Time Now

Time now. I'm going off line for three weeks. I'll be at the cottage, and I am so ready to be at the cottage.

Time now. To just be. To watch. To hear. To revel in my skin for a bit. I'll be at the cottage, and I am so ready to be at the cottage.

Time now. To bake cookies and pick blueberries and swim. To sit still long enough to earn the trust of skittish creatures and let my soul come out of hiding. I'll be at the cottage, and I am so ready to be at the cottage.

Time now. To nurture my most important human connection and give the gift of space to all the rest. To heal a bit. To cry some. To laugh silly and think of nothing too much at all and everything all at once. To let the enormity of my life find its proper perspective in the bigger-ness of God.

Time to be me, in case I forgot how. Time to let my spirit marinate in gentleness. Time to sleep the holy sleep of Sabbath.

And I can do all that. Because I'll be at the cottage.

And I am so, so ready to be at the cottage.

And for all those who have shared something of themselves with me this season, thank you. I needed you. I will need you again as we go around again.

But for now, it's time.

Taking Care of Each Other

I've recently taking up swimming. It's my latest desperate attempt to do something that counts as exercise. Three times a week, for the past, oh two weeks (you've got to start somewhere) I've headed over to the Rec Centre and done the lane swim. 20 laps, I'm told, is close enough to 1 km that I've been using that as my goal.

Feels good.......when I'm done. Actually even during the swim, I find it soothing, calming, centering, over and over again, lifting my arms pulling myself forward through the water. A time to think, uninterrupted. A time to pray.

In the week before Zachary's birth, Kristyn and I were mapping out a few plans for after his arrival. Wait, did I say plans? What am I thinking? You can't plan anything once a newborn is in the house. I guess we were talking more about some priorities, things we were wanting to keep at the top of the list, even once the lovely random newborn chaos began.

At one point in the conversation I had said that I hoped I could still get over to the pool to do my laps. "Because," I said, "I still need to take care of myself."

Abby, who was playing nearby, picked up on that and corrected me.

"We will take care of you, Gramma."

I looked at her and realized how fundamentally right and true and good her statement was. We're a family. Our dynamics may be somewhat unusual but the bottom line is still the bottom line.

We're a family. We take care of each other. The giving and the taking flows back and forth and up and down and in and around in ways that, provided we all know who we are and Who's we are, happens in love and with grace.

And the very cool thing, especially for us right now, is that "family" goes a whole lot further than just those who live under this one roof. A whole lot further. We know it. We feel it. And the giving and taking flows back and forth and up and down and in and around in ways that, providing we all know who we are and Who's we are, happens in love and with grace.

And hopefully I can get in a swim soon.

Newborn Awe

It's all new
All wide-eyed and unbelievable
Everything you see
Everything we see in you and because of you

Welcome, Unexpected Blessing
Grandson undeserved
We receive you with bold love
And kick-butt grace
And we commit you to our Faithful Creator
And ask His favour to continue to do as good as the little we know

And we love you
How could we help it?

RAB09

For Zachary Jan born June 19, 2009 at 1:49 a.m. 8 lbs 7 oz, 22 inches
and entirely captivating.

When You Least Expect It

Just a short post this evening, to share with permission an excerpt of an e-mail I recently received from Starr Bramer. Starr is a University Student who works with our Children's and Student's ministries at Highview and also traveled with our Asia Team last month to visit the Hot Springs Orphan Home.

Confession: I am shamelessly recruiting young adults for our missions teams with the blatant intention of exposing them to the kinds of cross cultural experiences that God may choose to use to totally redirect their futures. Shamelessly, but with a great deal of respect and no hint of manipulative tactics, I trust.

Starr was stellar on the trip to Thailand. She demonstrated maturity beyond her years, moved honestly through the emotional terrain of a first cross cultural experience, and held her own as a full member of the Team.

Here's part of how she's continuing to process what went down for her.

I was at a concert Saturday night. Hillsong United was playing in the Molson Ampitheatre. Big sounds, lights, hype. But then in a quiet moment, a member of the opening band talked about a recent trip to Thailand and the pain of seeing the big industry that is prostitution. You can buy children there. In the middle of a huge concert in Toronto, I started sobbing for the children in Thailand. There is so much hurt. But I thank and praise God for Suradet and Yupa. Because of them, our 15 beautiful children are saved in such a big way.

God works in such weird ways! I'm praying for our friends in Thailand along with you.

Starr

On This Rock I Fret

Human relationships can be tricky things.

I'm involved in a lot of them. In fact, for the most part I regard my life to be rich in deep and lasting friendships, some of them life long. Family members, especially my husband, bring a stability and anchoring to my own identity and personhood. Others, like the delirous joy that exudes from my granddaughter, feel like outlandish gifts I most certainly don't deserve. I am more me because of the other.

I also feel a great delight in the connections I have with people from so many different areas and eras of my life that fall into various degrees of knowing. Their laughter, their opinions, their stories all make a contribution to my own. God brings so much to my life through the interface of other human souls with mine, and I am glad, grateful.

Still, at times, the relational territory gets weird. You want it, but it's not easy. It's sort of like getting out to the water on one of the rocky beaches up on the Bruce Peninsula. The vivid colours of sky and water, and the promise of an invigorating swim draw you out there, but each step is treacherous, requiring great concentration and agility. The rocks are different sizes, and some are well set, while others are totally loose, and they all look the same. You can't tell, sometimes, when you put your foot down, whether or not you'll be okay. The threat of a nasty tumble is in every step.

It's puzzling to me how quickly I can lose my nerve in these relationships. In spite of the fact that at other times, certainly in the past year, I have been able to square my shoulders and face dark and insidious enemies with a courage and ferocity beyond myself, the threat that comes to me in the form of a difficult relationship makes me want to forget about the swim and run back to the forest to hide. I can anticipate the fall, remembering the pain of past knee-smashing, elbow-crunching, face-disfiguring encounters with the rocks of violation and betrayal. My ankles are weak with the sense that I've been here before, and it's going to hurt.

What keeps me going? Certainly there would be some routes to the waters of friendship that should be avoided at all costs. When another human soul is so damaged that abuse and violence in any of their forms is the experienced expectation, it's not wise or loving to go there. And in some cases, I have chosen not to visit those beaches any more. Nothing good or godly can come of it.

But something about the way God keeps pursuing me informs me that rocky relationships should not be abandoned as a matter of course. I feel like running, but I don't. And I might get hurt, and I may do some hurting, as we both pick our way through. And if I get tired, like really, really tired, like I am now, I may need to sit out for a while and catch my breath before moving forward again. But if I love you, I'll keep going. And if I left my love for Jesus love you when I can't love you, I'll keep on going. If you start to pick up stones to throw at me, I'll leave the beach.

But as long as we can keep heading out to the water together, I won't give up on you.

At least, I don't want to.

An Open Letter to Two Remarkable Heroes

To my dear and honourable friends, Pastor Suradet and Yupa,

This day, for reasons not clear to me, has been particularly painful in the missing of you both. My thoughts have been of you, and of the children at Hot Springs. My heart is heavy with longing to be with you. I am homesick for Thailand.

Often I write about and express freely my affections for the children. They are without question 15 treasures, and I do miss them terribly on days like this, and most other days too, if I'm honest. I miss hearing their voices, having them come for a hug, being gifted with a beauteous smile. They have captured my imagination in ways that still surprise me. I am fiercely intent on their well being. I pray for them with intensity.

But today my thoughts are more with you. Today I am missing you, my friends.

It still astonishes me that I could feel so close to and hold in such high esteem people with whom I can barely communicate. Not with language at least. Your English is very good. Geng mahk. Much better than my feeble attempts to wrap my poor brain around Thai, as amusing as that challenge has been. But really, if we were both honest, we can hardly talk to each other.

Yet I love you so much. I feel so warm and welcome and respected in your presence. I am so eagerly embraced into your family, and into your hearts. Your lives inspire me and lift me and make me want to live better, and know you better, and ask if somehow I can be more and more part of who you are and what you do.

That's the thing. This deepening desire to be part of what God is so clearly doing through you. I am compelled by an interest and affection I don't understand. There is a chemistry happening, something I've only experienced once or twice before in my entire ministry and personal life. There's a pull, a fascination, something I can't shake, not that I want to, that makes my heart beat harder when I think about how God is letting me do this with you.

I speak in the personal, but I fully know that there's a whole beautiful church of people called Highview, especially the sponsors, that share in all of this. Hot Springs is hardly the pet project of one person. It can't be. It's certainly way bigger than me, and we need to pull on the resources of one another in order to make the difference we hope to make. In that, I have been overwhelmed with the generosity of our people to engage with the children. You are well loved by not just the sponsors, but by our people as a whole. Know that. Feel that. Receive that.

That's why, right now, as we consider the changes that are being presented to us, I am more and more convinced that God is about to show us something new. I am asking Him to give the ideas and compassion and the creativity to partner with you in the fullest sense of the word. To think this out and through and up and over and above all that you both require to raise your children and unleash them to their futures. We want to do this ministry with you.

You have done a remarkable thing. You've opened up your entire lives, turned them upside down, for the sake of bringing love and life to children who would otherwise have been helpless. You spread out the mats and put on the rice and opened your arms so that thirteen kids could sleep and eat and be loved. Selflessly, tirelessly.

I love watching you do it. It's so joyful. You are so delightful as you love them. Being with you and engaging with this sweet energy, pours light and strength into my soul. Moving easily through a regular day with you is like plugging into to something supercharged and gentle and white hot and pure. From morning devotions at 5 a.m. to evening devotions after supper and all the moments of life in between. The children. The mountains. The rain. The rice. The mangos. The singing....that sound of musical hope echoing in the upper assembly room, and out into the jungle air.

You are doing an amazing job. You are doing this so well. I am so inspired and challenged by who you are and what you do. What an unspeakable gift you have brought to these children.

To Bee and Bao, of course, the children born from your bodies. But also for Teh and Saiy and Entorn and Thim and Somchai and Bee and Miki and Sai and Boy and Bee-yung and Fruk and Nam and Nut, the children born from your obedient compassion Fifteen altogether.

Suradet, you told me, when we were there, that you have a dream to build a dorm that would house 30. Thirty children, you said. Dek dek sam-sip, I said. And you smiled that completely bilingual and winning smile of yours, and said, Yeeesss.

You have one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know.

I want to learn from you, Suradet. I want to understand better from you Yupa. You have so much to teach me about love.

And love is the most important thing. In fact, the two you embody the words of Paul in Galatians 5:6.

"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

You ARE those words Suradet.
You LIVE those words Yupa.
Far more than I.

And that is why you are my heroes. Remarkable heroes. Stunning.

So my prayer on this day of particularly missing you is this. That I may be granted the enormous honour of sharing in your ministry as much as I possibly am allowed. To the fullest extent that God sees fit. With whatever I can bring to this, I am asking, begging, to be granted the priviledge to share in this. Not in the doing of it, because you already do it so well. Just....Lord, please let me be as much a part of this as I can be.

And please, can it be that soon I will wake up and not be missing you....because I will be there with you for a little while again.

With deepest affection and immense respect,
Your humble friend,

Ruth Anne