the good samaritan.

From day one, my relationship with Glenn has been an adventure. 

When we started dating, I had just started the process of trying to move overseas. We got engaged in a foreign country. We got married during a pandemic. Within the first few months of marriage, we have been to the ER in the middle of the night (kidney stones), had to have (expensive) repairs done on both of our cars, realized that my eyes are basically allergic to contacts now (so I finally decided to actually go through with the Lasik surgery I'd been considering for years), and experienced the normal ups and downs and lessons in communication that come with the territory of marriage.

And I've never been so happy in my entire life.

And I thought I couldn't love my husband any more than when he took such good, sweet, tender care me after my eye surgery, amidst all the pain and anxiety I felt that first night. He made me feel so safe.

But then I felt an even more profound and deep love for him as I watched someone else's blood trickle down his hand and crust over the wedding ring I had put on his finger a few months before, all because he got involved when he didn't have to.

I'm still amazed at the things that happened over Labor Day weekend. We went up to visit my brother and sister-in-law in the mountains of Virginia, a trip we almost decided to postpone because we've barely had a weekend at home over the past couple of months and were starting to feel weary from all the weekend trips. But we figured the rest of the fall wasn't going to be any less busy, so a holiday weekend would be the best time to go. We also almost weren't on that particular hiking trail at that exact time; our original plan was to do that hike first but we ended up hiking another trail in the morning and doing the waterfall hike in the afternoon. 

It was just an ordinary, fun weekend with family-who-are-also-friends, really. Until it wasn't. 

The short trail we were hiking ended in a beautiful, multi-tiered waterfall. We joined the masses in taking advantage of the photo op. As we were taking pictures at the bottom of the falls, Glenn said he thought he heard a scream. I didn't hear anything, so I told him I was sure it was nothing. But, sure enough, we saw other people looking towards the very top level of the waterfall and some people climbing up in that direction. Glenn told me to watch his backpack and immediate started scaling the rocky terrain to see what was going on.

I, not exactly being the wait-with-the-bags type, followed after he didn't come back after a few minutes and I couldn't see him anymore. When I got to the top, I saw two twenty-or-so-year-olds with bloody faces, one with a knot the size of a softball on her forehead and one with a gash on her knee down to the bone and her hand dangling 90 degrees from her bone-completely-sticking-out-of-the-skin snapped wrist. Apparently they had been standing on the rocks at the top of the waterfall taking pictures and had slipped and fallen face-first about two stories to the level below.

And then I saw my husband...holding the most badly bashed up girl's uninjured hand and praying with her.

She had been panicking before that...saying she wanted to die because the pain was so bad...and then asking anxiously if she was actually going to die. But she never screamed and cried again through the whole ordeal and kept asking Glenn to pray. Because she had hit her head, she couldn't always tell us her name or what day of the week it was, but she could tell us who was there with her, protecting her and taking care of her ("Jesus") and what he had done for her ("He died for me").

I've never been so proud of my husband as I watching him calm this frightened girl down (who, to add to everything else, was a study abroad student from Mexico and was worried what her family would think), by just keeping her talking and laughing as the EMT crew finally arrived (someone had to run all the way to the trail head just to get service to call 911) and pumped pain meds into her system and checked for other injuries. 

And I'll never be able to fully express how full my heart felt when he walked towards me, looking all windblown and battle-weary, after being part of the team that carried her stretcher into the middle of the waterfall and tied it to the helicopter so she could be airlifted out. 

I tell this story not to make much of my husband (even though he is pretty wonderful). I share it to magnify my Father. I cannot tell you how palpable his presence was in those intense hours...or how providential was his provision, from the fact that it didn't happen on a day when no one was around to help to the amazing fact that one of the first people on the scene was an off-duty EMT who was right there when it happened and knew they had to get the girls out of the cold water so they wouldn't go into shock and orchestrated carrying them across the river and down rocky edge of the falls to more level ground (when, surely, no one but a trained professional would have dared to more them with head injuries like that). 

And this story has such a happy ending...We called the hospital that we heard they were taking them to, just to see if they would be willing to let us know if they had made it there and if they were alive. Much to our surprise, they actually let us talk to the young woman that Glenn had been most directly involved in helping!

She told Glenn that he (and the others involved) had saved her life. She also said, "I told my family that I saw God yesterday. And it was you."

If that doesn't knock the wind out of you, I don't know what will. My prayer is that God uses her testimony of how He quite literally saved her life to draw many people to Himself. 

Several things were heavy on my heart as we processed through all this. 

First, I am blown away that I get to be married to such a compassionate person who loves others so much that he is willing to put himself in, at the very least, inconvenient and at most, hazardous situations to help them. 

Secondly, I was so convicted...If I didn't have such a husband, would I have ever even gotten involved at all? Would I have turned away, saying, "Those poor girls...I hope they're okay..." Would I have been like the "religious" people in the Good Samaritan story (Luke 10:25-37) who walked right by the man who had been robbed and beaten and left for dead...not wanting to be bothered or inconvenienced or slowed down. "Not my problem." Only the Samaritan got involved, saving him from, most likely, bleeding out or starving to death on the side of the road. 

In this passage, Jesus uses the parable to teach us that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. But do we? Do we really? I feel deeply humbled to have had to privilege or watching my husband actually do that.

Lastly, I've thought several times since this happened: If God can save two girls who were alone and far from home from a situation that could have easily been life threatening...why on EARTH do I worry so much about my own life? All my fear and anxiety and worrying is essentially me telling God, "You won't really take care of me or protect me or provide for me." But how could I doubt his goodness and protection and provision when I got to witness him work a miracle in saving these girls lives (and using Glenn and a few other kind passersby as part of that)?

I hope this story is an encouraging to someone else as it was to me. May we not miss such evidences of his presence and provision and the things who uses our circumstances to teach us. 

more than i could ask or imagine.

8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

9  ^pFor as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts. [Isaiah 55:8-9]

---

20 ⁱNow to ^jhim who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,^kaccording to the power at work within us, 21 ^lto him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. [Ephesians 3:20-21]

I don't really have a lot to say on this one. Just a follow up on my last post and a small testimony to these two verses.

When COVID-19 struck and shattered all my carefully-laid wedding plans, I didn't think there could be anything better than the way I saw it going in my mind. But I was wrong. God had better, sweeter, more intimate, more special plans for my wedding than I had for myself. 

I wish our friends and family could have been there to celebrate with us. But, quite inexplicably, I really did feel like everyone was actually there as they tuned in on Facebook live. And with such a small, simple ceremony, the day was stress-free and just sweet. The weather was perfect. The lighting was magical. A few family members watched from the top of the horse pasture and friends from foreign lands stayed up until after midnight to support us as we entered into this sacred covenant with God and each other. 

I'm sure I'll need to be reminded of this again and again in my life (and I'm sure I'll sink back into fear and doubt when ambiguity and seeming not-rightness/goodness come barreling through my life again), but God really does know better than I do. His ways are better. And in my wedding and my marriage so far, he has done more than I could ask or imagine.

Also, I'm personally LOVING married life! And to go back to a blog post from last year called "Why Wait?"....Yes: It is exceeding, abundantly, beautifully worth the wait :) 

If you would like to see our wedding (free of the frozen screens of the Facebook Live video :)), here's the recording (in three parts): 

Thanks for celebrating this very special time in our lives with us! We are just joyful and thankful :) 

all other ground is sinking sand.

To say this isn't what I expected would be the understatement of the century.

Of all the reasons to cancel a wedding, the possibility of a worldwide pandemic never even crossed my mind. 

Go figure, right?? 

But, here we are. I know the past few weeks have been crazy for everyone, but here's what the last two weeks or so have looked like for me:

March 13: Last day of working at the preschool before the governor of North Carolina mandated school closures (my school has continued to pay us, which is SO extravagantly gracious and generous and we are all so thankful!!!!).

March 15: As an anniversary/Valentine's Day gift, Glenn had bought us tickets to see Les Miserables...performance cancelled following the prohibition of large gatherings.

March 17: All restaurants begin operating takeout service only (Glenn and I have to have a meeting with a missions organization representative to talk through going overseas in my apartment instead). 

Somewhere between March 16-20: Move from denial that this could all go on long enough to affect our wedding to acceptance that we would likely not be able to have the 300-guest event we had planned and start to even get excited about a smaller, more intimate gathering and being able to livestream the ceremony so even more people could participate than would have originally been able to come anyway.

March 20-22: Enjoy a sweet time at the beach with my family and continue to work on wedding decorations with the hope that we would still be able to have some sort of ceremony/reception on May 23 with 50-100 people.

March 23: Governor of Virginia closes schools for the rest of the school year and limits legal gatherings to 10 or less until the end of April and travel agent calls to inform us that the resort where we had booked our stay for our honeymoon was closing until June 15.

Sometime between March 23-24: Give up on having anything May 23 and start to see it as just an arbitrary date at this point while starting to seriously consider getting married sooner (Glenn was already there haha) and looking at local honeymoon options (thankful for family members who are willing to let us stay in their mountain cabin for a few days!!!).

March 25: Read the news that Wake County (which eventually became North Carolina as a whole) was announcing a stay-at-home order the following day. Leave for my family's farm in Virginia to hunker down in wide open spaces. 

March 26: After hearing back from courthouses in Virginia and North Carolina with their uncertainty as to how long they would be able to remain open in the midst of all this, Glenn calls from work to say he is coming up to my hometown in Virginia so that we can get a marriage license the following day.

March 27: Go to the local courthouse to fill out the paperwork for a marriage license. Glenn drives back to Wake Forest, neither of us knowing for sure when we'll be able to be together in person again. Get a housing assignment from campus housing and a move-in date of May 1. 

March 28-30: still trying to logistically work out the details of how to 1) actually get married and 2) move into a place of our own when we are currently in different states and not supposed to (in North Carolina at least) leave our homes other than for a list of designated reasons (and we don't currently live in the same home!).

March 30: (note: I had pretty much written this entire post before this latest update) The governor of Virginia issues an order to stay at home (other than for a short list of reasons) until JUNE 10 (!), begging the question, "Is it legally permissible for us to leave our current homes to even get married?" These are hard times indeed. 

Several people have asked how we have processed through all of this and arrived at the decision to cancel the wedding on May 23 and (hopefully) actually get married sooner and have some sort of celebration later (possibly in September). Hopefully the above timeline provides some insight into all that!

Those are the facts. My feelings have been certainly on a journey through it all...from disbelief and indignation and a sense of entitlement and a clinched-fisted attitude to a more open-handed posture and a genuine peace from the Lord in the midst of uncertainty and instability. 

This hasn't coming without a grieving process. I, perhaps more than most, had big dreams for my wedding. I was looking forward to planning my wedding and putting those plans into action. I enjoyed getting to design the event and was working on making all sorts of chalkboards and DIY decorations. In college, I even wanted to BE a wedding planner and did an internship with a wedding planner my senior year! So when I say the Lord has given me peace, please read that as "miraculous, unlikely, unnatural, nothing-I-could-muster-on-my-own peace."

It may sound outlandish, but the burning away of all this dross--all the non-essentials of the wedding itself--has felt almost cleansing...It has left only the most important thing standing: my relationship with Glenn and our commitment to one another in marriage. And that genuinely feels stronger than ever...as we have become even more welded together as we are forced to make hard decisions together and communicate well with each other through it all (which, let me just tell you, learning to make decisions with another person is HARD). 

We know we could wait to get married and have our wedding when things are back to normal (though, really, who knows when that might be?). But wouldn't that demonstrate that we care less about our marriage itself and more about having our wedding the way we envisioned it? For us at least, being together (especially as the world seems to be falling apart around us), is more important than the frills and the trappings of the wedding. 

And yes, it literally took a global crisis to make me see that. 

But all of this, certainly, is SO much bigger than me and us and our wedding. I feel for all those affected...for small business owners and students who won't get to celebrate their accomplishments through a graduation ceremony and people who are watching their investments plummet and people losing their jobs and the people losing loved ones to the virus and experiencing symptoms of it themselves...for everyone whose plans have been shattered...for people who live alone and are isolated and lonely and dealing with deeper depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts (on that note, please reach out to your single friends)...for losses I haven't personally experienced or even considered...and yes, even for brides. 

And yet...

There is hope. There is joy. If we choose to take hold of it. 

I've been thinking a lot about what God might be up to in all this. This is a very tangible example of the philosophical "problem of evil," isn't it? In light of all that is happening, God is either not there, not in control, or not good...right?

I don't pretend to have all the answers or fully understand his plan in all this. But I still believe that God works all things for his glory and our ultimate good (Romans 8:28). And I am experientially learning that even if I try to plan my own way, it is the Lord's purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:21). 

Maybe God is trying to teach us all something similar to what I'm learning as I let go of my wedding and focus on my relationship with the man he's calling me to marry. A wedding is not a bad thing. Neither are jobs or graduations or a thick financial cushion or independence or busyness. But I believe all of this is shining a spotlight on a few very important questions we are normally either too busy or too comfortable or too fulfilled to notice:

On what do you build your identity? Where do you find your security? Where do you find your hope?

My friend and former colleague, Paul Barth, who lives in Italy (and we all know how heartbreaking the situation is over there right now) posted this today, and I thought he put it all so perfectly:

"Yesterday, during family worship, we talked with the kids about the possibility of any 'good' coming from the coronavirus. Together, we concluded that in the face of this terrible tragedy, God might be teaching us the importance of family, teaching us how fragile we humans are, and healing the environment. It was a great conversation for us and hopefully for them as well. They are of course, acutely aware that this virus brings pain and sometimes death, but over the past month, perhaps Tracy and I haven’t done the best to explore and process with them how God could be using this for His good and for His purposes. 

For me personally, God is teaching me two things. Firstly, He’s reminding me of our mortality and fragility. We are here but for a little while on this planet and then, sometimes unexpectedly and unfortunately, we…aren’t. With the time we’ve been given, how to we spend it? With whom do we spend it? When life inevitably begins to escape us, how will we look back on it? Our time here is so brief that the Bible calls it a vapor, a wisp. One minute we’re here and the next, we’re gone. Being reminded of this reality during this terrible time isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Secondly, I think that God is using this period to destroy some of our idols. Shutting down a country and being forced to stay in isolation changes things for people. Who are we when the things we often place our identity, joy, and hope in, are removed from us? If your worth or identity is wrapped in your work or productivity, what is your purpose in life when that’s taken from you? What do you do when you can’t…do? If an overwhelming amount of your joy and happiness is derived from sports or entertainment in general, what are you when that’s gone? What do you delight in? If your hope and security are placed in wealth and treasures, what happens when you lose your job, when your 401k drops, when your forced to part ways with your things? 

Timothy Keller calls an idol anything that absorbs our heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. Good things can become our idols when they become ultimate things. As this virus continues to affect our daily lives (perhaps irreversibly) and forces us to reexamine ourselves, our values, and our priorities, I pray that we find that only Christ satisfies the deepest longings and groanings of our heart. Despite all the fears, may we be reminded that only He is the anchor that holds in the storm. Despite all uncertainty, may we be reminded that both in the harvest and in the famine, only He gives us worth, purpose, hope, and security."

If nothing else, these times have proved that your hope and identity and satisfaction can't be found in your job or job description or your paycheck or your schedule or your self-built sense of purpose. With all that burned away, what remains?

It brings to mind the old hymn:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand...

So friends, we have a choice: When all is said and done, will we be found faithful? Will we be bitter and angry and downcast (not that those feelings aren't legitimate...trust me, fellow Virginians, I'm not any happier than you are that we were just ordered to stay in our houses for the next two and a half months and my heart breaks for the many ways that many people will be negatively affected by this)? Will we spend the next however long frittering the time away on Facebook and Instagram (I saw a quote from John Piper recently that said, "One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove on the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time." OUCH.)? Or will we let the dross be burned away and let our characters be refined? Will we cling to Christ, our Living Hope (1 Peter 1:3-9) and our Solid Rock (Psalm 62:5-7) and our Anchor (Hebrews 6:19)? Will we look up and see our families...learn to take time to really play with our kids and share meals together and even give thanks for this gift of extra quality time? Will we take the time to pray for our world...for the people dying without Hope? Will we figure out how to love our neighbors and find ways to be together, even if we can't be together physically? Will we let ourselves be taught something about contentment in all circumstances (Philippians 4:11-13)?

I'm not saying it's an easy choice to make. And trust me, given everything I've just shared with you, I'm struggling to make it, too. 

But the choice is ours. 

Born Again to a Living Hope

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.