Oh, To Run and Not Grow Weary...

Isaiah 40:31

But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not be faint.

Talk about a verse that that has been quoted a million and one times!

Plaque, mug, little charm bracelets... if you walk into any Christian bookstore you will be able to find it on pretty much anything you could possibly want.

 

It was for this very reason that I have often dismissed it as "cliche" or something that just went without saying. For instance, troubles would come along and I would think to myself, "Yeah, yeah, I will mount up on wings like eagles, etc. etc.. Thanks God. You're pretty cool." And then go on my way.

It wasn't until this past year that this verse started holding any real meaning to me.

You see, I have been dealing with fast heart rate for quite a few years now, but up until these past couple of years it was something I wouldn't even think about unless I jogged up hill, or coughed really hard and then could feel my heart pounding in my chest at a frightening intensity. Over these past couple of years, however, the problem has been escalating at a pretty rapid rate.

Now, climbing one flight of stairs makes me out of breath, it's not uncommon for me to check my handy little heart-rate-tracker-watch and see 120, or even 140 bpm, and jogging any more than a few strides is pretty much out of the question unless I want to spend a good long time settling my heart rate and breathing afterwards.

Not only has this made exercising and working any sort of active job quite difficult, but I have discovered that I get fatigued very easily.

For instance, I work part time at a retail store where I'm typically in the back sorting and hanging clothes. Not all that strenuous of a job.... And yet after a day of work I can expect to get nothing done the rest of that day. If I work two or three days in a row, the following day will also pretty much comprise of me sitting or laying around the house feeling like all I want to do is sleep.

I hate this.

I hate it because the things that I actually want to do, the things I actually am passionate about, so often get pushed aside.

People ask me to do little things for them that I'm so excited about, but then I just don't have any energy and the next thing I know several weeks have passed without me getting around to it.

My bedroom and desk have become a chaotic mess. (Not that they typically are pristine and perfect, but now it's not just piles of projects I am working on, but things that I have never gotten around to putting away, or papers that should have been filed months and months ago... but I was too busy being tired to take care of.)

A lot of times I feel like maybe I've just become lazy.

But that's not it and I know it.

It frustrates me that I run out of energy so fast.

It irks me that my writing projects aren't moving forward as fast as I want them to.

It infuriates me that I cannot do anything to fix it.

I cannot fix the problem.

I keep going to doctors but none of them have been able to figure it out yet.

And then more problems pile on top of the fast heart rate...

Carpal tunnel, abdominal spasms, continuously sore muscles in my arm, and dizziness....

It is out of my control.

And then God brings me back to His word, His promise:

"But those you wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not be faint."

This verse is no longer just a plaque or a fun quote to put on a mug, over the picture of a soaring eagle.

No. This verse is my life, my hope, and my prayer.

Also, 

2 Corinthians 12:9

And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Assr vísa ykkar or∂.

(May God guide your words)

ElizabethMarieKauffman

The Lone Wolf's Bravado

Your life has not yet started until you have been married.

This is a lie that I have begun buying into this past week.

That is to say,

this was not the first time, by any means, that I have listened to this message which the world tells to all young women who have reached their 20's and still remain single.

It has become more prevalently flaunted before me over the past few years.

I have heard it,

I have accepted it,

and I have scorned it.

As a young girl I had the natural, inborn seedling for romance.

I had my first crush before I even knew what crushes were and upon reaching my teenage years one of my favorite past times became daydreaming about how I would meet "my prince" and be swept off of my feet.

Of course, since I grew up in a conservative home, this was also the age when I was instructed to begin reading books on how to keep myself pure in heart and mind as well as just body.

And so I learned how to limit my daydreams and keep them under control.

Many a time I would make myself turn to God in prayer versus giving in to the pleasure of daydreaming about my little puppy loves and what might possibly (beyond any hope) come of them.

As I grew up and still God hadn't seen fit to bring "my prince charming" into my life, I found comfort in such sayings as "Dance with God, He'll let the perfect man cut in." Or the ever popular one, "If you're looking for your perfect life partner, run as fast and as hard as you can toward God and see who goes with you."

I took these sayings to heart and purposed to move ahead with my life and not care about guys. I wouldn't even notice them as anything more than possible friends.

Yessiree! I was determined to make any young man work for my heart!

I had dreams and goals and things I knew God wanted me to do, and I learned to set those above any dreams of a man coming along and holding my hand. 

Eventually, in all honesty, I wasn't so sure that a guy wouldn't just get in the way of it all.

In college I got so fed up with immature guys who acted like jerks that right then and there I determined that I wouldn't get married until I was at LEAST in my mid to late twenties. That way I could marry a guy who was older and, surely, much more mature!

However, it wasn't too many days later that I again began dreaming and hoping that I might meet some young man who would be far more mature for his age....

But until then, I was busy with my studies.

Two years and one brief dating experience later, and I am still just a dreamer.

And yet, I also have more hopes, dreams, and plans than ever....

I have a job, I volunteer at the library one day a week, I am looking into leading a small group for artists at my new church, and I am planning on going back to school–hoping to get a masters... and dreaming about even further!

As if that isn't enough, I have two novels I am working steadily on and a fiction blog for writers that I am trying to get off the ground–and also writing a series for.

I would absolutely love to get married and settle down.

But I have adventures that need doing, places that I need to travel to, things I need to experience.

I would rather make my travels with other people.

But just because I can't find anyone to go with me does not at all mean that I won't go.

I have flown to Nicaragua alone to meet a family who I'd only talked with twice on Skype.

I have road tripped the United States alone.

I have stayed at a monastery on the East Coast alone.

I have reservations to spend a week at a hermitage alone as a writing/prayer retreat.

I have never called myself a feminist because I am not in agreement with everything that it entails, also because I am a huge fan of chivalry and gentle ladies and gentlemen....

However, that has never held me back 

and I have often wished with all my heart that I had as much strength and freedom as guys do.

When I was a child I would sometimes long to be as polite as a princess, but more often than not I would be found climbing trees, jumping over fences, rolling down hills, and collecting toads and those little rolly-polly bugs.

And you know what? I am still the same as I was then...

just a little more matured.

Over the past two years–with my road trips and everything–I have begun thinking of myself as a lone ranger, or a lone wolf.

My prayer is that God will make me brave.

HIS sort of brave.

This was when the lie hit again....

At the beginning of this year I started attending a new church and I love it so much! The worship, the sermons, the people.... It is all exactly what I need at this point in life.

However, have you ever noticed that churches seem to mostly be comprised of families?

Singles either arrive in large groups and stick to one another like sheep who shy away from the strange, or else... well... any others are very, very seldom found.

So as I try to get deeper into the church and build a community I constantly find myself surrounded by couples young and old. This isn't really a bad thing. It's just ripe for little lies to begin tearing through my guard once more.

Have you ever also noticed that couples in small groups, when asked to tell about themselves say little to nothing about their lives before they were married? They mention where they each come from and then quickly move on to how they met, where they live, what their children are doing.

It is enough to make a single gal feel rather inconsequential.

All that I could say is the stuff that they seem to have forgotten and left behind as unimportant information.

But that "unimportant information" IS my life thus far!

 And so the lie ate at me....

Eats at me.

All of my plans... my hopes, prayers, and dreams.

Are they so little that ten years down the road I won't care that God plucked me out of the dust of ruin and heartbreak and placed me on solid ground? That He so carefully orchestrated my trip to Nicaragua where He would have pastors pull me aside to be anointed with the Holy Spirit, thus beginning a whole new adventure beyond anything that I'd ever imagined could happen to lowly little me?

I try not to let it bother me. 

I try to be the "strong, lone wolf" that I figure I already am.

But if I'm honest, being a "lone wolf" terrifies me.

I was forced to realize this after I had several dreams about lone wolves either guarding me or stalking me in the dark... their eyes vicious, glinting. One even roamed a place that I have plans to travel to.

I fear that this long post may not have the nice, neat wrap up that I try to give my blogposts,

for I am still in the middle of this internal battle.

However, I can and will say one thing;

something that God has been making clear to me.

Once again He is reminding me of how HE pursues me.

God has shown me that the reason I don't have a "prince" in my life yet is because He–my King–isn't ready to share me with anyone else.

He has also given me this song as a sort of anthem for this period of my life:

Brave by Moriah Peters.

"I know I know I'm no superwoman

But impossible is possible with You

So no, no, no more running, no more hiding

Strike the fire so I'll be fearless too

And make me

Brave

I'll fight like a soldier

Brave

Rise like a warrior

Brave

Won't stop till the final day

Brave

I want to be stronger

Brave

Gonna bolder

Brave

Look up and I see the way

You make me brave

None go with me

Still I'll follow

Through the joy

And through the sorrow

Cross before me

World behind me

There's no turning back..."

So I am determined to go dancing through this chapter of my life.

But only with the Lord's strength will I succeed.

Assr vísa ykkar or∂.

(May God guide your words.)

Elizabeth Marie Kauffman

Where I Am Not Right Now

Yesterday was a good day.

My morning started like any other work day.... Out of the house at 8:20am to be down the street and clocking in at Goodwill by 8:30 at the latest. To follow the path that my past short spurts of being your typical, American employed person have taken since getting hired here I have rapidly moved out of the honeymoon stage of any job and have made an impressively quick slide into levels of contempt for my job. 

But yesterday morning turned out to be the lowest I have gotten yet.

What started out as a typical day turned into "just one of those days"...

First I thought I lost my keycard when really I was wearing it the whole time.

Next, I had been scheduled to work on a time that I had said long before hand that I wouldn't be able to, so there was a hassle to try and deal with that.

However, I could have dealt with any of these little problems just fine if it weren't for the biggest issue of all... the thing that keeps returning to my mind every little bit as a repetitive, nagging ache:

What in the world was I doing here?

Sure, Goodwill does nice things for the community and is very helpful in supplying jobs for those in need. (As the tagline goes that I hear and/or say constantly throughout the week, "Thank you for changing lives through the power of work!")

Sure, it provides products at a reasonable price to people who can't purchase the same item elsewhere.

But me? I stand in the back room all day with my arms elbow deep in disgusting, often foul smelling clothes that I have to sort through to get to the good stuff we can sell.

I do nothing but sort and hang, and sort and hang, and help to unload and load the truck when it arrives so that I have more textile to sort and hang, and sort and hang... and on and on and on it goes while I watch the clock tick through my 8 hour shift.

That is what kills me.

That I feel like I am wasting the majority of my day doing nothing that any other person in this town couldn't do.

For a girl who longs and dreams to do big things one day,

who's goal is to be a novelist, mentor, and adventurer;

this is torture pure and simple.

And as I stood there sorting an impossible amount of clothing, 

listening to the especially bitter drama and gossip going on among my coworkers,

and being told I needed to turn out more racks than any of us hangers knew to be possible with the products we were dealing with,

I reached a particularly low and despairing place.

I looked ahead at the next year of my life before I will be able to begin pursuing a second degree, and saw only sorting and hanging while I lived for my days off.

I just know that if I were of a more impetuous nature

I would have quit my job yesterday.

But then God, in His ever-patient, ever-merciful way intervened.

As I was driving home for lunch a song came on the radio that I had heard many times before and had loved right from the start. But this time the words of that song reached a whole new level in my heart as God used them to tell me something....

The song was "Where I Am Right Now" by Jared Anderson

and here are a few of the lyrics:

God, Your plan is the best

But my heart is a mess

I'm wondering why you have me here

I'm so ready to be moving on

In my head I'm already gone

But Your voice is crystal clear

(chorus)

I am called to be where I am right now

In the middle of the storm but I have no doubt

You are here with me, You are here with me

And I won't give in or second guess

I'm trusting You with every step

Father, You are here with me

Where I am right now, where I am right now, where I am right now (etc.)

God's timing is perfect in every way.

These lyrics shook me from my despair and reminded me that I have not been needlessly placed where I am right now.

God has led me this far, He won't abandon me now.

And you know what?

I remembered that although every ounce within me is straining for the next step in my life, this in between time is not being wasted:

I have been blessed that this job not only covers my bills but is also giving me enough to fund a trip to Ireland next year, as well as hopefully helping towards other trips.

I have found an amazing church and am building a family of wonderful, supporting people within its congregation.

And, most importantly, God is teaching me to hear his voice in ways that I never imagined I would.

I will never stop looking ahead and longing for "tomorrow" when I travel to Ireland and start online studies to hopefully open up doors to jobs that will benefit the things I want to accomplish in life, but for now it is enough to remember that God has me right where He wants me in His plan.

So yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day.

I went back to work after lunch and finished hanging as many racks of textile as a could, ending just a couple racks shy of our "impossible" goal.

Then, when I got home I sewed a couple of pillows that I got the material for a few months back and ended up feeling like I had accomplished something in my few hours off after all.

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

(May God guide your words)

Elizabeth Marie Kauffman