One More Truth

Reflections on faith, truth, and being human

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Sunrise and sleepy souls

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It’s 7:23 and the chill of asphalt is traveling quickly through my flimsy flip flops. I lean my bike against my body, the cold metal causing my legs to protest, and now my torso is chiming in about the coat I left at home, but I’m not about to go get it. I look out over the desert. The mountains are hiding the sun, but its fire can’t be hidden, and electric clouds light the horizon. It won’t be long.

Within seconds, the sun pops from valley folds, and slightly blinded, I breathe in sunshine for as long as I can before my veins turn to ice and I can’t pedal home. I never once question if witnessing this every day happening is worth standing in the cold.

It’s worth it.

For years I enjoyed watching day break, but sometime last winter, I stopped making the time. It was probably too cold, too inconvenient, too common. Another rotation of the earth, another sunrise. No big deal. The sunrise alarm would jingle my phone and I’d silence it, get back to tasks consuming my attention, and that was the daily routine – jingle, swipe, back to life. Routine had absorbed my soul.

This went on for quite a while, until one day – unable to recall when I’d last seen the sunrise – I deleted the alarm altogether. And part of me was really sad about it. Not sad about the absent alarm (less noise is always welcome) but sad that God was throwing color on waking skies and I’d lost delight in it all. I didn’t want to forget, but I apparently didn’t care to remember either.

The funny thing about the soul is, it remembers. Its cravings can’t be silenced with distractions or the petty sustenance that quiets mind and body. There came a morning when gold leaked through my kitchen windows and not a task or duty could hold me indoors. I ran the few minutes to my familiar spot, and as light filled the sky, delight filled my bones, and I stood in awe once again. Next morning, same thing; then the next, and the next, until I’d established a better routine of go, see, delight. I’d snap a picture for my sisters, sometimes send it with a verse or encouraging word – a little good news to break the monotony and monotone that soon fill a day – and it’d be back to life, just like before. But unlike before, now I had fire in my bones.

God is called the ‘Father of Light‘ only once in the Bible, but I think it’s my favorite name. It fits Him, and it explains why I need Him so much: His light wakes every facet of my being. The world’s darkness lulls my soul to sleep with bleak news and dull talk from dim minds. It’s a cynical forecast of gloomy attitudes telling me it’s just another day of drudgery. But God invites me to come and see His graces. If I silence His reminder, I’ll forget to delight in who He is. And when I forget Who God is, I forget who I am – a soul with a purpose, not a human with a routine.

Which is why I keep going out, watching melon clouds and violet stripes as the sun carves its path across the mountains. Nature’s beauty is a rhythm of thanks to its Creator – a song of gratitude – reminding me it’s another day to recognize God’s wonder and reflect His splendor with gladness.

 

5. Reflect

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Nine years ago this week, my children and I hopped on a plane and moved across the country. The sunrise was incredibly bright through those long airport windows that morning. The kids shared a bag of powdered donuts as we waited, each of us with our own emotions. I’d moved before, big moves from one state to another. The mix of expectation and uncertainty were familiar for me and I did as I’d done as a kid – did the only thing I could think to do in order to survive and not crumble into messy bits of fear and sadness – I thought about the good stuff and ignored the bad. Some parts were easy to ignore, like leaving a house behind. A new one was waiting. But other things had to be stuffed, like leaving my family and friends behind. When you choose change, you choose loss – that’s the exchange – and I knew that dealing with the losses would have its day. Like I said, I’d done this before.

A whole lot’s changed in nine years. My children have outgrown me in stature, so I look up more than I used to. I listen more than I used to. My children’s needs have changed and I still care for them, but differently. From a distance, I think. Independence grows when it has the room to grow. I still care about a clean house, but less. I still care what I look like, but less. And since these two preoccupations were obsessive once, I’m thankful for less in these matters. I will always be thankful.

The neighborhood has changed. The neighbors on all four sides of us are not the same families who welcomed us to the neighborhood. Mr. Mike, the older man with the Corvette, still waves when we round the corner, but he shakes a little now. The dad a few houses down used to play basketball with his preschoolers, now he plays basketball with his middle schoolers. And his hair is gray.

When we moved it was just a few neighborhoods, an orange grove, and a ten minute drive to a grocery store. We used to go out as a family after dinner, crawl up on huge beams of concrete stacked in the desert west of our house and watch the sunset, but then dirt pushers came in and paved roads. Houses sprouted up as far as the eye could see, covering the horizon. Shops, restaurants, and a Starbucks were built – all the things we were told would come, we just had to wait. So weird, waiting. It lasts forever and then one day, the wait is over. Expectation and uncertainty for months or years, and then one day, it all changes.

But nine years later, the eastern edge of my world remains the same. Lined by empty desert and an unobstructed view of the Superstition Mountains, I’ve biked and run countless miles on the road where those mountains stretch. I’ve watched the sun rise countless times out there, too, and I know the little crook where the sun peeks out in the winter and the high point where it pops in the summer.

I was out there yesterday evening. This morning. This afternoon. I can see those mountains with my eyes closed. Sometimes I think my insides are a broken compass that only points East, because I’m pulled to those mountains every time I can’t see clearly, or my heart is heavy, or my mind is full, or my body aches from loss or disappointment. I’m pulled to those mountains when the wild pony in me just wants to run, gasp for air, and hate it the whole time because it’s uncomfortable, but there’s no other way to feel the finish – to feel something. Endurance of the heart, of the mind, of the lungs. Each demands discipline, demands that life be drained so strength can grow.

Conversations about polarizing issues didn’t characterize this year for me, but I struggled through many a battle with polarized thinking. I woke up feeling defeated before my feet hit the floor some mornings. I often found myself believing that nothing can change in a day, because waiting is confusing like that. The girl with big faith and big hope – some days I didn’t recognize her.

But I always seem to find myself on that road lined by desert. Those mountains have heard all the chunks of my soul that have yet to be written. When I think of God, I see those mountains.

Every evening, there’s a window of only a few minutes when the mountains glow purple and orange at the same time, reflecting the last bits of sunlight before the day ends. I’ve seen that reflection more times this year than any other. It’s reminded me to stay composed and stay put, continue doing the hard stuff, because that is the good stuff, the stuff that matters. My life is only a reflection of His love; my faith a reflection of His faithfulness.

Step 5. Reflect. Reflect on who He is and who He made me to be, so I can reflect His love to others.

When I remember 2020, the ever-changing year of uncertainty and distance, I will choose to remember God’s faithfulness, because I have seen it. It just looked different. Sometimes, it looked like those mountains.

 

 

Shooting Stars and the ‘Just Because’ Wonders of Jesus

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Fall is slow in finding its way to the desert. It shows up one morning on a thermometer that reads in the 60’s, leaves by mid-morning when the sun scorches car interiors and skin, then returns with a bedtime breeze. No colors and no leaves, but after surviving months of three-digit temps, I’ll take it.

When I saw autumn on the thermometer a few Saturdays ago, I carried my coffee outside and watched the sky brighten. The open sky has an effect on me. I see stars, or the sun, or the horizon for miles, and prayer is my Pavlovian response. I have a theory about this response, that it’s biologically wired through the vagus nerve, a long and complex nerve that connects the brain to the body. The vagus nerve begins in the roof of the mouth, flows down the length of the torso, stretches little fingers along the vital organs, and ends in the gut. Relax the tongue from the roof of the mouth and you’ve relaxed the sensory nerve associated with performance jitters and common anxiety. My mouth naturally opens when I look up, relaxing the vagus nerve, and the signal between brain and heart – my gut instinct – is prayer. God’s creative design is the coolest.

I talk to God all day long, but truth be told, I don’t always listen for what He has to say. I typically go from activity to activity with my prayers, drifting into different lanes of thought or remembering something I’m supposed to do, abandoning prayer altogether. Sometimes I pray a list of things while I’m driving, ending when I arrive, never once getting quiet with the Lord. The vagus nerve was named for the Latin word ‘wandering’. Appropriate description of my prayer life.

While watching the sun rise that Saturday morning, I jumped into praying a few days’ worth of stuff. God said, ‘Whoa, Michelle. One at a time.’ I knew it was His idea because one at a time is a God practice. My ideas run fast and tangled, and seventeen at a time is my ineffective approach. I liked His idea better.

I prayed one request, pausing to ask God what He thought of the matter, allowing Him to cool my confusion, hurt, or need. I’d forgotten how reflective prayer feels like rest and I shifted easily into the slower pace. It was so peaceful, I committed the next two weeks to morning prayer, first thing – no phone, no Bible, no exercise, just me and Jesus. And coffee. Sorry, I’m basic.

Two weeks under the stars of early morning required some adjustments, but not many. I hadn’t laid under the stars as if there was nothing else to do for years and I awoke ready for prayer and the quiet rustle of palm trees. The moon filled and then emptied, carrying me a week past my two week challenge. My challenge has become a practice. It’s too good to quit.

I’d prayed for one thing at the beginning of the prayer challenge – to see a shooting star. I’ve seen at least six so far. It wasn’t a prayer with utility or importance, just a prayer to witness the wonder and smile. I can’t explain why God would grant my request with such extravagance, other than to reflect His generous nature. He’s reminding me that as much as I need prayer time with Him, He delights in time with me. He wants my prayers, and I’m glad, because I have a lot of them.

The first recorded miracle of Jesus happened at a wedding celebration. The wine ran out – an embarrassment, yes, but certainly not the end of the world – and Mary told her son about it in such a way, He understood she was asking for a miracle. Mary had never seen Jesus perform a miracle, but she’d experienced the miracle of having Him drop into her womb in the most perplexing fashion. She’d witnessed the miracle of watching her son grow in distinction, beyond human limits, yet fully attune to the cry of humanity. She believed the God who had sent her a son had indeed sent His own Son, and as He grew, her faith grew with Him, moving from head to heart to lifestyle.

Jesus answered his mother’s request with, ‘It’s not my time.’ He could have left it at that. But Mary’s response to the wedding workers, ‘Do whatever He tells you,’ communicates wild faith. She believed Jesus was capable of every impossibility and she boldly and humbly trusted He would act – not because He had to, but because He loved her, because He cared, because He’s the giver of all good things. Just because.

Jesus looked at his mom, felt her faith, and knew – His time had come early. He turns water into wine that night. I like to imagine Jesus smiling to Himself, thinking, ‘She’s going to be so tickled about this.’ I don’t doubt He delighted in watching Mary taste the goodness and look His way, completely overwhelmed by the miracle, completely thankful she’d been there to ask, and by doing so, experience the wonder.

Stars streak the sky all the time; I only notice them when I’m watching. So I’m making space in my life to sit under the sky and look up. Prayers are answered all the time, but how often do I notice? I’m making space in my heart for bigger faith, the kind that asks for simple joy as well as the kind that releases those deep-down gut prayers. And when I’m too tired to talk or make sense of my own thoughts, I don’t say anything. I just watch for His wonder.

 

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Brand New: good, bad, and ugly (Part 3)

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Fun fact: Ask me the posted sunrise time any day of the year and I’ll likely be able to tell you the exact time, give or take a minute. Today happens to be the latest posted sunrise of the calendar year, making January the longest and most arduous month for a solar-powered personality like mine. I dread January. The sun and I have a pretty steady relationship, but come January, we are never on speaking terms.

I like being outside. Sunshine and going outdoors kind of go hand in hand. Actually, they definitely go hand in hand. Every time the sun is on full display, the same siren song of my childhood – the one that lured me outside to ride my bike or make tree forts in my grandparents’ backyard – plays just as loud a melody. Living in a city that boasts 300 sunny days a year makes my insides feel…well, sunny.

Stepping down from my position in the school cafeteria meant no job, less money, and therefore, still no gym membership. But I had my new-found running hobby, consistently nice weather, and more time to go outside, so I took to the open roads of the Wild West.

I believe variety is the spice of life, but when it came to exercise time, I almost always ended up at the same stretch of road – a straight piece that leads to nowhere, dead ends marking its start and its finish. I dubbed it ‘nature’s treadmill’. Nestled against an untamed desert dotted with shrubs, I found peace and quiet and an unobstructed view of the beautiful Superstition Mountains towering in the distance. It still takes my breath away. This short strip of asphalt was my new sanctuary.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against gyms, but I hadn’t before realized how much my former fitness club had become my sanctuary. It was my safe place; my tiny, indoor microcosm where my identity, job, retreat, hobby, and hour block of daily child care were so enmeshed, I couldn’t pull one from the other. People liked me there. They approved of my parenting style, my fitness level, and even my new hairstyles or outfits. I never had to go outside when everything I needed was inside those mirror-covered walls. I was shortsighted – never believing that the universe revolved around me, but certainly assuming that the universe was much smaller and that I was, perhaps, a fairly significant part of it.

Next to those colorful mountains, in the middle of wide open skies, God reminded me of an important truth I had conveniently forgotten: I’m not that big of a deal. Surrounded by His vast creation, I was confronted by my insignificance. The wildlife didn’t offer compliments on my physical characteristics. There were no mirrors in the desert to catch a glimpse of my running form – just nature for miles. With my eyes fixed on the beauty of His creation, my heart focused on the Creator. Deep within me, I was yearning for His approval, which began an inner dialogue where I could be honest about the fitness of my soul.

Every day, my Savior unearths another piece of me that needs more focus – another area where He wants to make me new. You would think I would eventually become a permanently perfect, brand new person with no work left to be done, but I know better. This daily soul exercise is what faith is all about.

Last spring, residential construction extended my little road. Almost overnight my 5 mile treadmill became a 6 mile one, and you know I accepted the challenge. I was ready to go farther. I pray I’m ready to go further in my faith. I pray I will accept His challenges. I pray I never stop asking to be made brand new.

I pray the same for you.

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