healing balm in Gilead." 

A blessing in Hebrew. A prayer in Arabic. 

"God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." 

Threaded through it all is the joyful, conspiratory light I see in the eyes of the person across from me as they pour out their passion and hope and share the glimpses of something so beautiful only God could have dreamed it up. That same light hovers around those who, in the midst of pain, cannot shake the deep rooted knowledge of His goodness. His plans are not our plans. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
He simply Is.
He is Good.
And it is good to know and serve Him.