Knock at Your Own Front Door

Do you ever hear a knock or a ring at the door and try to ignore it because you look like a hot mess? I must admit, I do this a lot. Especially since we’ve been getting settled into our new house. My personal appearance has been the last thing on my mind.  I’ve been embarrassed for anyone to see the house or myself because both of us were looking pretty rough. Last Thursday, my house was not too terribly messy, but I was very substandard in my personal presentation. I had on my strawberry shortcake pajama bottoms (embarrassing admission for a 28 year old), my big baggy gray Liberty Sweatshirt and caaaarazzzzzy looking hair just thrown up on my head with no particular commitment to style. Not to mention- no make up. I was sick and feeling pretty puny with my sinus infection. The only strength I had was to drag myself out of bed and onto the couch to partake in some serious chick flick ingestion. Then it happened. The doorbell rang. The dog barked. And I was left in a quandary- should I answer looking like this or not?

So, what did I do? I tiptoed over to the door so I could take a look out the peep hole to see who it was. I could have gotten away with it if our house weren’t so full of creaky floors and if we didn’t have a mail slot in our door to let the sound escape. As I peered out the tiny little hole, I saw a woman that I believed to be our next door neighbor. We had not met yet. While I was standing there trying to figure out what to do, she rang the bell again. So, I brushed myself off and took a deep breath to face my humiliation from the way the I looked.

I opened the door and she said, “Hi, Emily, I’m Ella! Oh no...is this a bad time?” Oh my. What a first impression I was making. “At least I have an excuse about how I look this time," I thought to myself. I explained that I was sick and going to the doctor that afternoon and was so sorry that we were meeting with me looking so horrible. She responded by saying, “Oh, honey, that’s my uniform around the house too. I’m just so sorry you are sick. I wanted to come finally introduce myself because it is such a beautiful day that I just knew you’d be out.”  I really don’t know if I have met a nicer person on the planet.  We chatted a few more minutes, agreed that we would get together soon, and off she went back next door. Off I went to survey myself in the mirror and see how bad it really was. I looked for a rock to crawl under, but couldn’t find one big enough.

A little while later, I got to thinking. Ella reminded me of another unexpected knock on my door that I received back in 1988. It’s from the same neighbor many of you have received a knock from and had the choice as to whether you would open the door or not. It was from Jesus. You see, more often than not, Jesus shows up and rings our doorbell without warning- no matter what we look like or what condition our home is in. If we are smart enough to at least sheepishly open the door, He says to us, “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve worn what you have on too. I'm so sorry you are sick. I just wanted to stop by and meet you to let you know that I’m right beside you- ready to become your friend. Don’t worry. I’ll come back, all I need you to do is to open the door.”

The thing is, once you’ve met Jesus, you plan on looking better the next time you see Him because you want to look more like Him and less like the sick, sloppy looking person you were when He first met you. Your embarrassment turns into a catalyst for changing the way you once were. Next time I see Ella, I’m planning on looking my best because of how nice she looked. Jesus beckons us to come out and enjoy the beautiful day that should already be drawing us out of our dark, lonely places that we call home. He shows up to tell us about what He has in mind. If you’re sick- no worries- He will heal you and get you out into the healthy life He intends for you to have. The best part is, you’ll have a new buddy to walk down the sidewalk with while partaking in your unique place in the beautiful world He has created that lies just beyond your doorstep. Maybe Ella and I will become walking buddies too. Guess I’ll only find out if I step beyond the threshold of my own front door.

In the Presence of Greatness

 
 
Today I was in the presence of greatness as I heard Donald Trump present an address to Liberty University. Since hearing that he would appear in convocation this year, I have been inexplicably eager to witness this event. Other than the fact that I’ve been inside his Fifth Avenue tower in New York City, I guess the main reason for my excitement is that well...it’s just plain cool. He’s world renowned for many different reasons, but mostly because he’s a billionaire. How often do you get to be in the same room as a billionaire anyway? I also like his spunk.

The 10,000 seat arena was overflowing. We sat on the steps to listen to his address. We had all shown up to be in the presence of greatness. As we sat there, I recognized a particular young man with his camera. He shoots for the University and he was of course photographing The Don as he spoke. I thought back to April when my husband came as a guest lecturer from Nashville to address a senior class in the Graphics Design department. This same photographer shot him that day because somebody deemed David as “great” as well. I sat there connecting these two events in my mind thinking about why both of these men were considered great. Donald Trump certainly has given back in many different ways to the world through his riches. But mostly, I think he is considered great because of the wealthy empire and name he has built for himself. He has worked hard to get there and much can be learned from his business experience and advice. Why was David considered great enough to be photographed by the same person who covered Donald, though? That just blows my mind.

To sum it up, it was because of the work that he has done for others and the way that he got there.  The story that David shared when he visited in April was of how he responded and the actions he took two and a half years ago when he was given the news that he was being laid off from a failing small business. Through a hard work ethic on an uphill struggle, God provided many amazing opportunities for him to build his career, ultimately leading to a job with a very well recognized rock and roll band. Donald mentioned something very true today- if you’re going to make it in your industry- you have to be able to handle pressure. Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. piped up and reminded us of what his father, the late Dr.Jerry Falwell, Sr., always used to say, “You do not determine a man’s greatness by his wealth, as the world does, but rather by what it takes to discourage him.” Considering the many times I heard him say those words while he was still living, I don’t think I really ever understood what that meant until today.  

Of course David experienced many moments of discouragement as he ran into closed doors or even walls. But he never gave up. He never reached the point of discouragement to just throw in the towel. He kept pressing on to find a way to support his family. At times he felt guilty that he was not able to provide the support we needed all on his own. He even felt like a failure sometimes. He didn’t give up, though. Along the way, he learned a lesson that money cannot buy- his success is not measured by how he can provide for his family, but by the impact he leaves on this earth for eternity. Yes, providing for his family is a very real goal of his, but he came to realize that everything we have is from the Lord and we are held accountable for how we choose to use it. As the journey out of unemployment progressed for him, because of the talent he displayed as well as humility, he was chosen out of two hundred people for a great job that led to another great job which is in fact, the Lord’s provision for us. The actuality that he got these two jobs isn’t what makes him feel successful, though, it’s knowing that he is able to help build an empire and a name greater than his own- one that will last for eternity-one that is made by putting his own agenda aside and investing in the lives of others. Rather than being bitter about the choice a few people made to end his paycheck, he has vocalized that the best way to get revenge is by how you choose to live your life.

By the world’s standards, Donald Trump has it all. He is considered great for that. But by his own admission today, those riches of his are “peanuts” compared to his faith and family. I hope he really means that. Really I do. Because in the end, all of our greatness falls short compared to the only one whose greatness is truly significant- our great God. The single aspect of a great man that truly matters is what he does for eternity. Our Pastor back in Nashville always encourages us to go beyond the table of common grace and to dine at the table of amazing grace. David commented today that Trump just has a bit of a larger portion at the table of common grace- where the standard gifts of survival that the Lord gives to humanity comes from. However, our daily meal reservations are at the table of amazing grace. We never go hungry no matter how much money is or isn’t in our bank account or how loud our stomachs may growl. We feast on the Bread of Life. We hope that Trump is more than a billionaire. We hope that he is as rich as we are.

The words of Mrs.Rhea F. Miller and melody that George Beverly Shea put to them sang in my heart as I listened to one of the wealthiest men on the planet,

“I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold; I’d rather be His than have riches untold: I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands. I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand. Than to be the king of a vast domain or be held in sin’s dread sway. I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.”

The same shutter snapped photographs of both of these two great men. Yet, only the photographs of he who is great because of the sake of the unending domain of Christ will remain visible in the frames of eternity. The only one who will be looking at those frames, though, is the one whose reflection is caught in their glass as He says, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant...You have made me great.” The rest of us will simply be looking at Him (that is if our faces aren’t flat on the ground already) because we are finally in the presence of true greatness.

Reaching Beyond My Reach

Last week you read that we’ve moved to Virginia. So, now what? What sort of work am I going to be doing while David is off being a rock star professor? I’m about to tell you, but I feel like a major phony just thinking about typing these words. I am going to be a writer. This is where I should do something clever like draw a line through that last sentence and say, “Scratch that, I am a writer.” It’s true. I am a writer. Now, if I can just get myself to believe that, we’ll be in business.

I have trouble believing it, because I think people see that as a nice way of saying that I’m going to be a housewife...a lady of leisure... a kept woman. Granted, most of my family and closest friends have been more than supportive and encouraging about this announcement. The thing is, it is scary. I’ve had a lot of moments where I have almost psyched myself out of this whole Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) because I believed that people would not view this as a real job since I’m not going to get paid for now. But, it is. Writing is what I am called to do.

I’ve been writing at least since the second grade when I somehow convinced my teacher to let me direct my own version of The Little Mermaid during school in front of an audience of those in my class who weren’t acting in the play and some of our parents. I even convinced her to let us have brownies. Oh. And then there was third grade, when I wrote an Emily Pereira original, “The Lost Sea Captain,” and held practices at my classmate, Matt’s, house and then put on the production in front of the entire elementary school during chapel. Personal poems and short stories were sprinkled throughout my elementary age writing career as well. I’m having an “aha” moment as I reminisce over these early foundations in my call to writing. It would seem that the reason why these teachers let me get away with these things was because they believed in me. Wow. Why has it taken me 18 years to realize this? Those sneaky little things...making me feel like I was being the sneaky one by convincing them to let me shut down class time to show my productions... all along they were encouraging my call to writing.

Can I just pause to say that I’m sorry for using the word, “I” so much in this entry? It’s just inevitable for this week. Next week, hopefully that word will appear a lot less. (See that...I’m tricking myself by putting in a commitment to show up again next week. There it is, for all the world to see.  I have to come back next week. Hopefully you’ll come too).

When I started college, I was going to be a History major because I loved the subject. After a semester of staying up until 4 AM memorizing dates and facts, Elementary Education had me at “Hello, cute arts and crafts”. As I got into it, I didn’t really feel as if I was like the rest of the elementary ed majors. I just wasn’t as into it as they were. Those Standards Of Learning lesson plans just plain out made me uncomfortable because I was afraid that the kids I taught would miss out on something the government wanted them to know and it would be all my fault. I wanted to teach kids so I could have an impact on them like my teachers had had on me. I didn’t know how to mix teaching the facts with teaching life lessons like so many talented teachers do.  

So, why do I believe that writing is my calling? After all, it’s been nearly two decades since my whole interest in this trade started and I'm not really that interested in writing fiction anymore. Life is far more attention grabbing than fiction to me these days. The truth is, I didn’t realize that it was what God had for me until He developed my story just a little further. Further till the point of crisis. My crisis started when I got the phone call from my Daddy the last week of my Freshman year of college after he told me that he had stage four osteosarcoma and that the doctors had given him six months to live. I was literally sitting by his deathbed coloring pages for my elementary education notebook final that was due when I realized that I had a much more pressing calling on my life. I had the calling to share the stories of God’s faithfulness through some of the darkest moments of my life with the rest of the world- even if just one person could be encouraged and know that there is a way full of hope out of the pit of despair. Even if that person was just...well...me. That’s when I decided to become an English major.

Since then, I’ve had several different jobs. They have been great learning experiences and opportunities to impact the world around me. But all along, I have said, “Well, I was an English major because I want to be a writer some day, but something has to pay the bills in the meantime and I see this as a time to gain stuff to write about.” Someday is here and it scares the stew out of me. But it’s time to put that training into action and to do what the co-founder of my Alma Mater, Elmer Towns, challenged this particular student in his class with, “If you want to reach beyond your reach, write.” So here I am, reaching beyond my reach. Get ready to read more from the “ink” of the (web) pages that are to come. And know this- what I want to reach you and anyone else out there with is the message that no matter what hurt or change you are going through, the one who I have drawn hope from in my most vulnerable, lonely days is the same one you can draw hope from because He never alters and He knows your pain. His name is Jesus and if you don’t know Him, allow me to introduce you to Him. He’s my most loyal friend and I know He would love to be yours.

Right now, all I can reach is a mouse and a keyboard. Here goes reaching beyond my reach.

My Life Got Flip Turned Upside Down

Well, in the words of Will Smith, “This is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside down. And I’d like to take a minute just sittin right there to tell you how I...” Well... let’s switch over to my words because I definitely didn’t become the Prince of BelAir...

When the New Year’s Ball was dropping this year, I had no idea what a major change was ahead of us. Our lives had already been through quite a bit of turmoil the past couple years due to David’s lay off, but we had learned to deal with that and be creative in making ends meet.Truthfully, we were forced to cut it dangerously close or had to just put some things on hold at a few points. But, through His sovereignty and the blessing of family pitching in when needed, God provided through every step of that journey. We never went to the poor house, though it felt like we’d be there soon at some points. We never went to bed hungry. We never had possessions reclaimed from us. We had a roof over our heads and love to keep us warm.

It feels like we’ve been sprinting up an icy slope the past couple years trying to recover from the financial hardship of having a full time job stripped away from us. Oh, the stories we have of trying to survive. That husband of mine truly is superman if you ask me. He worked in a file room sorting papers. He made himself go out on field days to try to drum up business for his own freelance graphic design company, returning with clients in the fortune 500 industry, musicians, historical societies, and tourist attractions. He photographed weddings, families, and events no matter how rude and ungrateful the clients. He interviewed all over town over the span of two years while being led on that he was in the top two picks almost every time, always to receive no phone call at the end of the day. He even interviewed at one place eight separate times, including the time he showed up the morning after his car was totalled on his way home from picking up printed pieces from Kinkos for his portfolio for his interview. He enrolled himself in Graduate School, with my blessing to count the cost of the debt we would go into from that as an investment that would last a lifetime. Not too much later, he was chosen out of over 200 people to be the graphic designer for a Billboard Top 10 Rock and Roll band. I can assure you that the pay is not rockstar pay, though. I was the “big” bacon earner with my part time job at church up until July. Really, we had been living at the poverty level or below. Though we had been digging our nails into the icy cliffs of climbing out of unemployment for so long, we were grateful to the Lord for His provision and we were excited about all the exciting opportunities that were coming our way. Those opportunities were priceless. Unfortunately, though, our bills were not. We began to wonder when we would ever get out of the phase of just scraping by.

We had been desperately, often tearfully, praying that God would provide a job with full time pay and benefits. We had an idea of how we thought this would work out and we assumed we would be in Nashville almost indefinitely. But, around April, the winds started to shift. David received a few phone calls here and there from his old professor asking if he would like to move back to Virginia to teach a class or two. It was never enough to warrant such a huge move, though. We discussed it and decided that Virginia just was not in God’s plans for us at that point. We thought there would be much more opportunity in the area we were (not sure why, though, since nothing major had happened in over 2.5 years in that department for us) or another metropolitan area. July 1st, though, we got a call that changed everything. It was for a full time job with benefits for David. And it would be for what he has been working for in getting his Masters of Fine Arts...to be a Professor teaching Graphic Design and Photography. It was the perfect job and the answer to our prayers. Yet, I was devastated.

People would ask me if I was excited and I’d usually say that it was bittersweet because we hated to leave our friends and church in Nashville, but we were excited about the new opportunity in Lynchburg. But if people caught me at a really honest, vulnerable moment, I’d share that I actually was not excited at all, but I was sad.

What a nutcase I am. I did not want to go back to the small town we had worked so hard to move away from. Yet, 3.5 years prior, as we were rolling the Penske into Nashville moving away from Virginia, I cried then too, saying, “I’m not a big city girl, David. I’m just a mountain girl.” Yet, back to those mountains I was headed again, this time crying, “I don’t want to leave Nashville. I love it here. I’m going to miss my friends and my church and the people I work with and our house and it’s going to be boring in Lynchburg. We’re not going to make any friends and we’ll never find a church as good as ours in Nashville.” (Insert breath here). Oh the meltdowns I had in that Penske as we drove into the night away from all our hopes and dreams in music city.

Well, I began to unpack...mostly alone while David was getting oriented with his new job. He would come home so excited about his new job. I was extremely happy for him. But, I was also wallowing in my own lonely pity party most of the rest of the time.

Strangely, enough, this probably only lasted about two weeks. It was the evening before our first official venture to visit a new church. I bawled my eyes out and told David that I was overwhelmingly sad because I just knew that there would not be another church like were members of in Nashville.

The next day we went to church and the Holy Spirit went after me. There are many things that can become idols in our lives if we are not careful. I realized as we sat there listening to the message that God was just as present in this body of believers as He was in Nashville and that I had inadvertently been idolizing the church we belonged to, making myself believe that it just couldn’t be topped. God spoke to my heart reminding me that He had called us back to Lynchburg because He not only was providing for the major need of a full time job with benefits that we needed, but also for us to enter into a new season of ministry. Once that sin became clear to me and I listened to His voice, things started feeling more “right side up” than “upside down.”

Despite my funky mood about this move, throughout it all, we have had conversation over conversation about how much of a fulfillment of Romans 8:28 that everything- good and bad- we’ve experienced especially over the last two and a half years has been. It is true, “And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.” Often I’ll just break down in the middle of what we’re talking about and say to David, “It’s just Romans 8:28...It’s just Romans 8:28.”

Yes, I do miss our friends, church, home, and activities in Nashville dearly. Yet, just as God provided for every need of our tumultuous two years, He is providing not only tangible things, but intangible things as well here in Lynchburg. Within a week of David’s orientation, we already made new friends! Not to mention the old friends we are enjoying getting together with as well! We’ve been basking in the new to us section of the city we’re living in as well as the perks of living close to exciting places such as our nation’s capitol. We’re living in a dream house... a 1939 beauty that is just so Virginian that we feel like we live at Monticello. And...we’re living in the mountains again. They’re not my mountains from North Carolina, but they’re a close second. And more often than not, when my eye catches a glimpse of those mountains, the sweet breath of my maker who is known by so many good and faithful characteristics such as Jehovah Jirah- God who Provides, Jehovah Rohi- God who Protects, and Jehovah Rohpi- God who Heals whispers in my ear the words of the Psalmist saying,

"I lift up my eyes to the mountains- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip- He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you- the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm- he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." Psalm 121:1-8

So maybe, after all, my life needed to be flip turned upside down so that I could lay on my back and look up at the mountains He made, remembering that His plans are always right side up.