How Firm a Foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!

What more can He say,

Than to you He hath said,

You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In every condition - in sickness, in health;

In poverty's vale, or abounding in wealth;

At home and abroad, on land or on sea,

As thy days may demand, shall My strength ever be.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was a sweltering August day in the year 2004, with an unmerciful sun beating down at high noon. The Paasch van was parked in front of Chandler-Gilbert Community College, a recent meeting-place of all of the family's latest discussions and worry, and the subject of particular loathsomeness to the two young girls who sat therein. It was an interesting time in life... I had just recently ended my freshman year in high school, and here I was, not yet quite 14, on my way into my freshman year of college.

This wasn't fair.

Why me? I began to ask myself. Why me??? This always happens to me! I always end up in abnormal situations. What, after all, would be so terrible about being ordinary?

My mind knew better, but my heart still fought. Desperately I tried to think of any way out of this... could I fake sick? Nope, that would involve lying... too risky. Could I feign being asleep? That wouldn't last long! Excuses began to flood my mind... I'm too young. They don't want me here. I can't do this. I'm not smart enough! This isn't realistic.

Fortunately enough for me (as I would later come to admit)... my very determined little mother would have no excuses. Nothing seemed to budge her. It was enfuriating! Cheeks boiling and heart pounding, I stuck my face into my new backpack one last time, double-checking for textbooks, folders, pencils, etc. Everything was there and as it should be, to my growing dismay. I could've at least left one at home!

The minutes passed all too quickly, and suddenly it was 11:38. Class began at 11:40. My mom was saying something - something encouraging - but my mind was lost in a tempest of fear and doubt - anger at life not going how I would have planned. What happens next? I asked myself. Where do I go from here?

11:39.

"Alright, girls, time to get going! God be with you! I'll be right here when you get out."

Suddenly we were out of the door and swept up into a crowd of students heading to class. We walked in the door to Building B and I stopped dead in my tracks. Before me was a long hallway, lined right and left with seemingly hundreds of students waiting to get into their classrooms. Fear pierced my heart, and for one endless moment, I was absolutely paralyzed. I felt as though every eye was on me; that every student there knew just how naive and insecure and little I really was.

Somehow I made my way down that endless hallway that first day... but I swore (inwardly, to myself, and also quite vocally, to my sister) that I'd never do it again.

From then on, as we walked onto campus, Amy would walk down the corridor of fear, and I would go around the long way, sheepishly slinking against the side of the building, embarrassed and afraid to be who I really was.

Courage has always been something I'm short on. Every new change, every fresh trial, anything even remotely different would throw me off completely and leave me - as I said before - mentally (and at times physically!) paralyzed. It wasn't until that next year that I realized my problem ran much deeper than scary hallways and age numbers... it had to do with my heart, with my faith... with my lack of trust in a sovereign and faithful God. Every now and again, with a fresh pang of conviction, I would recall Joshua 1:9... "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and couageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

Do you believe this? I would ask myself.

Thank goodness the Lord didn't leave me there. Many times since I have asked Him to challenge me, to grow me... and, (to my utter dismay at times!) He does and has answered. Many times He has pushed me... not merely to the borders of my comfort zone, but completely off its steep edge and into the world of the unknown. Situations like... calling someone I've never met. A public speaking class. Remembering an essay due two minutes before the start of the very class. Going to ASU! Walking up to complete strangers and asking to share with them the Good News of the Gospel... many of my friends have no idea what an inward battle the first Gospel Nite on Mill was for me!!!! Being an interpreter on various mission trips. Speaking up for what I believe in. Trusting God's kind sovereignty when I can't see what's ahead of me - moments when all I can do is trust. All of these things have asked courage of me... courage I did not have.

And yet His grace is greater than my weakness!

1 Corinthians 10:13... No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

I keep coming back to this glorious truth - all that His grace asks, it provides.

The parable of the mustard seed is indeed a good description of my faith sometimes... other times it seems smaller yet. There are days when it seems I shall lose sight of it all together. Sometimes fear overwhelms me. One thing that has always frightened me is the thought that I'm not quite "normal". I have often said that living a life of "not-knowing" is my deepest fear. Although it seems these fears threaten to overtake me at times, I've decided to fight.

It is always encouraging, in moments when the future seems bleak and uncertain, to look back on those moments where the Lord has shown Himself faithful. You'll be surprised to find elements of faithfulness interwoven throughout every single moment of life - through both easy times and difficult, through both poverty's vale and abundance of wealth. And in our abundant weaknesses, He is proved strong.

This past weekend I spent in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico... my hometown. As I traversed all of those old haunts - places that once were home - I could not but marvel at the faithfulness of God to bring me where I am now. I love remembering where I've been! I finally came to realize - for sure and certain - that I would never trade all kinds of material wealth and security and "a normal life" for the incredible adventures that I've been able to live, always supported and held up and led by One who does not fail like earthly things. Now my chief joy is in remembering that underneath are the everlasting arms, arms that will not falter, whose strength does not waver like the shifting shadows. As my days may demand, so shall HIS strength ever be.

How firm a foundation is the one that we stand on.

The Pursuit

"Strange, piteous, futile thing

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited -

Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee

Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek them in My arms.

All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

Halts by me that footfall:

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

-Francis Thompson

excerpt from the Hound of Heaven

Portraits

I just realized, after writing this whole entry, that I wrote a post with the very same song almost a year ago now - February 21st, 2006. I feel as if I've come so far since then... and yet, reading the post over again, it feels as though I'm right where I was before. All I can say is this - praise Him for His faithfulness, despite me.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me
Either way
And the places I long for the most are
The places where I’ve been
They are calling out to me
Like a long-lost friend…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As a self-supposed connoisseur of all things vintage, I confess I am often completely mystified as I walk around your average antique store. (No, this hobby is not confined to Arizona’s winter snowbirds… although I do sadly confess myself on quite the younger spectrum of customers in said places! My generation doesn’t know what they’re missing.) It seems that so many things once commonplace and hum-drum are suddenly beatified by age. It’s as if the yellow haze on an old portrait somehow makes the face softer; the nose less pointed; the eyes kinder; the features almost familiar, like an old friend.

And yet I have also noticed, as I walk about these places, that it’s not only the yellow haze that adds such beauty. In fact – more often than not – a fair amount of deceit is (unbeknownst to the customer!) incorporated in old works of art. Long before the now universal camera, photography was carried out in portrait-painting. Paint and canvas were the instruments conveying faces and figures to posterity, and the mind behind paint and canvas was often well paid to be inaccurate. I remember reading – with a good deal of both amusement and disdain – that many portrayals of well-known faces were glorified and magnified beyond even recognition.

Sometimes I paint portraits with my life, too. Portraits of places I’ve been; things I once knew. My instruments are not paint and canvas… I use words.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much…
And the place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
And it wasn’t milk or honey, but then…
Neither is this.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Every house I’ve ever lived in – and I’ve lived in a few – is imbued with certain timeless memories. I remember the old trailer in Ensenada for the beautiful cliff 100 yards away looking out on the sea. I remember my last home in Hermosillo, Mexico for its many rooms – ideally built for excellent rounds of hide and seek – and my last big birthday there. I remember North Carolina for the rolling green hills, the forest right outside my apartment door, and the wild onions Amy and I would gather by the dozen. Each of them – despite their many faults – are immortalized in my mind. So what if “home” was nothing but a freezing 4-foot-wide trailer without any heat? So what if the sewer underneath the house exploded? It was home.

And lately – as I began to face the future in real earnest, as people begin to ask me where exactly I’m headed – my heart begins to fear. If there’s anything I hate to say in this world, it’s this…

I don’t know.
And lately, I feel that I don’t know much.

I suppose it’s a healthy place to be, but that doesn’t make it any easier!

I like to hold on to the past; I like to feel founded. Who doesn’t? And so many times, in this painful process of sanctification, I reach for what’s comfortable instead of what’s true. I long for what was once home to me – because I’m afraid to trust Him now.

Numbers 11:4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost – also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic…

Apparently they remembered little else. (!) They don’t remember slavery, they don’t remember the murdering of their children, they don’t remember famine and hunger and deprivation and strife. They’ve forgotten the miracles that brought a country to its knees and brought them out of danger. They’ve forgotten that moment when the Red Sea was parted and they walked through its bed to dry land.

All they can see ahead is fog.

As fallen human beings – un-sovereign and un-omniscient as we are – we often do just this.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy
To discard…
And I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go…
I am caught between the promise
And the things I know

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned…

And those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I’ve learned a few things about myself lately. First of all, I’m stubborn. Second of all – even when I think so – I don’t really want what’s best for me. Not really. Because if I did, I would want His will for my life… not mine. Or, better put, my will would be in line with His. And I spent a whole year “waiting”… waiting for God to do something, waiting for God to move. As soon as He does – as soon as He breaks down my pride and allows me to see Him more clearly – I run backwards, away from this painful process of growing. I run back to my memories; to my portraits; to the little earthly anchors that I, in my human short-sightedness, once thought held me secure.

Having realized my error, what should I do now?

The answer, at first, was mystifying to me: remember. Then I realized I was focusing on my own face in the portrait - rather than the glorious Painter Himself, whose brilliant colors and fine artistry far surpass my meager attempts at portrayal. I must remember HIM in all this! I must remember the times He has been faithful when I was faithless. I must remember His promises – to never leave us; to never forsake us; to bring us into the glorious country we will one day share with Him.


I have a new focus; a new hope.

There is a reason why Paul, in Hebrews 12, tells us to run ahead with perseverance the race marked out for us. We are not home yet. We see in Hebrews 11, right smack in the middle of the hall of fame of faith, these incredible verses.

v.13 All of these were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

Oh boy! Now that’s awesome, in every real sense of the word.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Rom. 8:23 … we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

2 Cor.4:16-18… Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

I pray, as I end, that these memories, these portraits of the past may be used in my life as tokens of my God’s faithfulness; that I might remember Him. I pray, that as I look toward the future, my will might be entirely enveloped in His – my eyes fixed, my focus set, my heart willing, my feet running. Running ahead.

~*~*~*~*~*~
Heb 10:35

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
For in just a very little while,
“He who is coming will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him.”

But we are not of those that shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

~*~*~*~*~*~

-Song excerpts from Sara Groves

Greater....

When you said this was a fight, you weren't kidding

When you said this was a fight, you weren't kidding

'Cause my ribs are bruised and it's just round two.

When you said this was a fight, you weren't kidding

When you said this was a fight, you weren't kidding, kidding

'Cause there's a cut on my eye and it's just round five.

And I used to be quick, I used to see it coming

I used to know how to move my feet

Now I can't duck

And I can't land nothing and

I've forgot how to bob and weave...

Bob and weave...

When you said this was a fight, you weren't kidding

When you said this was a fight, you were not kidding

'Cause this room's in a spin and it's just round ten.

And if you care at all

Take that towel from your neck

'Cause I've reached down deep and there is nothing left

I've got nothing

I've got nothing

I've got... nothing

And I was talking big

I was talking

But now...Now what?

Greater is He who is in me

Greater is He who is in me

Greater! Greater...

Ok, ok, ok...

-Sara Groves

Breaking Day

Life begins at the intersection...


If you live the Christian life long enough, sooner or later it will become routine. We, as humans, are creatures of habit... and it seems that anything and everything we do, by mere consistency, can become mundane. Stagnant.

And so, every now and again, the Lord tests what we're really made of. In that moment, when He pulls your world apart - in that moment, you face the intersection.

...these have come so that your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine, and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:7

I always thought this last part of the verse "...and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed..." was speaking of that moment when time and this world end and He returns to us at last. But somehow, it seems to apply to my situation as well... albeit in a smaller way.

Sometimes, in this life, amidst our journey along this narrow way, our view is suddenly obstructed. We stumble; we fall; we grope for truth as though blind - madly seeking any reason to even take a step forward. When I cannot see the road ahead of me, hope begins to falter. All those things that are worst in my human nature begin to rear their ugly heads... even in my love of God and of others, for it seems I cannot seem them anymore. That I do not know them. Pride. Jealousy. Doubt. Defeat. The monsters of Untrust and Uncertainty. Every step I take falls on a steep incline... as if, at any moment, I could lose my footing and plummet to the deep dark depths below.

Two questions arise to tempt me... products of the old mind; the life I once knew.

Why me?
What direction now?

My new heart asks - Oh God, what would you have me do? I shout it to the skies above; all I hear is an echo of my own pleading voice: the dark clouds seem to give no answer.

And so I wait.

To you I call, O Lord my Rock;

do not turn a deaf ear to me.

For if you remain silent,

I will be like those who have gone down to the pit.

Hear my cry for mercy as I call to You for help,

as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.

Ps. 28:1 -2

Oh Lord, I think. We've been through all of this before, haven't we? Didn't I write a blog on waiting a year ago now? I don't understand. I don't understand!

But that's the point - I don't understand. So here I stand at the intersection - this pivotal moment where I have to decide... where is my faith now? Who do I trust here, at the end of myself? I've always said I trusted the Lord... but did I really? Finally... which way will I go?

The question is harder to answer than you would think.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This one's 'bout a dream I had last night

How an old man tracked me home

And stepped inside

Put his foot inside the door and gave a crooked smile

Something in his eyes

Something in his laugh

Something in his voice made my skin crawl off

He said, "I've seen you here before...

I know your name

And you could have your pick of pretty things

You could have it all

Everything at once

Everything you've seen

Everything you'll need

Everything you've ever had in fantasies...

You've one life, one life, one life left to lead

~ Jonathan Foreman

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It is at this moment when temptation is at its strongest and most lethal. It seems that at our weakest point these decisions come.

And yet, that we might not boast...

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Such paradox is this! Indeed... "to be low is to be high, the broken heart is the healed heart... to have nothing is to possess all... the valley is the place of vision."

So He drew me to my knees. That has always been a hard place for me to be; it proves my neediness before a holy God.

The last words I prayed were these - the very same words lifted to His throne so many years ago by a follower like myself...

Lord, let me find thy light in my darkness,

thy life in my death,

thy joy in my sorrow,

thy grace in my sin,

thy riches in my poverty,

thy glory in my valley.

It was then I realized that I had been praying for the wrong thing all along. I had prayed that God would make my path clear; instead He showed me what I really needed to see. He opened my eyes and showed me where I really was... and revealed Himself to me.

All those nights in the valley; all those days climbing, climbing, tired, alone...

... had led me here, to the great mountain top of His glory. I stood, to my utter surprise, on the peak of the highest, most beautiful pinnacle my eyes had ever met. The clouds and fog that had so surrounded me were merely signalling that I had almost reached the top. I had ascended - in the dark! - a height that, had I travelled alone, would have killed me.

And yet his grace...

Now the path behind me suddenly made sense! Now I could see why I had stumbled and fallen; now I knew why every step I had taken had met a steep, frightening incline. And now I saw beneath the firm foundation that had never left me.

My heart beat once or twice, and life flooded my veins

Everything had changed, my lungs had found their voice

And what was once routine

Was now the perfect joy...

~ Jonathan Foreman

I still wonder what God has in store. I am still so eager to see what exactly He wants from me. But I know in whom I have believed. And at that fearful intersection, His grace led me where I could not go... down a path of whole reliance on the One who knows.

And although I still ask - 'Lord, what do you want from me?', His answer - for now - is simply this...

Take up your cross and follow Me.

What I Learned in 2006

Hello friends! The new year has come, and I pray that it finds you all deeply blessed and rejoicing in the Giver of all good things. As for me, a lot is on my mind and I’d like to share a bit about the things I have learned in 2006. Notice when I used the word “learned” I do not mean to say that I have mastered any of these. Oh friends, no such thing! Yet the Lord has poured out grace in my life, and has seen fit to help me mature and realize the things in my life that need to change.

I have learned …

1. … to rely on Christ alone and on the precious promises of Scripture. Though father and mother forsake me (and praise the Lord they haven’t!)… He remains faithful.
2. … to love people unconditionally.
3. … to speak the truth in love.
4. … to think before I speak.
5. Don't believe everything you hear.
6. …To live in the light of eternity and the hope of heaven.
7. …To love time in prayer – in the secret of His presence.
8. ... that He disciplines those He loves.
9. …To be spontaneous!
1o. …To have a good conversation.
11. … to organize a missions trip.
12. … to laugh so hard I internally shake.
13. … to write poetry.
14. … to sing LOUD! Really, really loud.
15. …to have patience and to wait on His perfect timing.
16. … to love His Word!!!!
17. … to bake a satisfying cranberry apple bake. ;)
18. … to effectively share the Gospel!
19. … to take initiative.
2o. … to search the Scriptures.
21. … to listen.
22. … to have compassion.
23. … to talk on the phone for over a minute. (!)
24. … to walk by faith.
25. … to write for His glory.
26. … to seek first His kingdom.
27. ... that God can handle an honest conversation.
28. I’m not alone in this.
29. … to heartily attack and complete a trashed kitchen in 15 minutes, armed with nothing but a bottle of Windex, a sponge, and lots of paper towels.
30. … to realize how weak I am in and of myself.
31. … to realize how strong He is.
32. ... to fly by the instruments.
33. (and finally) … to dream big.


The Lord has seen fit to grow me in huge ways this past year; I hope to continue to learn these things… some of these lessons really are life-long. I can't wait to see what the Lord will do with 2007. I haven't really had much time to come up with resolutions as yet (although I have a few!)... perhaps they'll end up being more like February 1st resolutions. Oh well. ;)

I leave for Caborca early, early on the 4th... and I really want to ask you all to be praying for this trip. This is the first Caborca trip that I have organized and, as such, the details have encompassed me much more than perhaps they should have. I want to be focused on the Lord and on His glory... and many hard and painful trials have arisen in the past few months that tempt me to alter my focus. And yet, even through these, the Lord has taught me to trust Him - and Him only - as I have never done before. His grace is indeed sufficient in my weakness. Please be praying that the Lord would prepare the hearts of the people we go to share with; that He would open doors for the Gospel and for our ministry; that He would prepare the team; and that, in everything, we would make His glory known this January.

That's all, I guess. God bless - and a very blessed New Year to you all.


~ Hannah

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God.
~ William Carey

Saturday's Citation: Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken -
It is the star to every wandr'ing bark,
Whose worth's unknown
Although his height be taken.

Love is not Time's fool; though rosy lips and cheeks
Beneath his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom -
If this be error, and upon me proved,
Then I never writ; nor no man ever loved.

-William Shakespeare (at his very best!)