life as clay : adventure

“Thou and thou only, first in my heart.” Eleanor Hull

There is a moment in my childhood I remember in perfect clarity.

Now it didn’t have all the ingredients of a grand, memory-making day but I sure did have lots of those.

In fact, I had more than my fair share of idyllic childhood days. Summers were spent in my Dad’s boat, or at our cabin on an island we had all to ourselves, making log rafts with my brothers and swimming in the lake. Winters we skied, snowmobiled and were basically buried in snow. This was life in Newfoundland, where almost everyone is a friend (the realest kind), life moves a lot slower, conversations take longer, and despite unpredictable weather, you basically live outside where the breathtakingly beautiful is your playground. If it sounds maybe too good to be true, that’s just what my normal was. I didn’t know then that little girls didn’t always live safe and carefree, or that they might not believe themselves to be unstoppable and special. My Dad told me it was so, and I believed him. He said every day was meant to be an adventure, and I believed that too.

No, this day that I remember was one of the mundane. There were a lot of those as well. And that’s okay, after all. Even the most remarkable lives can be mostly about finding beauty and joy in the midst of the routine, having the grace and the grit to be present, grateful and hopeful in whatever a day brings.

I was in my elementary school and it was time for an assembly. So we walked in line to the front of the school gym to take a spot on the floor. I know I wasn’t quite grown up enough to require one of the metal folding chairs the more mature kids sat in behind me. I remember my place in the gym, how the hard floor felt, and the way my white sneakers looked with one of them traced all around the edge with red pen. The speaker that day spoke of Zaire in Africa (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and today I can still vividly remember the images on the slides he showed us. Adventure indeed.

I was going to Africa just as soon as I was grown. I announced it to my family, affirmed it over the years and I’m pretty sure they believed me. With grand adventures in my sights, surrender to God’s leading looked exhilarating and in my imaginings, looked like new places, new people and constant change. Bring it on.

Looking back, life hasn’t been exactly like I imagined. I don’t expect it is for anyone. I have certainly been to some wonderful places, met people who humble me and who model the way of Christ, and it has surely been to this point, a grand adventure. But, I have not yet been to Africa. My “Anything” prayer has been less about the adventure I imagined was in store, and more about living out a faith-filled commitment moment by moment. I am learning to let my stubborn heart trust God with it all. And wouldn’t you know, that loving the people right in front of you, being faithful in the small and seemingly insignificant moments, is the hardest and holiest calling?

It is not a small life, friends, nor a small adventure to do the same.

In praying ‘Anything’, we give God everything. We let go of our entitlement to a life the way we imagine it should be. It takes total surrender, a reckless faith that can trust God with the story of our life even on the very worst days, even with the dreams that lie unfulfilled and with a future that can feel uncertain. It is only in laying our life down that we find it again.

“If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” Matt. 10:39

I may still get to Africa, live there even. Or my next adventure may find me winding my way through cancer, or worse. I only know, God is good and both my present and my future are in His hands. There’s no safer place to be. There’s no greater adventure either.

“I am living for the moment when I will face you. I want to get to heaven out of breath, having willingly done anything that You - God of the Universe - ask….anything.” Jennie Allen