“I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.” – Jean Ingelow

At the beginning of the semester, I saw in my mind a picture of a black wall. I was standing close to the wall, my nose almost touching, and I could see nothing but black in front of me and beside me. And then, somehow I knew I was seeing not simply a black wall, but a mural. A giant mural, full of colors, depicting an untamed, dark ocean and a lighthouse throwing her beam of hope into the maelstrom. In the picture, though, I could not see the mural because of my proximity to the wall. All I could see was black, bleak and black and devoid of light. And then, I heard God speak to me, saying, “I am the Painter. You do not fully see what I am doing, you cannot fully see. But know that I am in control, and I am creating beautiful things, and though you can only see black, the black is necessary for the light to shine. Trust me, I am the Painter.”

More recently, I saw in my mind another picture. This time, of a father carrying his little daughter to a destination unknown to her. She kept saying, “Daddy, I want to know where we are going. Tell me where we are going.” And he would laugh and respond, “My dear, you do not need to know. You are with me, and I know where we are going. You are safe.”

And then, on Easter Sunday, I was sitting in my pew singing “Christ is Risen” by Matt Maher, and for the first time I heard a lyric in my heart that I have never really processed before. It came and went quickly, never repeated, but I kept hearing it over and over again in my head: He bows to none but Heaven’s will.

He bows to none but Heaven’s will? He bows to none but Heaven’s will.

Honestly, this year did not turn out the way I expected, nor the way I prayed for it to turn out. There were so many moments when I felt angry with God, and ungrateful, and stressed, and anxious, and confused, and enslaved to doubt and fear and all sorts of lies. But in that pew on Easter Sunday, I realized something. Thank God! Thank God Jesus bows to none but Heaven’s good, pleasing, perfect will. Thank God He does not follow me and my will, nor does He answer my prayers the way I want Him to. And my life is so, so much better because of it. Thank God. I do not want Him to follow me. I want to thank Him everyday for allowing me to follow Him.

Finally, three days ago, I went to dinner and God changed my life (like He does).

I shared a meal with two Sisters—my best friend in China, a thirty-year-old who is beautifully and unequivocally free in Christ, and a fifty-year-old who is, perhaps, the most Holy Spirit-filled person I have ever met. Me, Corrie, and Judi, sitting at a little table eating Greek food and talking about Jesus. And, throughout the course of the meal and our subsequent prayer time, I saw clearly the culmination of all of these things, the message of this entire year:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for Me will save it.

I walked out of that dinner not afraid of growing up. The more I live, the more I see that the desires of youth lead to brokenness. My generation can be so scattered, caring so much about what others think of us, partying every night, restless, uncertain, wiling away on social media networks, full of energy and potential and too much indecision over too many options. But these two women, and so many Jesus-leaning adults I’ve spent time with, have some tangible Peace my generation knows nothing about. And that Peace is warmer and more beautiful than so many desires my generation pursues.

And I? I am so so young. So little, with so little wisdom, so little maturity, so little ability to handle big things, so little ability to believe in Peace and dwell in it. But God? God is bigger than my weaknesses and my inabilities and my littleness. He is the Painter. He knows where we are going, and He is 100 percent trustworthy, and I am safe.

I have been in China for almost eight months, and God has been speaking John 14:27 to me this entire time. It only took a few visions, some Greek food, and a church hymn for me to finally pay attention.

Gah! God is so cool.

Hearts

There is a girl here who prays for celebrities. She follows the news, reads the magazines, and prays. For people like Whitney Houston’s daughter, who recently lost her mom. Or the lead singer of He is We, who has been fighting for her life against disease. This girl is passionate about Disney, and justice, and she is going to change the world for Jesus.

There is a boy who keeps to himself most times. He is quiet and gentle, and irrevocably loyal to those he loves. And if he shares himself, if he allows himself to be known, he does love – deeply and faithfully. We have a journal that we pass back and forth, forth and back, between each other, writing letters of thought down because sometimes we just can’t say them out loud.

There is another girl who shares and receives mercifully, at the right time and the right place. She listens to me read her bedtime stories at night, and sometimes I wonder if she does it just because she knows it makes me happy. She gives generously, things like dresses and shoes and straighteners and ears to listen, hands to do laundry late at night. When she sees someone crying, she hugs them and tells them she loves them.

Another boy taught me to play Chinese chess two days ago. Last semester, he showed me how to cook rice. He knows how to make curry, and which running routes lead to the best parks, and what encouraging word needs to be heard. He creates rhythm on the djembe, and he offers me a taste of anything he is eating, no matter how small his portion. He will share his knowledge, his bike, his time, his slice of orange, with anyone, anytime. And perhaps most astounding of all, I have never heard him speak about himself or any of these things. I have had to observe them, and the humility that supplements them all.

This Jia, which literally means family or home in Chinese, is full of broken humans with beautiful hearts.  These hearts are encased in multi-colored skin, multi-colored personalities – and I am slowly discovering the hidden pockets of each one.

We have lived together for eight months, and from this group I have learned about humanity: Sometimes, we choose to not hang out with one person or other because we find him or her “annoying.” We judge on his or her level of “coolness” in comparison to his or her level of “annoyingness.”  We forget to see through personality surface and into the heart. And sometimes, the people who are the least “easy” to hang out with have the best hearts. They are the best friends, the most loyal, the most interesting, the most authentic. They do not shroud themselves in a cloud of “cool.” Rather, they thrive in their quirkiness. And they are beautiful.

So much of my life I desired to be accepted and loved by the “cool” group. But now, I don’t suppose I care. As we grow older, I hope we begin to realize that the things we desired and pursued in our youth really don’t matter. As we grow older, I hope we stop looking for “cool” and start looking for hearts. It turns out everyone has one.

Sunday Still Came.

There was a Friday once, when a man died on a cross. He died, bruised, broken, stripped. Gone. And his friends, they were suddenly alone. Each one thinking of the last time the man looked at him, spoke to him, shared bread with him. Even the man’s laughter, silenced by the sound of Friday. So much pain, so much fear, so much loss of a friend and teacher and son and brother.

And Saturday – it crept in, eyes crusted with exhaustion. Snotty nose. Stomachache. Suffocating lungs and chests with uncertainty, disbelief, regret. The question, what do you do on Saturday? What do you do when your life is throbbing with Friday? The dead man’s friends huddled together, a mass of eyes with tears. Hearts with tears. The throbbing grew louder and louder, deeper and deeper, and it seemed as though the world could not, would not, go on. That it would rather die an old, tired lady in her sleep, than live to see another day without the man.

But the good news is, in fact, the best news, the old lady world has ever received…

Sunday still came.

Sunday. Still came. And is coming and will come. And that has made all the difference.

Take heart, my friends, in this, the Saturday of your souls. Sunday will come.

How to Eat Like an Italian

First, slow down.

Remember that time is not of the essence. Relationship is of the essence. Flavor is of the essence. Sabbath is of the essence. And, when in Italy, each meal is a Sabbath snack of community, conversation, and cheese. Baskets of cheese.

Furthermore, every meal extends until the conversation has decided to take a nap, perhaps hours after placing the order. Busyness is no longer the business of the day, and sharing life with a loved one over a cup of melted chocolate, or lasagna for breakfast, matters more in those few hours than anything else.

Second, eat with a small spoon.

Bigger is not always better. When inhaling dollops of stracciatella gelato, for instance, the smaller the spoon, the longer the enjoyment. The taste buds will experience flavor despite spoon size. A smaller spoon ensures a decreased dwindle rate of the aforementioned dollop. So, it follows that, to savor is to small spoon. To rush is to big spoon, but to savor is to small spoon.

Third, finish one bite before beginning the next.

Multi-tasking has never been a peaceful activity for me. Consequently, my performance level decreases as the number of activities I undertake increases. I cannot be fully present, nor can I fully enjoy my life when I do not pursue one focus at a time. In the same way, my taste buds cannot be fully present for each individual taste if forkfuls of fusilli are shoveled in my mouth in rapid succession. Each flavor is experienced more deeply when allowed to express herself as an individual (And yes, flavors are female).

And finally, always have dessert.

Always.

***

I jotted these rules down in my mental composition notebook while stranded overnight in Rome’s airport. My first flight out of three had been cancelled due to weather, and therefore I had already missed the next two. I was alone in a foreign country, exhausted, about to be in trouble with Pepperdine for missing too many classes, broke. My computer, the only communication method available to me, was dying, and my charger did not adapt to European outlets. I couldn’t speak Italian, and I couldn’t get home.

So, I cried. I brushed my teeth in the men’s room just for fun, I wrapped myself in several layers of dirty clothes to stay warm, and I cried. Once that didn’t get me home, I prayed.

And then a bottle of Dewar’s scotch-whiskey taught me a lesson I will never forget.

Now, I didn’t drink the stuff. No, but I walked past a case of it in some duty-free shop or other, and the advertisement read, “Some things are just worth doing.”

Some things are just worth doing.

To be honest, I’m not sure such a worthy message deserves to be plastered across a whiskey bottle. However, for me, for that moment, it made sense. Some things, like my spontaneous trip to Italy, are just worth doing – even when they end in rerouted flights and fifteen hour layovers and arriving home five minutes after 8 a.m. mandarin class. I learned to eat (and live) like an Italian, I fell in love with hot chocolate all over again, I swam in the Mediterranean, I scaled the terraces of Cinque Terre and remembered how to rest and play and be in relationship. Furthermore, because I missed my first flight, I was able to see the Coliseum through the window of my taxi as I transferred from train station to plane station. I was able to converse with my taxi driver, who would exclaim “Mamma Mia!” after learning everything China strange. I was able to meet an angel who gave me money when I had none, who said to me, “You tell your mother that there is a mom here looking out for her daughter.” I was able to learn a life lesson from a scotch-whiskey bottle.

Some things are just worth doing.

And so I boarded my new plane from Rome to Paris, Paris to Shanghai, listening to Hot Chelle Rae’s single “I Like it Like That” on repeat. Because, in the end, I wouldn’t have it any other way.