Dirt Perfume and Glowing Girls

Yesterday I went to cheer my husband on at his Ultimate Frisbee Tournament.

Yes, sports fans you heard me right, Frisbee.

Somewhere between the long hair, the unshaven legs, the sweat bands and the tube socks I discovered a sub-culture of people that I would have otherwise never witnessed. And one in which I found surprising.

The cool thing about Frisbee people is that they are generally happy people, and I am using the term "generally" too general. I don't think I saw one person that wasn't happy, except for myself on the sidelines. (I tend to furrow my brow when watching something even if I am not confused or upset in anyway. I even pout in my sleep, and you can be assured that those are some of the happiest moments of my life.)

I am pretty sure Botox is in my future for the line between my eyebrows.

Anyway, the "disc-ers", are like hippies but without the patchouli, although I swear I caught a whiff of it across the field, but it was not permeation by any means.

Nevertheless, I have to confess I judged these poor people prematurely. I kind of thought they were a bunch of bores, to be honest.

Granted, this is an outsiders view of something I don't understand, and still don't quite get.

Did you know that Ultimate Frisbee isn't like Frisbee you see in the park? It is a bonafide sport with leagues and team shirts and even cheers.

Who knew?

I have to say, these Ultimate players are the most uplifting, nice, and encouraging clan I have ever come across. As a semi-smart ass with a pension for spiritual and emotional realism, I found them to be very refreshing. So cynics beware- Frisbee is not the sport for you.

Every time someone would attempt to complete a play, the team members on the sidelines would yell out encouraging tidbits like, "Great pull!" "Way to hustle", "Nice try!" "Good effort!"

And that was just when the play didn't go well. Those were the types of things they would yell when things were botched and points were lost.

For some reason I can only equate sportsmanlike conduct to that of my high school basketball team. The Eagles, the team in which I played a total of 2 minutes and 45 seconds...the entire season.

And scored 2 points.

The entire season.

While I obviously was not a threat to the other team, all I can remember about my b-balling days was the snide comments, the elbows thrown, and the snarly snooty girls. Especially the ones who wore their hair in too tight of braids and always looked like they were in pain.

The girls on the Frisbee field were glowing I swear.

And they were nice to boot.

Granted, I don't think I would ever play Frisbee. I have tried once and realized I don't even know what it means to guard someone. I would just stand there staring at them. One time I was guarding from behind, which isn't guarding at all, it's just plain creepy.

My husband never asked me to play again.

How was I to know what to do? I only had 2 minutes and 45 seconds of guarding experience in my entire sporting career.

The same people on the Frisbee field are the same type of people that get a charge out of hiking, camping, running marathons, and eating granola drizzled with flaxseed oil.

I consider myself to be a healthy person. I love nature, and travel.

However, I am NOT even close to the type that loves the smell of dirt so much I don't shower so that it can become some kind of earth sodden perfume.

The truth is that I do envy their ability to enjoy the game. Every single person is absolutely in love with playing. They are passionate, motivated and borderline obsessed.

If you ever get the change to witness a Frisbee tournament I say you should go, the emotions are contagious.

They are dorky as all get out, but if you are anything like me, you swiftly embrace it. We are all just dorks, but some of us dress it down in designer jeans.

The tournament reminded me that no matter what people may think or perceive you to be on the outside, you are the only one who can control your own happiness.

Now I understand why my husband is a Frisbee dork.

Now all I have to do is figure out what sort of tube socks go with my eyes.

Backwards Buttoning and Why Seeing Isn't Believing

As I was getting ready this morning, I was feeling quite professional.

Until I tried to get the hook eye button at the back of my high-waisted pencil skirt clasped.

Thumbing awkwardly with the tiny hook, I kept on sliding the hook right under or over the eye. This happened so many times, I wondered if the hook was broken. After further examination (unzipping my dress turning it around backwards, and checking for the fault in the dress and not in myself) I found that it was in prefect working condition.

This struggle went on for five more minutes until I decided I needed to get a better look at what I was doing by using a full length mirror.

But instead of the reflection helping find the resolution to the gaping back of the skirt, everything was now backwards which exacerbated the problem.

After grunting and groaning long enough for my steaming mug of coffee to turn cold, I decided to give up. At this point I just threw on a suit jacket and called it good.

That was until I bent over to pull on my shoes and my zipper plummeted to the point of no return.

Back to the drawing board.

In the middle of my frustration I thought about changing outfits, I mean is any dress worth the hassle? But at this point it was a matter of principle, and I had hooked enough bra's behind my back to not let this one get the better of me.

Eventually the hook fell into place and I did a little dance in my bedroom. No zipper nose-dive this time.

It was then that I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair was disheveled, I was red in the face from effort, and I looked like a little kid who had just tied his shoes for the first time.

Talk about easily pleased. But why not?

In a world where opportunities are shrinking and more people are looking for them, you have to take what you can just to get through the day-to-day.

So I will take my banner button day!

I have always been a big picture thinker. I have always pooh-poohed the little achievements and pushed on towards the bigger goal.

I am the type of person that will wear myself down by taking on too much. I will peel myself off of the sidewalk, the treadmill, or the computer and shake my own lifeless body, "You can't let a single opportunity pass you by! This, this one right here, might be the one that changes your life!"

And so I sign up for a free lance writing package on The Benefits of Vacation Rental Income in The Florida Keys. Somehow I don't think that's going to be the job that catapults me into the same circles as Hemingway.

It's okay to say no.

I was just offered a radio interview opportunity in New York while I am going to be there for a Book Exposition for work this weekend.

I turned it down.

I don't do things like that. Ever.

From a marketing standpoint it simply looks dumb.

From a soul standpoint it was simply liberating.

The scary thing is that I am finally paving my own road, but the problem is that when you set out on your own path you inadvertently put up road blocks to the ones you've become addicted to traveling. I am starting to see opportunities fade into my peripheral, and the loss of such potential is frightening.

I wonder if I am the only person whose goal for her late twenties is to undo all her doing's. I am hoping to untangle myself from thousands of expectations that I have put upon myself for a thousand different things, and just focus on one, simple, unglamourous opportunity.

The one in which I don't live a divided life.

The one in which I am committed to being still. To waiting on God, even though I am risking being completely forgotten.

My old pastor in Seattle was preaching on Jesus' Resurrection during Easter Sunday. And since I have grown up in the shadow of the steeple, I already knew the story well, so in my arrogance I was kind of half listening while I was doodling little flowers on my notepad. But He said something that stuck with me to this day.

Since I tend to have a hard time imagining Jesus as a real person and not some shimmering, glowing angel in a dress, my pastor painted a very real Jesus on the day of his Resurrection.

He said, "Do you know what the biggest risk Jesus had in ascending into heaven? It wasn't that people wouldn't believe he existed, it was that his life on earth might be forgotten."

Jesus came to save the world, and even He risked being forgotten.

I am not Jesus.

I know.

I don't risk the chance or being forgotten when I die, it's an inevitability.

But that's fine, my identify isn't found in this paper thin existence. It never will be. My identity is found in that Man who risked being forgotten when He left his mark of love on the world.

But while I am here stumbling through button hooks and brokenness, I am realizing its OK to fade out a little, while you are tuning up for your dance.

We all know that people say seeing is believing, but in a fallen world where our perception of life is the only sight we have, we can't trust the way we view the world. We can't try and create our lives according to some image we see backwards in a mirror, one that is only a version of the truth.

I actually had to walk away from the mirror to button up my little old dress, because the reflection wasn't accurate, it was affected to the point of making it harder to get the job done.

From my dress to my desk, I have been looking at everything backwards for so long.

That defective mirror is what other people tell me I should be, should look like, should want, should work for, should get excited about.

The truth is seeing isn't believing.

Believing when you can't clearly see, that is belief.

So my dress hasn't fallen down today and I consider that a small accomplishment.

I wonder if the radio station in New York would like to interview me about that.

The Big Girl Pants With Nobody in Them

I have heard that Europeans vacation for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

I just got back from Cancun for a wedding and was gone only 4 days, and it felt like a lifetime.

My in-box at work is still burgeoning and everyone keeps commenting on my tan as if it is some kind of skin disease that's screaming out, "irresponsible employee!"

I am exhausted in the good way. The way that you feel after being sun-drenched for hours on end while sipping fruity concoctions to Mariachi music.

It was a much needed escape. And one in which I learned a little more about my ever evolving self. At the rehearsal dinner the mother of the bride asked if I would be giving a toast at the wedding, I shrugged and choked on some water.

"I wasn't really planning on it."

Her eyes widened and she stammered, "But you are a writer, so your speech should be really good."

I blinked twice. Maybe three times.

"Um...if there is an opportunity then I will give one, I guess."

Talk about pressure.

And then I started imagining I would give a speech like Rachel McAdams in The Wedding Crashers where I say all the wrong things, and people would be shoving salmon around on their plates, trying not to make eye contact with me.

The next morning I took off to the gym to do some brainstorming. I do my best thinking, and now I guess "speech writing", when the blood is flowing. I climbed onto the treadmill, did a few lackadaisical stretches, plugged in my iPod, and began sprinting towards my award winning wedding toast.

I was mouthing the words to myself, coming up with cute anecdotes which included phrases like, "fairy tale", "happy ever after", and "meant to be".

And as I was formulating these stale, stereotypical thoughts that sounded pretty but held no water, I couldn't help but be silenced by the beauty around me.

The treadmill was set up against an entire wall of windows. Perched on the edge of a cliff, all you could see was vastness of Caribbean Sea. It was a blue so blue, that I caught myself thinking it wasn't real at certain times, and that I was on some kind of virtual workout machine.

The waves would crash against jetty's in succinct rhythm with the music I was listening to. And I got goosebumps a handful of times just witnessing the beauty of God, and the way His spirit played tag with the foaming waves.

I felt clumsy with my little thoughts, when I was witnessing such perfection in creation.

At the end of my run I had come up with a pretty good speech, I thought.

I would start out by saying, "As I was preparing what I was going to say to my best friend on her wedding day I couldn't help but want to talk about Fairy Tales and happily ever after's. Although the more I thought about it the more I realized there is no happy ever after."

I would pause for dramatic effect as someone would yell from the back, "Get that kill-joy off the mic!"

I would smile and raise a hand so that they know I was going somewhere with this.

"The truth is there will not be one day where you wake up and get your happy ever after in the mail. Love isn't that definitive. There aren't perfect beginnings and endings, there are just chapters. So as you begin this new chapter of your life together I want to wish you not one, but a hundred happy ever after's, through each chapter of your life as you grow, change, hurt each other, forgive each other, and discover each other every day of your life.

I know that the love you two have, will not create some perfect ending, but that it will sustain and make a beautiful life together."

I would raise my glass, all would join in and I would tearfully choke out,

"Here's to a beautiful beginning, and to loving each other one chapter at a time!"

Applause would compete with the thunderous ocean, and I would take a bow.

Well, that didn't happen. My speech never happened.

There was no opportunity for it.

And to be honest I am truly glad. It's funny because I felt that I was obligated to give some memorable toast, but the truth was that my contribution came a day before, and it was one that no one heard or could pat me on the back for.

It was a quiet honesty.

The bride had a stressful moment in which she became too burnt, and her shoulders peeled to reveal pink and painful skin.

She was tearing up because she was told you are supposed to feel the most beautiful on your wedding day, and that she was feeling ugly.

I told her that was bull! That she did look beautiful, like every bride does, but that she needed to understand that whole "most beautiful" thing was just something that the 70 billion dollar wedding industry wanted her to believe, and encouraged her to be willing to pony up the dough for.

On my wedding day I broke out around my eyes, never did shed those 15 pounds that everyone said I would, and my up-do fell out half way through the reception. I didn't feel as beautiful as everyone said I would.

Instead I have had odd moments of beauty, and these are moments that happened long after "I Do". Ones in which my husband can't stop staring at me when I have no make up on and am humming mindlessly or dancing when I don't think he can see me. Ones in which I am flushed from a day in the garden, or one in which I see God doing something through me that I know I am not capable of on my own. Like forgiveness, or creativity.

The wedding was beautiful, and the setting was so romantic.

As I am on this journey to discovering that I don't have to be the writer, the actor, the singer, or the center of attention all the time because of what I have been predisposed to, I am discovering that sometimes being a whisper to someone who needs to hear it is a thousands times better than being a spokesperson to a room full of anxious listeners.

I was content to quietly listen to other toasts, all of which were more beautiful and heartfelt than mine anyway. Not to mention I didn't perform in order to please anybody else.

So while I didn't put on my big girl pants and give a speech that I was afraid of giving, the act of not acting was just as scary.

And even more meaningful.

Skeletons of Roses

I have been hunting.

And it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally caught a glimpse of my target.

I have been actively searching for meaning, purpose and direction, well..., every day of my life after I realized that playing Barbie's was not a job, and would never be more than exercise for my imagination.

It was at that point that I met reality, and her and I have been at odds ever since.

This last week has been one of the most stressful in my life, and one in which I created not with a paint brush but one that was inked out of fake smiles, sweaty handshakes, and stumbling first steps.

And I am not complaining. I am compelled. Compelled to lower my gun. Determined to give myself some time to get out of the line of my own fire.

These last few weeks I have been in a strange head space. That same place I visit when I find myself praying to get sick just so that I can get a day off to lie in bed.

When you hope to get sick, you can safely bet that you are already diseased in some capacity.

And it was in the morning mirror as I was splashing water across my face that I saw my target, it was me.

I still can't understand why I am out for myself. It's almost as if I am tracking my own footprints, in hopes that when I finally stumble upon myself sitting in my office chair pouring over emails and spreadsheets, that I will pull the proverbial trigger. I will let myself off the hook, I will hand myself a hall pass to the next stage of my life.

I want to fast forward the crappy parts of the movie and get to the good parts.

Friday morning, as I was reading my devotional I had an epiphany.

I think that epiphany's are just discovering something that everyone else has already figured out but you have always refused to see.

So here's to late bloomers!

I read an entry called Surrendering Your Dreams.

Every word resonated so deeply with me, that the words still echo in my head. I have these dreams for myself. I have these plans. I have these self actualized goals.

The key phrase is "I have"...

No matter what your beliefs are, whether you think God is upstairs or not, the truth is that we have little or no control over our dreams coming true. We can be the authors of them, but the final chapters, well those are beyond our control. We just can't make life look like we want it to. We are powerless in the now.

Sure, we can pursue our dreams, we can move to new cities, make connections with people who can catapult us, and we can create better art, finish starts, practice, devote, and emerge a new and improved version of our former selves.

But without opportunity, which we have to just wait to find us, we can not make anything happen in our lives.

They just happen. Like some stroke of random chance?

Some choose to think everything is chance, and some people choose to believe that everything is planned, coordinated, designed from the beginning of time- we just aren't the Planner.

I am somewhere in between.

I believe in divine chance.

Right now it is spring in Nashville. The roses are budding, the air smells like lilac's and the air isn't heavy, but juicy, with evening rain. Just months ago all of the flowers were sticks, stubby and awkward. No one would walk down 12 South and "ooh" and "aah" over a rose garden in the late winter, who wants to admire skeletons of roses?

But hidden inside those lethargic twigs are shoots of life that will bloom in their season.

And that will be the season for admiration.

In my devotional this caught my eye,

"We don't want to be just wishful thinkers, always living in a dreamworld and never seeing anything of significance materialize. We don't want to be continually chasing after something that God is not blessing.We want to live with confidence that our hopes, dreams, and expectations are based on God-given certainty that He is behind them. If they are only our dreams and visions and not his we will experience a lifetime of unfulfillment and strife trying to make them happen."

This is profound to me, because this has been my life.

Over a glass or two of wine on date night this past week, my husband and I were calibrating and discussing how my mood and spirit had been affected by my job. He was telling me it was OK to quit. He said, "If it is going to make you this unhappy, which makes me unhappy, then I would rather you just quit."

Do you have any idea how long I have waited for him to endorse my secret thought?

I have tried to prove to him in so many ways that I am not lazy, irresponsible, and that I can be a working and productive part of our life and bank account. All of which he has never accused me of, and probably never even entertained the thought of me being. These are little insecurities that I have designed, and postmarked across my own forehead.

So you can see why my own response surprised me.

I didn't want to quit. Not now.

I said that I felt like I was supposed to be in this stage of discomfort. It sounded so weird saying. And for once I was at a loss for words. How do you explain that you think you should stay in a cell, just for your own character's sake. Talk about masochist maturity.

But it was more than that. I felt like I needed to surrender my dreams and wait on God. I need to wait. Daily.

My husband's next comment stung. He shook his head, looked at the floor and smiled- a smile where his eyes redden a little around the edges which tells me this smile isn't a happy smirk it is an ironic one, "My biggest fear, is that you will never be happy. No matter what you do. That is honestly my biggest fear."

Talk about a gut punch. I know that I am an extremely internal person, I know I am always looking for little pieces of the bigger picture so that I can try to fit together the irregular puzzle of my life to produce some sort of meaning.

But I am not generally unhappy. I am just frustrated. I have been fighting with my dreams for a long time now. And they remain dormant shoots of life inside of me. All that has ever been visible is the shoddy limbs. The vacant tree branches. The thorns. My bitterness against the system. Life's order of checks and balances.

And then I realized that I have never surrendered my dreams. I have always let myself entertain the idea of an alternate life that I will someday live.

And because of that I am spending most of my life as a skeleton of a shrub. I require more pruning than the average person. I am stubborn in trying to force myself to bloom.

Jesus is the master of perfect timing, and he knows when I will be ready to flourish.

If I surrender my dreams, and turn the gun away from myself and just seek peace with where I am at in life, then I give God a chance to breathe back life into dreams that I have been trying to resuscitate for years.

Stormie, the author of the devotional ties it up this way, "Our life may look barren during a time, but God is actually freeing us from anything that does not bring forth life. This process of surrendering to the Lord, especially our dreams, is called pruning. A dying of our dreams. which is painful, especially if our identity is wrapped up in them."

Ok. That right there. That is the epiphany. That is the answer.

To quote one of my favorite shows Six Feet Under, someone asks the funeral director, "Why do people have to die?", and I love his answer, "To make life important."

So why do dreams have to die?

I think you know.

Fender Benders and The Disappearing Man

So as I was driving into work today, I tuned in some Lori McKenna and was humming along to Witness to your Life (my favorite) as I was heading towards the downtown skyline on yet another work day.

She was singing about how all you need is someone who won't let you disappear, all you need is a witness to your life to make you feel important and purposeful. That line sticks with me, and will pop up in the strangest of times. When I burn a pancake, when I get lost, when I am being lazy, when I feel my dreams dying.

I listened to the song twice, and couldn't miss the beauty of the day. The morning was cool and thin, not thick and humid. I watched in envy as the barista at my coffee shop, whipped up a cappuccino with her eyebrow piercing, dyed black hair, and free spirit- I deduced she was either in school or was an artist. And then I took inventory of my own self. I felt so strange in my work clothes with my hair pulled back checking the clock every two minutes to be sure I wouldn't be late.

All I wanted to do was lay canvases all over my living room floor and paint for hours while listening to Sara Groves and Sonya Kitchell. I envisioned myself sitting on my deck, scribbling in my journal that I haven't touched in weeks, and just praising God in the glory of the day.

As I climbed back into my car and puttered into town, I came to a stop at the light. I stared down at my odometer, it read over 50,000 miles. I asked myself where have I been? In those miles what roads have I traveled? Which ones should I have avoided, and more importantly which miles have I avoided in order to stay on the safe and predictable?

All of a sudden I looked up and my bumper was kissing the bumper in front of me. I jerked my head back and threw the car in reverse. I could see the inquisitive blonde staring at me from her rear view window. Her eyebrows furrowed and her lip slightly curled up.

Crap.

The good news was that it wasn't a fender bender it was just a bumper kiss. We laughed it off, thankfully, and I got back into my car.

I was humbled.

Here I go thinking all about myself again, and how I hate feeling imprisoned by a building and computers and deadlines. It never fails, when I get so focused on myself I end up making stupid mistakes, or worse just not paying attention and bumping into other people while feeling sorry for myself.

I am not going to lie, this blog has little hints of pity me, but I am just mourning the slumber of my creative self. I miss my words, ideas, and songs that used to come to me- or more accurately the time that I used to have in order to wait for them to emerge. I miss the feeling of freedom and wonder, and how I used to witness the unfolding of a day. A slow reveal, that could be equal parts quiet and chaos.

Every day is a gift, but some days feel like an unopened present that just sits on the counter for days on end, ignored and unappreciated. In my house I have stacks of invisible gifts, days that were never truly opened, days that were never, nor ever will be, truly lived.

In the meantime I will have to settle for slowly disappearing. I do feel a quiet suffocation, one that is enforced by mortgages, exhaustion, disconnection, false excitement, empty emails, and paychecks.

My heart hurts, and I miss who I used to be.

I guess that's what happens as you grow up. You change.

Well, I need a little Benjamin Button action. I am not ready to let my old self disappear! I am not ready to turn myself over yet, I don't want to lose the childish imagination inside of me, the voice that whispers that dreams do come true.

Because lately, the grown up woman inside of me has been telling me they don't.

Shame on her.

Just Because I'm Losing Doesn't Mean I'm Lost

I stole that line from Coldplay.

But it such a flipping sweet line, I felt compelled to jot down a few thoughts on the subject of losing.

As you may or may not have noticed, I have been as quiet as a nun on my blog this week. Not by choice mind you, but I have been silenced by the busyness of my life's little blip on the occupational radar. I have been taken hostage by deadlines, incredulous amounts of work, and my own fear of failure at a job that shouldn't define me, but has somehow become my standard of personal success.

Whenever I get apprehended by the importance of the non-important, I find myself constantly losing the battle towards forward progress.

Forward progress looks different for everyone. Some people want to improve their relationships, some people want a promotion, some people want a demotion, and some people just want some direction for direction's sake.

That's me. Just give me a reason Man, a purpose!

I would love to find a map in my mailbox that has a thickly drawn, red X over where I am supposed to be heading. Instead I open the mailbox and find Shape, Oxygen and Victoria's Secret magazines- all of which remind me of another battle I am losing, the race for a better butt.

For me forward progress looks like a balance between responsibility and rapture. I know my life can not be me sipping on tea all day long writing books, poems, songs and articles- not yet anyway. And so instead of trying to do both, I turn myself over to my "real job" so as to not have to face the fact that I am losing my creative pulse. It is fading in my ears, when it used to pump so loudly I could not make it stop.

I was listening to some talk radio show, and some guy called in to say that he was addicted to lying, but that it didn't start becoming a problem until he kicked his habitual drinking problem. The radio host called it "swapping addictions".

I am not addicted to my job. But I think I may addicted to false purpose. I think I have an "all or nothing" personality. I am the type of person who does things all the way or no way, and so as a result I have swapped out my addiction for prose and filled it in with paperwork and pin pushers.

Whatever makes me feel like I am doing something is my muse lately, even if its the wrong thing.

And that is the crux of my quest, just because I am doing something that doesn't utilize my creative bicep on a daily basis, is it wrong?

I don't think living our lives based upon what opportunities present themselves is wrong or right, I think it just is. Simply waiting around for the perfect thing isn't progression, that's in some respects, procrastination. I know this because I refused to get a job for a long time, just in case the call came in and I was to be whisked away to a lifetime of stardom, or at least to a life that would consist of constant monetary return on my art.

The truth was that I wanted to be different than everyone else. I didn't want to work full time as a bold testament to every one else and to myself that I wasn't ordinary. I wanted to believe that I wasn't sitting in rush hour traffic, dealing with office politics, and managerial hierarchy because I had THAT much faith in my talent.

Well that facade has been torn down. I didn't have that much "faith", it was just stubborn conceit. I now understand the joy of hard work and responsibility. It isn't glamorous but it is character building and it has opened my eyes to what is truly important to me.

It isn't my art.

My art is an extension of my happiness, and I am most happy when I productive with my time, whether that time serves me personally or not. As long as the progress is positive all gains are good.

But, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be some pursuing of our dreams while under the thumb of our responsibilities...it just gets to hard to determine what to do and what that looks like practically, especially when at the end of the day all I want to do is uncork a bottle of wine and watch I Love Lucy.

People say life is all about balance.

Well, at the time I am imbalanced. I guess I should work on that.

I never thought I would be working full time, while I watch my guitar on the wall gather dust and my running shoes remain too white.

Right now I am still pursuing what I should define in my life as hobby, therapy, and necessary.

As I am trying to stitch together which is what, I can only hope that tomorrow I will be a little closer to understanding my purpose than I am today.

Pottery Barn and Jesus' Champagne

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am always trying to pawn my guest room off on anyone and everyone who wants to stay. I have what I like to call an entire "guest wing", which is really just another bedroom and bathroom that is on the other side of our one story home.

Over the last few months I have had all kinds of people come and stay in my guest wing. A brokenhearted man who was in the middle of a divorce. A Yosemite National Park high camp counselor who was used to sleeping under the stars, and consequently slept on top of the linens and sheets I washed for him. As well as a couple of my giggly best friends, and of course my family has stayed on occasion.

Today I spent the majority of the afternoon getting the guest room ready for another visitor. But this time I wanted to make sure the room was an inviting place. I wanted it to feel like a home away from home. I wanted it to be perfect for one of the people that I love the most in my life, my mother.

This meant the special details must be attended to. And not because I need to impress her, quite the opposite. If I didn't clean the sheets, gave her one flat pillow, and made her sleep on a mattress in the middle of a bare-walled room, she wouldn't even whisper a complaint. Instead, if I know my mom as well as I think I do, she would paint the walls, buy me a bed frame, hang up some art, and fleece the room with yummy smelling candles, as a "thank you" for having her stay. She is just that way, extremely giving and not at all pretentious.

Lucky for her, I do care about the guest quarters very much and so in preparation for her visit I vacuumed, washed the linens with an expensive lavender laundry detergent, and I lit candles in preparation. I even went to TJ Maxx, and bought a new shelf with a beautiful silver tree, as hanging wall art.

I made the bed with hot sheets right out of the dryer and folded them down like in a Pottery Barn magazine so that the pattern was visible and smooth. I filled a gift bag with a book I bought her and placed it on the center of the bed.

I opened up the blinds which ushered in the mute blanket of purple-tinged, rainy day light- which had a calming effect on the space. The rain was dripping in between the branches of our backyard tree. Its color is now a bright pop of Kelly green since its spring. It's vibrancy stretches out right in front of the guest room window, making the room seem more alive. Refreshing.

I watched a single pearl of rain as it fell haphazardly through the branches. It plunked out natural notes with each fall, much like a chromatic scale, creating an inaudible yet visible scale of sound on each leaf it splashed against. The high notes at the top of the tree were followed by the mid range and then finished out with the baritone pitch of the fat plonks on the bottom bough.

I turned around to look at the room. I was very proud of it. It looked like it could be in an issue of it's own, like a perfectly staged bed and breakfast. The accent lights were gooey and comforting, the smells were a mix of spice and spring, and the carpet was soft and clean.

I felt an excitement rise in my heart, and a swelling of my soul. I always get this way when my mom gets to come down from Seattle and spend time with me. I blew out the candles and stole one more glance at the room before leaving it.

I have gone back into the room a few more times since I spruced it up. Each time I notice how eager the room is for someone to be in it. The clean floor is just begging for a messy suitcase, the perfect bedspread is crying out for a wrinkle, or a stray sock. The bed side table is requesting a half drank glass of water, and the closet is clamoring for some clothes to fill the empty hangers.

And then it dawned on me. This must be what our rooms in heaven look like. Prepared and waiting, even the walls wait with bated breath in anticipation for our arrival. The tree outside of the window is just a shrub, but grows with each year of our life that is lived. So by the time we open the shades, we will see a full grown version of our family tree. In the blossom of spring.

And I can just imagine God pacing back and forth across the room. Sitting on the bed, running his hands across the pattern in the fabrics. Fixing an off kilter picture on the wall, painting the weather outside to match the cadence of calmness so that after our long journey we can finally feel what it means to truly rest. He nervously taps his boot against the floor, watching the second hand on the clock creep its way closer to our meeting. He has gifts on the bed, the finest linens on the bed and a bottle of champagne chilling on ice.

God gets a bad rap as the one who wrecks havoc on the world, kills people in violent storms, and leaves millions to their own starvation and sickness, but imagine a world where all the imperfections of humanity were eradicated, and all that was left was simply love. A tree that was nothing but leaves of love sewn together from lifetimes of hard journeys and joyous victories.

To be honest, I don't get the guest room this spiffed up for just anyone. I do of course clean the sheets and put a candle or two in there, but I don't spend as much energy as I did for other guests as I do for my mom. This is only because I know my mom so very well, and I really want to make this place nice for her.

We share DNA, we share a lifetime of memories, and we have shared a million pee-in-your-pants laughs, we are best friends.

That is what it is like to be a believer.

To have that kind of love and affection and connection with Jesus, and vice versa.

Sound freakish? Intangible as it is, the entire dynamic of the relational exchange is the same. If you allow yourself to step outside of the boundary of reality, which is made up of man made institutions, theory and relativity it is possible to imagine such a place. And if we can leave behind our broken perceptions of family which are unfortunately drawn by fathers who abused us, and one that is marred by the addictions that stole our mothers, and by the jealousy which has robbed us of true friendship- we can imagine a home that we actually want to go to. If we can peer into the paradigm of what is actual truth and not just what is perceived to be true- we can begin to see the outline of a bedroom door in the distance. One that holds no fear, nothing but acceptance.

God says he loves us like nobody can ever love us. He loves deeper than we are capable of. This isn't the type of Hallmark love, that is commercialized and watered down to empty words and palsy poetry. It is a love that bleeds, that is hard to watch, that is insane, and yet gentle.

My little guest room is nothing fancy, but it is a little slice of heaven in the sense that my human desire to serve, prepare, and provide for is demonstrated in the tender care that I put into that 10x10 room. That desire is from the original composer of comfort.

Until then, remember there is someone who desperately misses you and is waiting for you, even when you feel like a stranger in your own home. Or like most of us, utterly alone.