My pastor once gave a sermon in which he told this really elaborate story about some poker tournament on television and this guy who was waiting for the dealer to throw an ace down or something for the hand he was ready to beat his opponent with. He never got that hand, folded, and lost the tournament…. only, he failed to realize in his hand he wielded a Royal Flush (aka the best hand in poker).

So everyone watching this from the crowd or their television of course is screaming something like, what are you thinking you don’t just fold that!

My pastor tied it into God’s plan being bigger than ours, us being shortsighted, narrowminded, you get the gist.

So yesterday, my best friend and I went hiking before we part for the summer. Lots of emotions are in the air seeing as we’ve both become quite dependent on one another and a future without each other being consistently present is hard and a little nerve-racking to imagine (even if it’s just three months).

The plan was to take a late afternoon hike up to Mary’s Rock, a relatively difficult trail nine miles up 2,600 feet to a beautiful outcropping, which the internet promises with beautiful pictures like these:

Unfortunately, after a couple hours of hiking, as the sun slowly set, and we grew impatient and exhausted, and thought our deeply forested elevation gain could never lead to an outcropping… we saw light, the trees slowly became less dense, we could see the opening, our paces picked up, we rounded the turn with hearts of great anticipation and what we got?

Parking lot.

WHAT?!

We just climbed 2,600 feet.

Where’s my view?

What’s going on?

Laughter. Laughter is all that I had.

As we walked back down the trail, I reflected on what wonderful conversations we had had on the way up, and the conversations we would have on the way down. I realized what a crazy blessing it was to have opened up about the things we did before parting for three months, for the only distraction to be the beautiful sound of the rushing streams that followed us every step.

I realized that what I needed was not a remarkable view to snap a photo of on my iPhone, but the raw presence of a person I love dearly outside of an environment that has grown all too familiar in a way that’s not always so conducive to growth or introspection.

I don’t care about the view; we missed out on nothing.

So Wednesday marked the finale of a semester long bible study on a chunk of the Bible called the Kingdom Books. This is the portion of the Bible starting in Joshua, where the Jewish people finally enter their Promised Land, through 2 Kings, where their complete dismissal of the God that got them there gets them kicked out. I’ve had the pleasure of studying it this semester with a bunch of young women and their babies.

Last week one of the women mentioned that she was surprised by how quiet God was throughout the book of 2 Kings. I mean chaos was going on and God was removing the Israelites from His sight. It kind of seemed like God wasn’t making any effort to get His children back. King after King you just read of their shortcomings and how Israel continues to flounder under their leadership. Eventually another country comes, rapes, pillages, and burns them all out because God’s pretty much given up on them for the time being.

It’s all really sad and overwhelming when you read it with most perspectives. I mean God’s got some lines here and there, but ultimately He’s kind of just a supporting actor and many women agreed that they too faced this astonishment and confusion in response.

Another lady added that she too had this frustration until she noticed all the quotes from Isaiah toward the end of 2 Kings. She brought to light that all the books of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah were written in the time period that 2 Kings covers. God was by no means silent… the people just hadn’t properly placed themselves to hear Him, or even when they were properly placed, they didn’t care to listen.

Instead of pursuing the Lord, they hardened their hearts, deafened their ears, blinded their eyes, they worshipped other gods on the high places, they made up idols to worship, God gave them specific things to abstain from and they sought those very things for the fulfillment that ultimately He can only offer.

I was blown away.

He was literally screaming to them! He placed prophet after prophet to speak words of truth, encouragement, and conviction and nothing. No response. Just drowning.

I think placement has been the savior of my semester. LIke the Israelites, I turned to idols, like anxiety and pride, and felt the repercussions. Just when I was sure that this was the point where I was going to drown, He continued to place wonderful ladies, whether from church, or in my house, or just beautifully Christ-filled friends to speak words of encouragement and truth, He pulled me out of the water and said keep your eyes on Me. I feel kind of dumb for losing sight so often when He gave me the most light-filled community. I mean, just look at some of them:

As I move into the summer, where adventure is out there and I’m being temporarily removed from the community in which I find so much comfort and familiarity, I’m psyched to see who He places in my life for that encouragement, to feel the prayers of my community from afar, and keep my heart tender, eyes open, and ears listening.

LEHGOOOO!

I recently read in my favorite devotional (a masterpiece designed for children, but infinitely valuable to anyone as far as I’m concerned) that the reason why lots of people are unhappy is because they’re listening to themselves instead of talking to themselves.

“When you wake up in the morning, you can listen to whatever your thoughts are telling you—maybe they are reminding you of something bad you did the day before, maybe they are making you scared of something you have to do tomorrow. You can listen and feel horrible.

“Or you can talk back. You can remind yourself of what is true, and who you are, and who God is and what he has done.

“You can say something like:

‘Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God!’ Psalm 42:11 (NLT)

“Are you listening to yourself today… Or talking to yourself?”

I find that often I’m listening to myself. And yes, Sally Lloyd-Jones, it is discouraging. But my thoughts are so loud and cluttered. They break out in pandemonium all too frequently. Not necessarily always bad things, but certainly not always things rooted in Truth.

So yesterday I was given the opportunity to venture on a trail around the highest waterfall this side of the Mississippi. It was incredible. And as I sat in a hammock with my two best friends by the fall, the uproar of the rushing water outweighed that of my thoughts. They were completely drowned out by the soothing commotion of the cascades.

(http://waterfallshiker.com/)

I became overwhelmed by a feeling of acceptance of that moment—being suspended in the air in God’s great creation with two of my favorite people. Not adding to it, not taking from it, just basking in its beauty.

When I realized that the sound of the falls had won, I seized my opportunity to talk to myself.

And I spoke Truth into myself.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)

I’ve spent a lot of time being angry or disappointed or hurt by people who I’ve loved dearly and I know loved me dearly back and suddenly life moves on, our paths part, and each of us fades into but a bittersweet memory.

Old friends, or family members, or even old mentors who promised to stick by your side through thick and thin and for whatever reason they’re no longer in your life. They all played a significant role in who you’ve managed to become and now they’re gone, and it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, it just all seems very messed up and I have a tendency to feel betrayed.

It’s taken me until now to realize what a brat I’ve been being.

The story of the demon-possessed man in the tombs (Mark 5 and Luke 8) always manages to hit home with me on all sorts of levels.

Some poor dude – someone’s kid or brother or best friend – falls victcim to a legion of demons. Suddenly his whole life falls apart. They seize upon him and he becomes like the Hulk (minus the whole green thing). He’s some violent juggernaut who can’t be chained or manage to keep his clothes on. Then Jesus rolls up on the scene after the guy’s been ostracized in these tombs on the outskirts of society for who knows how long, asks the guy his name, the demons respond, and Jesus gets rid of them, because getting rid of the demons that haunt us is kind of Jesus’ forte.

Witnesses show up and are baffled because the previously demon-possessed man who they’ve known as the guy who has violent attacks, naked in the graveyard is chilling at Jesus’ feet with clothes on. For the first time, the guy feels free and whole again because of what Jesus has done in his life, and as fate would have it, Jesus must move on; He has other lives to bless.

The man responds as anyone naturally would and begs to stay with Him. He doesn’t care where, he just knows this Man’s presence flipped his world upside down and the thought of being outside of it is terrifying. This guy was empty, and now he’s filled – and infinitely so.

And Jesus is all like, no, you can’t stay with me, go back to your hometown and share the good news. Show them how fulfilling I am. Show them your newfound joy. Show them my love and compassion. And the guy does it.

I never would have related this story to my feelings of hurt and betrayal before, but that’s just because I’m dull and nearsighted.

In 1 John 4, we read that God is love and we know God better and are perfected in his love by loving our neighbor.

If the love of Christ was infinite enough to fulfill the man from the tombs to go back into town and spread the Good News without the immediate presence of Him, shouldn’t my love for and the love of my neighbors who’ve come in and out of my life – a love that is from God, and is of God, and is God – be just as infinitely fulfilling and encouraging?

I feel like I’m constantly relearning how to deal with it.

I’ve been afraid of it for all too long. It makes me squirmy, sad, uncomfortable, angry, frustrated, confused, broken, and all sorts of unpleasant things. And all too often, I’m consumed by it, at least, that’s the impression I’m under. So I breakdown like a toddler without a nightlight, and it makes sense.

How else are you supposed to respond to darkness?

I was meant to be a creature of light. I read Jesus say things out of context like, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.” And then reality slaps me with the death of a family member, or horror stories about a girl at church who was raped, or I read about entire cities destroyed by natural disasters, or acquire a chronic illness, or am plagued by doubt and persecution. We’re surrounded by darkness, and I look at God, and am like, “what the heaven is going on?!”

This isn’t what I signed up for originally. My signature is on the dotted line with anticipation for light.

Then I dive deeper into my faith, I read on in His Word, I hear Jesus say things like, “I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves,” (Luke 10:3) and it’s just dumb to think that that’s not a place of darkness.

So then I have to check myself.

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

I have the light of life. It is mine; it has been given to me as a result of following Christ. So I feel good. God’s taking care of me. He’s given me a little timex glow feature for whenever my environment isn’t totally up for giving me what I need.

Then I’m like, Olivia, that’s even dumber. The greek for “have” in that sentence is echo. It’s not meant to resonate solely within myself. Jesus is sending me out! How am I gonna sit here doing anything but trying to burn brighter?

“You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!” (Matthew 5:14-16)