I went to a funeral on Saturday. My friends, the Gingrich Family, were celebrating the life of their 33 year old daughter, Wendy.

Now, I’ve been to funerals where many stories were shared, but never like this. The stories shared about Wendy were beautiful and funny and make my cry just thinking about them.

The one that has stuck itself into my brain is about when she saw a cross. It’s important to note that Wendy had autism. It’s not important because it diminished her ability to live and love. Nope. It’s important because it gave her a different way of seeing the world. A way of looking at things that made me a better person. I know I am not the only one.

Anyway, as the story goes, Wendy’s parents had to take a detour on the way to church. She hated detours. Hated anything that was outside the routine. She grumped about it until she saw a cross.

Trying to point it out to her parents, she said it was like what they had at their church, hanging over the adoption water.

The adoption water.

That was what she called the water in which one is baptized. How absolutely perfect.

That story broke me. Breaks me still. But in a wonderful way.

There was a time in my life where baptism was presented as a “ticket to heaven”, a way into the good graces of God. And, when some talked to me about it they tagged on, “If you don’t, you’ll go to hell”. It was something that, in my heart, I dreaded. I knew it had to mean more. I wanted it to. It had to have a deeper purpose.

I’m a writer. I should have been able to articulate what baptism truly is. I simply couldn’t. Even after my own baptism, words to explain what had happened escaped me.

Saturday, I was given a gift, one last precious gift from Wendy Gingrich. She gave me the two words I needed to understand, truly, what baptism is. Adoption Water.

Baptism is letting go and allowing ourselves to be adopted. It’s surrendering to the love and acceptance of our Father. Just thinking about it makes my hands shake, makes me cry. Makes me so very thankful.

One of my favorite things to do when someone at our church was baptized was to watch Wendy. She’d keep her eyes on the person. When they came back up out of the adoption water, she’d stick both thumbs in the air, whistle, and her face would spread wide with the best smile in the whole world.

I remember one time asking God if that wasn’t the most beautiful sight He’d ever seen.

 Last night my family took a spontaneous trip to The Big Lake. Lake Michigan. My happy place.

My husband was bobbing in the waves with two out of three kids and I was on the beach with the third. He was burying his feet in sand and finding pretty rocks for me.

Then they came and put their beach blankets on the sand right next to us. If you’re a woman, you know who they are.

They are the women in the itty bitty bikinis. They are the ones who look like they were just photographed in those itty bitty bikinis with little to no photoshop help (because they don’t happen to have cellulite or tan lines or stretch marks). And they are the ones that make me go to that place in my mind.

If you’re a woman, you know what that place is.

It’s where you question your worth because you’d look so very not flawless in a bikini, let alone a poncho. It’s where you get annoyed because you’ve been eating spinach WITHOUT ranch for months and bending in squats until your legs go numb for weeks and you managed somehow to gain weight. It’s where you feel either invisible or far too visible or a combination of both (I know, it doesn’t make sense unless you’ve lived it).

They made me go to that place.

Well, that was what I thought. For a minute.

The next minute I decided that I was done with that place.

For the very first time in my 37 1/2 years of life I told that inner voice to shut it.

Those ladies didn’t make me think those terrible things about myself. They didn’t say a word to me. In fact, they were too busy enjoying the beach to pay me any mind. I am the one who allowed those thoughts. I said mean things to me.

I decided that I wasn’t going to waste my evening. I was going to enjoy my time. I was going to laugh with my kids and admire the husband who loves me (and who doesn’t EVER make me feel badly about my cellulite or stretch marks and who loves me dearly).

I hushed the lies.

And I told myself something true.

My worth is not the size of my waist or the way my body is shaped. My worth is not in my ability to wear a bikini. My worth is not in how perfectly bronzed my skin is (good thing because I turn into a lobster in the sun).

This body is not my worth.

And those women in their itty bitty bikinis? Their worth is not their bodies, either.

My worth, their worth, YOUR worth is in who made you. Who saved you. Who loves you.

There I stood, on the soft sand, the bikini ladies nearby and I felt a confidence I don’t know that I’ve ever had.

There on the shore of Lake Michigan I enjoyed the enormity of God’s love.

There’s this small church in my neighborhood. It’s in that church parking lot that all three of my kids learned how to ride a bike (no training wheels). It’s in the lobby of that church where I cast my vote every election, hoping for the best (and sometimes despairing my lack of options). It’s that church that worked with the Red Cross and other aid organizations to serve supper each night after a tornado plopped down in our neighborhood.

It’s a good church.

Well, the other day as my family drove past that church I told my husband I had to take a picture of something. He understands my whims, so he let me out.

What was it I had to photograph?

Flowers growing up out of the sidewalk.

Or, you might even say that I needed to catch a snapshot of hope.

We’ve all been feeling how blunt and hard this world can be. I’ve lamented about it here. But there is beauty still. There is the touch of the Creator who, in His whisper, reminds us that His art is all over. And that work speaks of His love, His sovereignty, His provision for His kids.

It’s the flowers in the sidewalk. The watercolor sunsets. It’s in the story a friend tells of how her church took care of so much after her mother’s sudden death. It’s in a mailman who collects books for a boy who wants so badly to read. It’s in my children’s laughter, encouragement from friends, when my husband winks at me.

There’s beauty. There is.

Sometimes we just have to tilt our heads, squint our eyes, and really concentrate to see it.

But it is there.

If you’ve been around for awhile you know that I kill all plants. My one success story is my little succulent plant named Muley Graves (he’s named after a character from The Grapes of Wrath – let me show you my nerd card).

Well, my hubby and kids gave me the prettiest potted plant for Mother’s Day. Gorgeous purple flowers as big as the palm of my hand grew out of it. So pretty.

It’s going to die, I thought.

A few weeks ago, I thought it was the end of the road for the pretty potted plant. The soil had receded somehow, all the purple flowers were looking puny, some of the stalks had browned.

It was a good run, I thought as I pinched off the dead and gave it a little water.

The next day? The plant was good as new! All it had needed was a little love.

Whew.

Over the weekend I looked at the novel I’m writing and thought it was time to pull the plug. I’d drafted an email to my agent saying that it wasn’t a good story. I couldn’t fix what was wrong. It was done.

The big problem? There’s a publisher who is considering picking up the novel. If I were to pull the plug now, it might be taking my career out at the knees, too.

So. What did I do?

I prayed. Or, rather, begged God to help me out.

I looked at what was crunchy in the story, what didn’t work. I cut all that off. If something didn’t need to be there, I took my scissors (literally) and cut that scene out, tossing it in the trash. I made a list of what needed fleshing out, what needed to happen in order for this novel to work.

Then I went to bed.

The next day? The novel was more alive to me than ever before. I understood it. I knew why I needed to write it. And I got why it had to be NOW.

I realized that there was a purpose for this story and that God could use it. Whew.

There are times when the right thing to do is move on to something different. There are times when the path needs to be changed, plants need to become compost, stories need to be abandoned.

But not when there’s still life in them.

As long as there’s even the slightest bit of life, there’s hope.

I don’t know about you, but I hate feeling exposed.

No. Not in the “I’ve been caught in an embarrassing situation” way or a “Wow, they just told my darkest secrets to the world” kind of way. Although those aren’t the best.

What I mean is, I’m getting weary of this exposure to the world.

It seems that every day there’s something new. Another person abused by someone in authority. Another hate group gaining steam among a handful of very angry, very noisy people. A misdirected bomb decimating an innocent village. A man goes into a theater with a gun and a grudge. Those Planned Parenthood recordings that I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch. Another celebrity being lambasted by the public for failing to live up to the idol status of which they are demanded.

Lives being destroyed. Reputations crumbling.

And, honestly, I’m tired of it all. I’m weary. Each time I read another “This world is going to hell” headline I feel more and more raw.

I wish I had a hard shell that would allow me to pull my head in and wait for the awful stuff to be over.

The other day I read a Facebook post by a friend of mine. She happens to be African American and she was pulled over by a police officer recently. She wrote about how afraid she was that somehow the officer would feel threatened and that the routine stop would turn ugly.

I realized that in the few times I’ve been pulled over, the most I worried about was a $60 ticket and a few points on my license.

Reading the words of this friend I’ve had for 25 years (a friend not prone to hyperbole, mind you), I started to cry. I will never be able to say I understand her fear. I don’t. But it smashes my heart to know that she has this fear. She, a woman who has given her life to work with the teens of our community, helping them to rise above peer pressure. She’s a world changer. She does great things.

Still, she fears.

All I kept thinking was, “What can I do? What in the world can I do?”

My anxiety rose. I felt the chaos of trending news swirling and hollering and banging against each other.

What can I do?

This weekend at church we had a guest speaker. He preached on what it means to be gentle. His definition of gentle.

Being composed in the midst of chaos.

It’s rolling my path over the path of God so that I’m sure to follow Him. It’s trusting Him. It’s standing for what’s right, but in a righteous way not an out of control manner.

Gentleness is knowing that I need help from the Holy Spirit to keep from freaking out. It’s knowing that HIs way is sure. It’s knowing that He has a plan.

It’s praying for wisdom. Loving those who are hurt and (although it’s against all reason) loving those who harm them. It’s forgiving.

Gentleness is not weakness. In fact, it’s strength.

It’s allowing myself to be soft, to feel the pain of this world. Yes, to be amidst the muck and mud. Yet to know that there is a Deliverer who has not abandoned His people.

Gentleness is passing up the hard shell of self-protection and opting, rather, for the ways God shields and guards us.

I’m leaning on these words.

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 11:28 and 29

About a month ago I wrote a scene in the novel I’m currently pecking away at. As I formed the words I realized that I didn’t really know what I was talking about.

What was I writing? A girl in a chicken coop collecting eggs.

I grew up in the city. Seeing a squirrel jolting up a tree was about the closest I got to wildlife encounters. The idea of touching a fresh from the … ahem … oven gives me a bit of the heebie-jeebies.

But my character isn’t the kind to be skittish about anything, let alone touching the underside of a chicken.

“I’ve gotta touch a chicken,” I thought to myself.

After hearing about my need to touch a chicken, I had several offers from my chicken owning friends (sososososo many chicken owning friends).

“Oh, thank you,” I’d say, sorry I made it known that I needed to touch a chicken.

I’m going to be honest with you, my friends: I am afraid of chickens. They have razor sharp beaks, right? With long, gnarly talons. And they peck at people. And…and…I eat them. They might be able to sense how delicious I think they are. Then there’s the chance that a chicken might POOP ON ME!

“I can fake it,” I thought. “Nobody will know if I just write the scene without having so much as touched a chicken.”

That was before I went to my friend’s house on Sunday.

Anne Ferris is the owner of three diva chickens. Aretha, Allison, and Adele (like, after the singers). I’ve known Anne for about 5 years and still haven’t figured out one thing that she’s afraid of. Not joking.

When I stepped into her backyard I thought, “By the end of the evening I am going to hold a chicken. I am. No chickening out…um…”

So, I did.

Adele is a redheaded sweetie. She didn’t mind me holding her one bit. She crooned at me as I held her (she doesn’t have quite the lovely pitch as her namesake, but that’s okay).

Holding her was different than what I’d expected. Her feathers had a different texture than I’d anticipated. Her body was firm (I’ve got to find out what her workout regime is).

I realized how I could write the scene in my book so that the reader would feel more inside the story.

I’m so glad I held Adele.

Next up? Snuggling a calf***.

Oh mercy, this novel is going to stretch me…

(***By the way, I do have a friend willing to let me snuggle a calf. Man alive I’ve got a lot of farmer girl friends)

Yesterday my family and I went to a small beach in a recreation center. It was the perfect, sunny, warm day for it. I waded up to my waist in the water, watching the kids splash around. I tossed a football back and forth with them. Smiled as they wondered at the awe of a hovering dragonfly.

I felt the sun singing my shoulders, so I retreated to my chair on the shore. My husband had thought ahead, knowing how prone I am to turning into a lobster, and packed an umbrella from a water table we had when the kids were tiny. I stuck the thing in the sand, grateful for the shade and for my unopened copy of Go Set a Watchman.

That was until the wind picked up and turned my umbrella inside out.

I fixed it.

Then the wind whipped under it, trying to carry the darn thing away.

I grabbed hold of it.

It seemed every time I started reading my book the wind started causing problems and I had to stop and right my shade.

If it wasn’t that, it was a kid coming to ask for a snack (which I gladly provided…my kids are far better than a teasing wind). I’d close my book to watch them dig a trench in the sand or form mud balls or laugh at my son as he did what I call the Gollum

crawl (he doesn’t know who Gollum is, but does THE best impression of him).

When I wasn’t looking up from the book to retrieve my umbrella or smile at my family, I was utterly distracted by the people around me. Oh, the most interesting people show up at the beach on a Sunday morning. I mean, character worthy people. People who talk so that I can hear everything they say, not knowing that they might make it into a novel someday…

Let’s just say that by the end of our time at the beach, I’d read 3 pages.

And let’s also say that it was fine by me.

As much as I love to read, life happens around me. I need to be mindful and ready to pay attention to my kids and husband, to the wonder of creation, to the image bearers around me.

I can always read later.

Life doesn’t wait for me to finish a chapter.

There’s a story to be lived that can’t be found on a page.

Sometimes it’s found with sand in between toes, skin blushing in the sun, with a smile on the face because this story of mine – the one I live – is very, very good.

 You know the story of Peter taking a hop off a boat to go walking on the water with Jesus? It was an impulsive choice, one made before a second thought had a chance to say, “Um…Peter, you might sink”. And Peter didn’t sink – well, not at first. It wasn’t until he realized what kind of craziness it is to walk on water that he started dropping into the deep.

Fortunately, Jesus is in the pulling people up business and He did just that.

Anyway, I relate with Peter in that story (and in the one where he slices off the soldier’s ear as he’s attempting to drag Jesus away – not the sword part, but the impulsive part. And the temper).

I can be impulsive. I don’t think ahead. I don’t question until sometimes it’s too late.

That’s what happened on the day I heard Harper Lee’s much longed for second novel would release.

Without a thought of “Remember how Auntie Harper said she’d never publish anything again?” I went over to Barnes and Noble’s website and preordered the book, not knowing if I’d be able to wait the few months before it arrived at my door.

A couple hours later I started to have doubts.

“I’m afraid it won’t be as good as To Kill a Mockingbird,” I wrote in an email to an author friend.

“It won’t be,” she answered. (She’s also a very honest friend).

Shoot.

Then came the blog posts with a list of controversies surrounding the release of the book. Is Harper Lee being abused by her caretakers? Is her attorney exploiting her? Does she want this novel published? Atticus is really a racist!

I thought about canceling my order. Even went to the website to do so.

But I didn’t. I thought I’d wait. Think about it some more. See if any other revelations came up.

Then I heard that Lee was happy about the release. Then I heard that there was no abuse.

I’ll be honest, I thought it was all going to be all right (I’m not much of a realist, I suppose).

My copy arrived yesterday. I tore the package open to see the gorgeous cover art. I Instagrammed it. Shared it on Facebook. Friends voiced concerns over reading it. They feared they wouldn’t like it as much as Mockingbird. They feared the downfall of Atticus from the pedestal he’s occupied for 55 years.

So, I gave myself a moment to think. Why am I planning on reading Go Set a Watchman? Why do I feel so conflicted?

I want to read it because I love story. I’m curious about literature. I’m a student of the American novelists. I want to study the structure of Watchman (I understand that it’s a draft, not a complete novel, which I find fascinating to pick apart).

But what if it’s not great or even good? I’m prepared for that. This is the very least of my concerns. Some of my favorite authors have books I didn’t enjoy (I’m looking at YOU, Steinbeck). It won’t diminish Lee at all in my mind.

What if Atticus turns out to be a huge jerk? Yup. Ready for it. I’ll be bummed, but it won’t crush me. Here’s how I’m going to look at it. There’s an Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird and there’s an Atticus of Go Set a Watchman. I can keep them in two different boxes in my mind. And while I’m on the subject of Atticus, I need to say that he can’t be worshipped. He can’t be a savior. He’s a character modeled after a man (in fact, modeled after Lee’s own father, who changed his opinion about race at a few different times in his life).

What if it turns out Harper Lee is being ripped off? Well, I’d feel awful. This is my biggest conflict in purchasing the book. I fear this may be true. I don’t know what I’d do. This is something to ponder.

What if she never wanted anyone to read it? This bothers me, too. Recent statements supposedly from Harper Lee say she’s happy about it. She even had a nice lunch reception to sign a few books. But what if she’s just horribly confused about the whole thing? Would it be a violation? I don’t know. I just don’t.

So, I’m going to put my copy of Harper Lee’s most recent novel on my shelf. I’m going to wait. I’m going to pray about it. I’ll try to avoid any articles about it (good luck, right?).

This book I’ve been chomping the bit to read will have to wait a bit. Maybe a few weeks or months. Maybe even a year. I don’t know.

I’ll need to contemplate on the quote which graces the back cover.

I’ll set my own watchman.