The morning after this jaw dropping phone call, I went to my local Starbucks, sat outside and immediately lit up a cigarette. Pulling out my Artist Way book, dutifully I attempted my reading, but was unable to focus because I had some pressing things that literally felt as if they were sitting on my heart and I began to think on them, sitting in that chair, on the patio of my Starbucks around 8:30 am.
The past spring was an extremely weird season for me. For starters, I noticed my business as a makeup artist was going south. Not that it was ever great, but it was just a big as I ever wanted it to be, really, in light of my general lack of an administrative gift and let's be honest -- my fear of success. So it was rather odd to me that all of a sudden, something told me in my gut to make a new website. Folks, I'm computer illiterate. As an Art History major, who wrote papers all the time, I didn't figure out there even was such a thing as cut and paste until 2005 -- my senior year. Yeah.
It was the feeling in my gut that literally forced me to obey this odd command. It was so strong it literally reminded me of Field of Dreams and the 'build it and they will come" statement, but for me, the verbage was "seen." I knew, somehow, I would be seen. Known, if you will. Not famous, just known. It was the first time I just knew something without explanation. So I made a new web site. Check it out.
Not bad for a gal who complained since 2008 she didn't like her website and couldn't fix it because she didn't know how. Not bad at all.
That Spring I also got an itch to -- get this--garden. I don't go outside. I hate bugs. Don't know a thing about gardening whatsoever, but here I was, using muscles I didn't know I had, shoveling dirt, planting everything from chocolate bell peppers (who knew there even was such a thing), San Marzano tomatoes (which had me super excited for sauce making), corn, squash, green beans, cayenne pepper, basil, purple basil, strawberries, watermelon --you name it I had it.Willingly and happily I went out to water my plants daily, shared the experience with my daughter, cared for these plants, did all the hard work -- knowing full well -- we were about to have the hottest summer in twenty years. For me to create an opportunity for me to be outside in regular -- not to mention -- excessive Texas heat is nothing I would ever choose to do.
To prepare this garden, I called someone whom I knew could walk me through it. Diane. She's the only person I knew that gardened, every year. She was seasoned. She was wise.
The reason I shared these stories with you is quite simple. Like it or not, He goes before you and paves the way -- just like I told James, and just like I was recalling in my journal this day. Listening to the pull that told me to make a website -- the feeling in my gut -- some call that intuition, but I can call that God with utmost certainty, because God gave us intuition, and it was His way of introducing me to His call. It is also explicative of His ability to be your strength, folks. I don't know code. I didn't know cut and paste. Still, I can barely use Publisher, which is a drag n drop situation, yet I made this website. And oh, the garden. There is so much in that. My mother, for example. She tilled the tough soil of my heart for years, many before and around her planted seeds, and here I was, acting totally out of character and in blind faith gardening in February, preparing and digging through very tough, clay based, Texas soil.
Then came the morning at Starbucks. I put pen to paper to work out my thoughts in my journal. My thoughts. I had control here. Up until the very last moment, I fought this conformity, this molding that was about to take place.
When I wrote that very first sentence, "Today, I think I need to talk about God," I was shaken. The air was crisp, even slightly chilly when the wind blew. My back was turned to the parking lot and I could see my reflection in the dirty store windows. As the speed to my writing increased, so did the speed at which I smoked my cigarettes. The many strings of my life that had been unravelling before my eyes became visible to me, my relationship with James and my business in particular. My increased usage of self help books came to mind, as did the fact that seemed to get me nowhere--something James lovingly pointed out to me I refused to hear.
Then came the capital letters as I wrote about the previous day, a day "I actually, I think, saw God at work." Regular script would no longer suffice here, I had to use caps. Shortly, caps wouldn't do it for me, either.
It came to a point I admitted I was afraid. Two cigarettes later, I was still afraid.I knew I needed to call Diane.
I explained to her all of my rants, what was going on, and literally I could hear her stunned silence when I told her the events of the phone call,particularly when I told her it was like God himself marched into my living room, what that looked like to me, that "I can SEE whats happening with my own eyes," how scary it was, and my pleading with her to explain it to me, without saying what I knew she would.
I was at a crossroads.
And it looked like this: as I lifted my tear stained and frustrated face out of the hands that were hiding it, I could see myself in the windows of the store, terrified someone I knew would see me so fragile, so weak. When I realized what she would say to me, it was if I was in a vacuum. Everything stopped, and my smartphone was a tin can, with a very, very long line, made of old twine, possibly gnawed in some places and eaten by moths, yet I heard her say as if I was the only person in the world and she hundreds of miles away, "Hollie, it sounds to me like you're ready to talk about God."
When she finally arrived at the house, I'm sure James was confused -- I was so fragile, I couldn't even tell him what was about to happen. All I could do was chain smoke and tap my foot outside. You see, I couldn't have the conversation that was about to happen over the phone. James had just agreed to take a risk, to go to the Center, despite being scared, to make a change for the better, you see, and to this day I will say that was God's way of putting us on the same level. In the very least I could share in his vulnerability, right? Set the example? Faith in something other than myself was the one thing I had never tried, and at that point, I knew I had nothing to lose. I needed to share this with him, as so many in relationships feel they need to do. You cannot be someone Else's Holy Spirit, is what I've learned form that. Just cant. It's all in His timing, His hands, not yours.
I do not remember the opening of the conversation. I just remember when it got down to it, there couldn't have been any blood in poor James' hand I held it so tightly. I was terrified.
Before I prayed, with one eye open wide and the other clenched tightly shut, I asked Diane, "Is this gonna hurt?" I can happily report that is the second most stupid question I've ever asked. The first was in the recovery room at the hospital after my Cesarean. I looked at my mom when Amelie was brought to me, and I said, "Now what do I do?" She replied, "well, you just love on her as best as you can." To that, in my drugged state asked, "If I drop her, will she bounce like a jar of peanut butter?"
Let me stop there. I prayed. Diane walked me through it, but I prayed. I never prayed. Ok, I prayed "I will such and such if you will such and such" many times throughout my life when whatever circumstance didn't suit my fancy or just go the way I wanted. Jeez, I remember doing that over a boy in middle school, "Oh, just let him like me." No. No. No. This was different. This was scary, it was a gritty reality as I literally (and this is gonna sound crazy but here I go) spat the darkness out of me. Me! A stubborn, selfish, very, very strong Taurus was about to admit I was wrong I couldn't do it alone, I needed help. I needed J...JJ...JJJeesus.
And then I cried like I don't think I ever cried before, and she gave me a verse. Diane got on her knees, came to me, hugged me, and simply let me cry. I remember her pretty blue eyes twinkled at me as we parted and she said, "You are changed." That kinda freaked me out, even though she was right. It has been the one thing people who saw me the day before or I haven't seen in years have noticed -- I look different. I remember I held my hands to my chest when she said this. It scared me. I'd spent many years crafting my image, and felt she was going a little charismaniac on me, but I knew she wasn't that way. When it comes to Diane, there is a trust there, even when it's scary or it stings. But that is growth. On this day, I was certainly being stretched.
But so was Diane.
Diane said it was unlike anything she'd ever seen, and she'd grown up in the church, led many to the Lord, but this she said, was different. Her story is one of freedom from religion when she witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit work through her husband upon the birth of their firstborn. She decided it was time she knew Him instead would be better than knowing of Him, so how perfect the Lord sent her my way. It was different for her because on her way to my house, she didn't feel equipped. She was scared. That little voice --we all know (believer or not) said, "Who do you think you are? You can't help her. You don't know anything." She turned to the most powerful weapon she has and that is prayer. She even called some folks to pray with her, along side her..and for me, a gal anxiously pacing, awaiting her arrival, afraid of what was going to happen..
Later, when she admitted she was afraid, it surprised me that the most Godly woman I know, felt ill equipped to walk me to truth that will never ever let me down. Of all people, she should know God uses ordinary people all the time. The Bible is littered with small people with big stories. Just look a David. A shepherd boy against a giant. Easy peezy, yes? For a housewife in Texas? Surely.
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| my baptism gift from Diane. |
Because she loved me enough to make herself uncomfortable, my life has been changed forever. Did you read that? She modeled Christ, and because of her willingness to be used, and through no act of my own besides sitting on my couch, I finally relented. I answered a call that I allowed to ring for years and years --a decade at least, if not longer. Answering that call, allowing Christ to pick up this Girl Interrupted, to hold me, love me, and mold me into who He already knew I would be. There is finally a peace, a stillness even amidst some chaos, because the infernal ringing I always tried to quiet with my own understanding, my own distractions, has ceased. July 14, 2011 is the day I died, so that I may learn to truly live.
If you are in a drought, this Gospel -- it will water you, like a monsoon, it will water you.
"The rain that soaks the parched land always has an effect. It bathes soil, which feeds roots, which nourish plants, which produce flowers. So it is with the Word of God. It changes what it touches, producing beauty and fruitfulness in people's lives." Paul David Tripp
And I would just like to say, one of the first things I asked God to help me with was smoking. Nineteen years of a pack a day went bye bye, nearly overnight one day in August 2011, and it had nothing to do with me. He is bigger than any formula, prescription, addiction or plan. He trumps it all, folks, quite simply because He paid it all, and it's all to Him I owe.
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