Regent University School of Udnergraduate Studies

Friday, January 11, 2008

Sweet Memories

While I'm currently living in the spirit of loving who I've been, who I am, and who I will be, I feel like pouring myself on all of you. Something in me says "this girl wants OUT", and I'm dying to share my life with you! This story is a true memoir about something I always looked forward to from my toddler years through my young adult-hood while living in a small town. Hope you enjoy.

Sweet Memories

I fondly recall my childhood days in a two stop-light, one mini-market town where everyone knew everyone. Our coroner was personally known by nearly everyone, and it wasn’t unusual to see Tucker and Gary, the town cops, drive by my house at least once a day. My eye doctor used to have me over for dinner and, if the car broke down, all Daddy had to do was walk around the corner to Louie Fusco’s house and ask him to fix it, no questions asked. My hometown valued friendships and we enjoyed helping each other.

I always wondered why we didn’t do more together as a community, since we were such a small town. Nonetheless, sweetness rolled around the second week every August when our town held its yearly seven-day carnival. Those nights were filled with extra-buttered popcorn; bittersweet, dripping, hot caramel apples on a stick; and cotton candy so sweet that Mom nearly had an aneurysm thinking about our upcoming cavities. The taste of funnel cakes with extra powdered sugar was a tradition, too, that she and I shared as we sat curbside watching our friends continually loose the coin-operated eight-ball game. These became savored memories that were forever glued in my heart.

Gut-wrenching rides like the Tilt-A-Whirl, the SuperSlide and the Swings quenched my eager spirit so much that the thought of riding them nearly created an ants-in-my-pants experience. Although I enjoyed a good laugh watching the senior citizens dance to the country band, dodging the crowd was the founding of a new swing move that only I could have mastered. It was always amusing to see the older ladies from church gathered under the town library hall, near the Superslide, playing Bingo on old cart tables and chairs donated from one of the few churches in our town. They were entertaining to watch, mostly because of their competitive attitudes. A group of ladies devoted to their game, I still saw them as I jolted to that end of the carnival, after three hours of hopping between rides, to catch my next slide down the SuperSlide. It wasn’t unusual to see Miss. Mary, the smiley, 30-year town librarian, who had a hunch back and white hair, sipping a large cup of fresh-squeezed lemonade and walking around investigating the tables to make sure there were enough Bingo chips. She was always such a sweet, helpful lady.

Probably one of the glorious moments during the carnival was watching my softball coaches get soaked at the dunking booth. One after the other, they proudly sat on the end of the booth waiting for players to hit the small, circular, white button. My turn finally came around and, when I was forced to listen to my coach jokingly patronize my pitching skills, I decided to roll with my adrenaline rush and throw the tennis balls as hard as I could. After two or three missed shots and the ringing voice of my coach, I eliminated all rules to the game, ran to the white button and pressed it as hard as I could. She fell in every time that way. I felt overly exuberated after dunking her, like a victorious, Olympic athlete who scored a ten on her recent competition against a more experienced opponent. My team endured a strenuous season of softball training, including endless laps around the field for undelivered strike-outs, so I looked forward to this part of the carnival.

But, by far, the one thing during the carnival that brought numbing sensations to my body was the everyday taste of those out-of-this-town (literately), thicker and juicier than ever buffalo burgers. And all I had to do to get my hands on one was walk one block! Those suckers were twice the size of our normal burgers, the ones that every one bought from Ted’s Meat Market. Ol’ Teddy may have had some beefy sized cattle that fixed a scrumptious meal for country folk, but when these juicy babies were smoked over the grill in the American Legion, they immediately transformed into heavenly beings. It didn’t even occur to us that they were overpriced for a small town carnival. We dropped the same price for a buffalo burger that we did a pound of ground beef, but hey, we all knew a craving satisfied was certainly worth it!

I’ll never forget the nights I would come home, after hours already spent with my neighborhood at the carnival, to sit beside my opened bedroom window and listen to the country band play as everyone went home. Living two streets up from the yearly festivities brought several advantages like this, including having a place to store all the beta fish we won while tossing rings over beer bottles. The most rewarding part about the close of the carnival evenings, though, was that since everything was heard from my bedroom window, I got to hear the jubilance of a tired, yet ecstatic crowd who ripped through games, food, and rides to experience life in a small town.

My eagerness to blend in with the crowd and ride rides grew as I anticipated experiencing the fullness of the carnival. Watching Main Street turn into a sea of fun-seeking friends made the twelve month wait worth it. Whether I was a child or an adult, I protected this special week of the year. And although living in a neighborhood with two stop-lights and one mini-market didn’t give me many options for fun, the many festivities and alluring smells of the carnival satisfied my every desire.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Captured

This morning I stared at myself in the mirror for about ten minutes and just cried. My lip shaking, eyes blurry, and tears rolling down my face, I stared redemption in the face. It was a beautiful thing.

It’s such a gift to walk in redemption. As a woman who never has the words to describe her joy and thanks for such a costly gift, I embraced those ten minutes this morning. To be able to look in the mirror and know that I am redeemed, stamped with approval, accepted, and received by a gracious Lover is a gift I never feel adequate enough to receive. But I receive the love of forgiveness because it’s lovingly offered by a loving Father. It causes me to cling to Him. Nothing is as precious as receiving hugs from the One who blots out transgressions, never to remember them again. You better believe I hungrily love the One who always pursued me when no one else did.

A week before I had this encounter I had a glimpse of the power of redemption. While at the OneThing conference over New Years, I received several flash backs of my childhood. God showed me the time I crept to the woods all alone crying out for someone to acknowledge my existence, the times I used to ride my bike thinking about how much I desired to be loved, and even that one week when I was 7 years old when I snuck in the back of the sanctuary of Vacation Bible School at a church I never before stepped foot in, because something in me hoped I’d receive what I desperately longed for. At the conference, in a peak moment of yearning to just wrap my arms around Him, Jesus whispered to me, “I was there, I was there!” While my arms were reaching for the Heavens He reached down, too, and I experienced an indescribable moment with my Savior that no one could possibly fathom, even if it were thoroughly described.

How does a woman who’s little girl inside feeds off His love control that defining moment in her life where her Lover tenderly says in an audible WHISPER, “THIS is how much you mean to Me”?

On another note, I had a list of things I had planned to do today, but instead I got a love letter from my Prince. It severed me, in a good way. It went a little something like this:

A phone call came in this afternoon from a man I rarely see once a week. The Word of the Lord was on Him, and God’s UNDYING pursuit of me was revealed to me in a brighter light. It was a light that caused my face to quench, my eyes to flood with tears and my mouth to hang open with a desperate cry of “MY PRINCE! MY PRINCE! YOU ARE MY ONE AND ONLY PRINCE!”

Not only was God’s supernatural touch revealed to me through an ordinary man, but He confirmed what’s been pondering in my heart since I came to know Him. Beyond that, He spoke a love poem over me that brought me to tears of pure joy. I later began to giggle thinking, “You really know how to capture my heart, don’t You? You can pass some of that along to my future husband, too! ;)”

After re-reading the Lord's Word that I had typed out as it was being spoken, God told me it was my first love poem for 2008. Ah :) I love that what He has to say sometimes comes in the form of the gift He’s planted in my heart (writing). It ravishes me.

My Prince has yet again scooped me in His loving arms and danced with the beautiful me He longed to know since March 24th, 1985. Not a man in the world could ever compare to this love I rejoice about every day!

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Missing all I know

The last thing I expected to do was cry for having to leave home this Christmas. I didn't want to go, and I only did because the Lord told me to. It's a wonderful thing I went, for several reasons, but one particular, pleasant surprise was having time to reflect on my life and the beauties I adored growing up there. I realized that although I've been living in the city for five years now, my heart has always belonged to the country.

I believe “the city” as I refer to it (anything without fields and animals) can poison a true country-girl, so much that she doesn’t appreciate cow manure when she smells it. But thankfully, I’ve managed to remain a loyal cowgirl. In the process, I've realized that I'm fashioned for experiencing freedom in the hills where horses and cows roam, pigs oink, turkeys call, and deer drink water in my backyard.

While I understand my need to be here, I can’t help but be pulled back into the dreams that were once lifted up over the plains of Pennsylvania. The days when I sipped ice cold lemonade while laying in the grass with a journal set the stage just right for dreaming. There really is nothing like breathing unpolluted air while you gaze dreamingly into the wilderness. I used to do it for hours, and I miss it.

All of this dreaming has baptized me with nostalgia. I want to ride horses again. I want to take walks in the woods. I want to drive on old, dirt roads with the windows down and feel my hair blowing in my face. I want to drive big trucks in the enormous mud puddles and get dirty. I want to camp out. I want to hang out with friends around firepits. I want to wear holey jeans, tank-tops and old gym shoes again. I want to run barefoot in my backyard and through cornfields. I want to run around and dance in farm fields as a woman grateful for the beauties of life.

I could have stayed and been a farmer all my life, and I might have learned to be completely content with that, but God had a different plan. The hardest thing about learning how to accept it was giving up country music. If I listened to it my heart would ache to be back home and I’d lose vision of the divine call on my life. It’s been about five years since I listened to country music, and I recently purchased a few albums that I have not been able to turn off. I can't help but love the twang sound, the crazy dancing, the flannel, cowboy hats, and “down-in-the-dirt”, snazzy cowboy boots, and even the “I will totally wipe you out of this round of line dancing” attitudes, but I wish I could describe the desperation my heart feels to just stand on a mountain, glance over the hills and see the vibrancy of water reflected tree-tops. I’m dripping with anticipation.

I guess I’m trying to understand the balance between what I love and what I love about what I’m called to do. I love everything about living in the country, but I’m called to infect the media with hope. I'm thrilled about that, but the place crying out for it the most seems to be the city. And I believe the reason I don’t entirely hate the city is because I may be working in it.

The tug in my heart comes when I truly desire to experience creation in the country, but choose to lovingly obey my Father. My mind says there’s gotta be some way I can do both. There’s gotta be some way I can effectively reach people through media in the city, but keep my country roots. I suppose it could be just as easy as living in the country and working in the city, but how does a person born to coast in pick-up trucks on dirt roads and live with beautiful, 4-legged creatures survive in a world polluted with narrow-minded thinking, ungratefulness, and materialism? When I figure it out I’ll let ya’ll know. In the mean time, I’ll be dreaming of the glorious land my Father has created for me to enjoy.
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