by Christie Purifoy | Feb 6, 2013 | Dreams, Faith, God, Seasons, Uncategorized
I’ve spent the past five years wondering, “Where will I be this time next year? What will I be doing? Where will I be living?”
I’ve been like a neglected houseplant, my leaves slowly curling. I had no roots.
Here at Maplehurst, we are in the freeze/thaw ugliness of midwinter, but I am fixated on the particular beauty of golden, late-afternoon winter light. I stretch toward the light and feel just how deep these roots can grow.
/
/
There are dreams planted everywhere here. Specific dreams about the vegetable garden and the blueberry bushes. Vague dreams about community and hospitality.
How did I get to this place? This place called Home? This place where dreams are realized?
I have no formulas to offer you. No guarantees. I suppose there are no shortcuts. All I have is this one thing: when I look back I see all the dreams we let go.
It turns out knowing when to let go of a dream is a necessary part of the dreaming life.
/
Jonathan and I fell in love at an inconveniently young age. He had always planned to attend medical school. He gave up that dream so we could marry. So I could earn a PhD.
We dreamed of moving overseas. We imagined living in Scotland or Ireland. We let the dream go and moved to Chicago. Spent two weeks hiking Ireland’s west coast, instead.
We dreamed of moving closer to family. Maybe a farmhouse in the Midwest? Close to grandparents in Kansas, not too far from grandparents in Texas. Instead, we moved to Pennsylvania.
/
When I tell you that my dreams are coming true, I do not mean I saw this life in advance. What I mean is this: life unfolds and something deep within us says, “Yes. This. Yes.”
A dream-come-true is a thing both surprising and deeply familiar.
It is the future you were made for before you even knew enough about yourself to dream it.
/
I have these words starred and underlined in my Bible, “May he give you the desire of your heart” (Psalm 20:4). One day I read those words, and it felt as if I’d tipped my head beneath a stream of warm water. That warm-water-feeling was real enough that I wrote the date, too. The ink is a bit smudged, but I can still read this: “So I pray / 12-14-2008.”
I didn’t write anything else, because, at that time, I had nothing else to write. I had no dreams. I had no desires. I couldn’t picture the future at all.
Now I know the most incredible thing. God not only gives us the desire of our hearts, he plants it there too.
He gives us the dream. He gives us the desire. He makes it come true.
And our hearts say, “Yes.”
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 15, 2013 | Family, God's Love, Religion, Scripture, Uncategorized
I often have a face in mind when I write out words in this space. To be honest, it’s usually my own. When most of me is stuck in boredom, doubt, or depression some small part of me still sees the truth. I write to remind myself how beautiful life is. How good God is. And how near he is.
Today I have a face in mind, but it isn’t my own. Technically, it’s not a face at all but a voice – the voice I heard on NPR yesterday morning. A young man spoke of how he found Christianity but eventually gave it up because he couldn’t bring himself to believe that those who reject Christ will be tortured for all eternity.
And my heart broke.
I wished I could put both hands on his shoulders, look him in the eyes and say, “You’re giving up Jesus because of a theological position not even all Christians accept? Oh, honey, don’t do that. Trust me. You don’t want to do that.”
I can still remember my shock as a young woman, sitting down to lunch at the Benedictine monastery where I worked, when I overheard the conversation of two visitors sitting a few seats away. “Won’t people be surprised when they get to heaven and see Hitler there, too,” one woman said.
Personally, I will be very surprised if it turns out she’s right, but, today, I am less shocked at the image of Hitler in heaven than I am awed by this woman’s embrace of God’s very big love.
I also remember my shock, that same year, when a fellow church-goer admitted he didn’t think babies who die automatically go to heaven.
Clearly, we Jesus-followers don’t always see eye to eye.
Usually, I’m okay with this. I tend to agree with Augustine that if the Bible leads its reader to be more loving then the Bible has done its job. Augustine isn’t saying that accurate interpretation doesn’t matter, only that it’s okay if we get a little lost on our journeys as long as we arrive at our destination.
As someone who feels at least a little lost, most of the time, I like this idea.
At least, I did, until my daughter stood at the bus stop surrounded by our neighbors and said this Out Loud: “I wonder if Dr. Seuss is in heaven or hell?”
It was Dr. Seuss’s birthday, the kids were geared up for a celebration, but they also knew that Dr. Seuss was no longer among the living. I suppose one thought led to another, and suddenly my own daughter was broadcasting a question that didn’t reflect my own spiritual preoccupations at all.
I was mortified. Here I had imagined myself a Christian unconcerned with guarding the borders of who’s in and who’s out, but my own unconcern left a theological hole that my daughter filled in for herself.
So now, as hard as it is, and as comfortable as I remain with theological diversity, I know I owe my daughter a little more. I owe that young man on NPR a little more.
I want them both to know that whether you are blinded by God’s love or by his justice you are welcome in God’s family. I want them both to know that I’ve wandered to a spot somewhere in the middle. I think when Jesus said in Matthew 10:28 God would destroy both body and soul in hell that destroy means what it sounds like it means. Not eternal torment but destruction. An end. Justice.
In other words, I believe in this good news about hell: there is a place where evil will be confined and where it will be destroyed.
And the really good news? God’s love is big. Very, very big. I may doubt we’ll meet Hitler in heaven, but I’m sure we’ll be surprised at the size of the gathering. Because God’s love? Well, it chases us down. It pursues us. And frankly, where most of us are concerned, my money’s on God.
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”
Ephesians 3: 17,18
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 1, 2013 | Blog, Faith, God's Love, Stories, Uncategorized, Writing
Happy New Year, my friends.
Recently, someone I love sat at my kitchen table while I fiddled with pots and pans. She asked me if I love to cook. I told her that despite evidence to the contrary (shelves of cookbooks, dozens of kitchen gadgets), I don’t really enjoy cooking. I’m usually in a hurry to get it over with. But here is the truth: I love food, and I love feeding people.
This blog is like that for me. I love stories, and I love sharing them with you. Without you, there would be little point to all the hours I’ve spent tapping away at this keyboard.
Thank you. I’m so grateful for your presence here in 2012.
For those of you still in the mood for looking back, here are a few of the most popular stories from the past year at There is a River.
When my daughter’s young classmate was murdered, I wanted her to know that darkness does not get the last word. The last word is Shalom.
Half-way through 2012 we went searching for a new home. This is how we knew we’d found it.
This was the year when God led me out of the desert I had wandered in for two years. Now I know that deserts are terrible, beautiful places. God brought me to the desert because he loves me.
In 2012 I received a great gift. Her name is Elsa Spring.
I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to a new year as much as I look forward to 2013. God has shown his goodness, and I can’t wait to discover what’s next.
“Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.”
– Corrie ten Boom
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 31, 2012 | Amish, motherhood, peace, Pennsylvania, prayer, Uncategorized
On the Friday after Christmas we piled our over-stimulated, over-sugared children into the car and drove. We were chasing peace and quiet down the backroads, and we found it.
The three-year-old had fallen asleep and the big kids in the backseat had stopped pinching each other when we drove straight into a flock of children.
Startled, I noticed a one-room Amish school on the top of the hill to our right. The schoolday had just ended.
Slowly our car parted a sea of boys in straw hats. Next, we inched our way past a dozen little girls circling the tall figure of their teacher.
One tiny girl with a heart-shaped face tilted her black bonnet to flash a smile through my window. She gave a little jump and waved both hands in greeting. The wind caught her cloak, and I saw a flash of its royal blue lining.
She looked so much like a little bird.
Our car moved on, but I kept thinking how vulnerable they seemed. All those small children flitting like birds on the edge of the road.
I turned back to look again at my own little birds, two of them sleeping, two of them staring outside at the passing farms.
So vulnerable.
I’m not sure I would have given it much more thought, but Sandy Hook is branded on our hearts, and I can’t stop seeing the flashing blue of that little girl’s wings.
How do we keep them safe?
It wasn’t that long ago evil invaded a classroom of Amish children (did those girls also skip and smile like little birds?).
Some say our schools need guards with guns. I have no rational argument to make against that proposal. All I know is how much it hurts me even to imagine it. I love our public schools, but I don’t think I will ever send my children out to classrooms guarded with guns.
I want my children to live unafraid, but I don’t want them to find that courage in a gun.
When I imagine that Amish schoolhouse – when I see it again silhouetted against a blue sky at the very top of a high hill – I see forgiveness. I see love.
I see children who may not be safe but who are free. Free from fear. Free to love the stranger in their midst.
I have always said I believe love is stronger than anything. Stronger than hate. Stronger than death. Stronger than whatever weapon humanity will come up with next.
I have always said what is only now being tested.
Because now I send my children out into the world with only the protection of an old, old prayer.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 23, 2012 | Advent, prayer, Uncategorized
O sacred Lord of ancient Israel,
who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush,
who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain:
Come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.
– Kathleen Norris, God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas
