the end of an era.

Two weeks after we got married, Mark and I started at the beginning. It wasn’t new for me, but for Mark! Can you imagine? Do you remember the way it felt to enter in, not knowing the ending?

I’m sorry, let me clarify: Harry Potter, the book series. I had read the series three times by the time we got married, but Mark had never read the books. Furthermore, he’d only seen one or two of the movies.

Inspired by a friend who had read the series aloud to her husband and two teenage daughters on a long road trip out west, I offered it to Mark. What do you think about me reading Harry Potter to you, all seven books, out loud? Though perplexed, Mark is the monarch of all things fun and childlike and he agreed. It was May of 2009.

Last night we read the final pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. After fifteen months of seven books, hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours, three times I had to stop and cry, many many nights sitting up late in bed when work mornings waited just a few hours around the corner, the first season of our marriage! Oddly, last night felt more like a milestone than our one year anniversary.

Two young adults, newlywed, reading a children’s book series aloud is kind of strange admittedly. But it’s kind of the way we are.

I begged Mark to let me photograph the moment:




To top it all off, Mark purchased two tickets to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Universal Studios, FL) and we will be road-tripping down to Orlando in September for two nights and one day at Hogwarts.

weeds and thorns.

So many things I never understood that now make sense, so many things that have crystallized as I've gotten older. For instance: weeds and thorns.

Jesus talked about how there are many ways a person could receive (or fail to receive) understanding of the kingdom of God. He tells the parable of the soil - how many seeds were sown, but the result of the laying of seed was varied: some of the seeds never took root, some of the baby plants were scorched under the hot sun, some plants got wrapped up in the thorns, which choked them to death, and only a small group actually sunk into the soil, began to grow roots, sprouted out of the earth, and grew to produce a crop.

I have heard that parable many times and over the course of my short life, I have related to every one of those seeds.

This morning I went out to my herb garden. I have an unhealthy affection for this garden that produces copious basil and flat leaf parsley, beautiful rosemary, mint and chives. The sage plant never really did well - guess it was a lemon. The cilantro was the tallest one for a while until the ground temperature got (and stayed) to high, which killed it. The mint is not looking too good these days and I haven't been able to figure out why. Anyway, some of the losses are disappointing, but for my first herb garden I've been pleased with the fruits of my labor.

Anyway, I've been noticing some weeds growing in and around the bed, which is enclosed in a wooden rectangle frame built by my father in law. I decided, as I was already sweaty, that I'd pull up some of the weeds. They grow all around the beds surrounding the house, and even into the yard, but I've sort of let them go because they're not so bad. In fact, they look more healthy and lush than my grass, so why bother?

When I started pulling up this very grass-like weed, I found that underneath the grassyness was this long snake-like vine. Very thin, but strong and a little bit sharp at points. This "vine" or whatever it is (green thumbs, feel free to comment) was growing in one long stretch around my garden with fingers and legs extending down and around. I pulled it up, following it into another bed and out toward the grass. I was shocked! This little devil is choking my plants by the neck and I've been walking by for the past month letting it grow, thinking that the weeds weren't "so bad."

As I was sweating in the 90-degree pulsing sun, hunched over my exquisite little patch yanking weeds up and replacing the dirt, I suddenly thought of the parable and had abrupt comprehension. The sneaky way of that sharp vine, traveling underneath the benign green, choking my plants before my very eyes, suddenly registered. I started to think about two things: fear and jealousy. The way they choke and strangle me, and how oblivious I am. And the occasional combination of the two? Have mercy. I need to be weeded. Big time.

Surprised at the perfection of the analogy for a minute, I thought about how precisely accurate Jesus was when he tried to get his disciples to understand this principle of the kingdom and its movement, how universal were his explanations. But why should I be surprised?

siena.

Having just begun proceedings on my next book project, I have been somewhat burrowed down into the cushions of planning and thinking. Although this kind of works makes me feel more free and more excited, I think that to any outside onlooker I have become a little bit loony and hermit-like. Example: Last week I spent four hours researching Siena, Italy in the stacks of the Wake Forest Library, an invaluable resource, especially in summer.

Circling back, I emphasize that this book does, in fact, take place in Siena, Italy. It was in this fair city that Kaili and I studied abroad for four glorious months in the fall of my Junior year of college. It is the city of stacking buildings atop eachother, Ricciarelli, the Campo and Due Porte (a hole-in-the-wall pizza place that changed my life forever). Planning this book sets me right back down in the middle of those memories. Sitting here, surveying the storehouse, I see thousands of images...

envelopes.

Having just returned from a week at Young Life's Sharp Top Cove week summer camp, my body is screaming: "YOU ARE NO LONGER IN HIGH SCHOOL!" Thank you, body, for your blunt reminder. Bruised, sore, exhausted and hoarse, I'm having trouble bringing my mind back to Winston-Salem, NC. I keep waking up thinking I should be on the top bunk in a room with 15 sleeping girls.

It is a great privilege to be a Young Life leader; moreover, a Young Life leader in Forsyth County. A great bond exists between the leaders in this city, enough that sometimes it seems to be nothing more than a gift and a joy. Taking kids to camp is one of the single greatest challenges I've ever met, in part due to the physicality of a week of running, jumping, screaming, biking, hiking, blobbing, swimming, competing and staying up late and getting up early. In terms of emotions, the week is also exhausting relating to kids, leaders, and people 24-7. I found that even in sleep I dreamed very vivid dreams of experiences I had had that day or would have later. During the week I confess there were times I counted down to returning home, but now that I am here, comfortable in Winston, a large part of me only wants to return.

The magic of camp lies here: that kids get to be kids for a week and, in that week, they get to hear that life really does hold something for them - that the God of creation loves them, one-to-one, with a great and everlasting love. Watching a high school kid grasp that truth for the first time, and the strange, otherworldly peace it brings, is like the rising sun on the ocean.

A favorite moment was when, on the last morning of camp, all of the high schoolers from Forsyth County, along with leaders, gathered together in a big room on camp. Each kid was given a piece of paper and an envelope so each one could write himself a letter that would be mailed to him or her six months later. We promised that nobody would read it, that they could write anything they wanted. A silent room inhaled and exhaled for fifteen writing minutes. I noticed kids finishing and began walking about the room to pick up the letters. The first person I came to, a very formidable African-American football player, sat there staring at the envelope.

"You need to address it to yourself," I whispered.

"I don't know how."

Suddenly I realized that this kid, and a ton of others, had never been taught to address an envelope. Disappointing though I was in the school systems of America, I sidled up next to this kid and helped him write his name and address in the center of the space. When he had finished, he smiled up at me, handed over the letter, and said, "Thanks, ma'am."

I smiled and moved around the room, squatting down to help ten more girls and guys from all over Winston-Salem address their envelopes; kids from privileged schools and kids from the worst schools in town. For some reason those moments of quiet were such a joy and reminded me of the invaluable childlikeness I keep trying to hold on to.

evans clan in butler, june.

An evening at the world's greatest Ice Cream place: King Cones Castle. Dining on the back porch. Playing in the pool and hanging out at the cabin...

my girls.

Between Young Life and Hope church, I spend a good 60% of my life either thinking about, worrying about, hanging out with or planning things for high school girls. When I think about that in light of the fact that I didn't love high school with any great passion, that I wasn't all that "cool" in high school and that I'm a little bit of a hermit at heart, I sort of lift my eyes and laugh.

Yesterday two of the girls who were in my cabin at YL's Crooked Creek last summer, who I've spent the past year becoming quite close with, came over to sit on my porch for two hours in the afternoon. Syd and I rocked on the two white chairs for a while, waiting for Cam, talking about her recent mission trip to Jamaica with McC, friends, college, boys and the joys of high school sports teams. Cam called, 45 minutes after their scheduled arrival time, to frantically report that her haircut had gone over, the dresser had hacked off "all" of her hair, and that she was on her way (and would we please tell her we LOVE her haircut even if it looks "TERRIBLE." End quote).

Of course her haircut was adorable, very NYC, though she swore she was going to go into hiding until the next morning when she was scheduled to fly north for her assignment as a workcrew server at YL's Timberwolfe Lodge. Syd and I tried for about five minutes to convince her it was a great haircut, an attempt we eventually abandoned. We sat and talked for a while, took a little trip to Sonic for Cherry and Strawberry Limeades, came back and sat a while longer on the porch until we realized we'd been there two hours and we probably had things we needed to get done.

As we sat there I was hit by a small sadness that this year, as I head to Sharp Top Cove, it won't be the same because my girls aren't going to be there. And yet, thinking of Syd and McC in Jamaica and Cam at Timberwolfe, in light of this past year of us studying Jesus and his life, for them for the first time, I was also struck by this incredible awe at how God has directed their hearts toward him and that I've had the front row seat for the whole thing. It's funny to think that these friendships could simply have never existed. And yet, they do and I can't let them go!

On Wednesday a few girls from the church Youth Group (which is my job) went to see Eclipse. I picked up J, who had been texting with me about how excited she was to see JACOB, and we discussed the finer points of the third novel in the Twilight series and the fact that Bella has no personality. We drove to the theater and laughed the whole way there. We had a blast! These girls are the BEST and I love being with them.

When I started as a Young Life leader and as the Director of Youth for the church, I didn't anticipate any of this - and now I can't really picture life without these high school girls, who will not always be in high school. I am a work in progress, realizing that life isn't mine and that the best best things are not what I would have thought. Not what I would have imagined at all.