It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
-Wendell Berry
The Summer of Job
As we entered our 21st summer of running our surf camp, Surf Hatteras, I had a gnawing feeling that it was going to be… hard. Though we love it there too, our annual move to Hatteras from Virginia Beach was more emotional than usual. Our family was settled, rooted, and thriving. Yet it was time to uproot again and begin the summer-long marathon of running camp. All the unknowns became fears that circled above my head, threatening to make a nest. Did we hire the right people? Would someone get hurt? Will our kids thrive again this summer? Do I have what it takes? And I hate to admit this one… “Is God still with us or has his favor run out?” The previous summer had been our 20th summer and was marked by joy, depth, and celebration. Many of our staffers had become deep friends I enjoyed working alongside daily. It was SO good, I found myself retreating back into old patterns of thinking… that it couldn’t possibly keep getting better. God’s favor and goodness must run out eventually. I was a bit like MJ in the Spiderman movies who says, “If you expect disappointment, you can’t get disappointed.”
But I am a loyalist, a stick-it-out kind of girl who has never had a problem with obedience. Fear is my weakness. So we packed our fleet of vans and suburbans and headed south to our other life for the next five months. We settled into our beach house we would share with many others for the summer and spent a couple of weeks training the staff. Then it began. Week 1, Day 1 we received an early morning text from a key staffer. Sickness. Then another, then another.
I won’t go into detail about the rest of the hardships, and thankfully, they weren’t noticeable to the campers, but let’s just say we have been referring to this summer as “the summer of Job.” Though they were all trials we could actually handle one by one, they did not relent, and sometimes compounded into feeling like more than I could bear.
This year I’ve been reading, and re-reading Martin Shaw’s, Liturgy of the Wild: The Myths that Make Us. In it, he explores the theme of becoming a real human and the way trials in life un-make us and offer a chance to become re-made. In one of the fairy tales, a beautiful princess is wandering through a forest and happens upon a white bear playing with a golden wreath. She becomes captivated by this golden wreath and absolutely must have it. The only problem is, it belongs to the enormous white bear. In order to have it, she must marry the bear. The King did everything in his power to appease his youngest daughter by having his goldsmiths make replicas and even offering his two oldest daughters in marriage to the bear in exchange for the wreath. But to no avail. She runs off with the bear, leaving her royal life of comfort behind.
As it turns out, the bear is actually a king, Valemon, with his own palace, so she is able to remain a princess in a way. Every night, King Valemon takes on human form, and eventually she has three daughters. Without telling the entirety of the story, King Valemon is actually under a spell by a local witch, and has to return to the witch to become her husband. The princess is devastated and embarks upon a journey to find her bear-king and get him back. This journey I want to explore for a moment.
Once again, she must leave her kingdom of comfort, roam through the forest, find the witch’s castle, and take back her man. All along the way, provisions were revealed to help her, but she still had to make the journey herself. Ultimately, she must become bear-like in order to climb the mountain to get to her bear-man. Her pain and trials prove transformative, and, in the end, she rescues her prince, breaks the spell, and has a proper wedding at her parent’s castle. There was no mention of the wreath, because the true prize was her own transformation.
It was more than I could bear, but he was transforming me into a bear.
Learning to Sing
We ended the summer on a very high note with campers and staff. Our last week of camp culminated in abundant joy and provision from the Lord. Looking back over the summer, there was a deep sense of overarching protection, which we’ve always had. Psalm 91 kept showing up and haunting me with reminders of His covering. But if I’m honest, I was worn down. The new neighbor’s barking dogs gnawed at my peace every single morning as the campers slept. My typical early mornings on the deck where I spend time praying and preparing for the day were repeatedly interrupted with jolts of anxiety. Even if they weren’t barking, there was an oppressive feeling that if anyone opened a door or went outside, they would start barking and wake the entire household. At some point, I realized my only choice was to learn how to have peace amidst the barking dogs. My prayer was for the barking and the trials to relent, but instead I had to become someone who could bear them with grace and trust.
I can’t say I did the best job of this. I had to release what I could not control and receive the trials as strengthening and pruning, but I was not happy about it. As I said before, I am good at the obedience part. I can do hard things. But I was worn down and had trouble finding joy and hope. Fast forward to the fall in Hatteras and moving back to Virginia Beach, we had pockets of rest and beautiful days at the beach with friends after camp ended, but I still didn’t feel like I had “recovered” from the summer and had trouble finding my place back in our home town. I had to learn to sing again.
“The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
I had to trust that God was emptying me in order to fill me with something new. Something more valuable than a golden wreath. He was refining my faith into something more solid, precious, and pure. . . one that does not falter when trials come… one that does not look to the right or to the left when others seem to have it easier. A faith more precious than gold, a heart more precious than gold. “What is this all for, Lord?” I would ask him repeatedly this summer. As it turns out, he was after my heart.
Recently, I was reading Isaiah 41 and these verses spoke to me:
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.11“All who rage against you
will surely be ashamed and disgraced;
those who oppose you
will be as nothing and perish.
12Though you search for your enemies,
you will not find them.
Those who wage war against you
will be as nothing at all.
13For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.15 “See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,
new and sharp, with many teeth.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them,
and reduce the hills to chaff.18 I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
19I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
20so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
He never left me or forsook me. He was always there. He was there with me on the deck when I struggled to have peace. He was there with me when I doubted and cried. He knew what He was doing and His presence did not leave.
Finding Gold
Two quick stories of God revealing mysteries through finding treasures on the beach. If you know me, you know I love searching for sea glass and other treasures on beach walks, and God has historically used these times to speak to me through the finding and the not finding. One particular day near the end of summer, I asked God if he would speak to me through what I found that day (I hadn’t asked this in a while and thought, “why not.” First, I found one long shard-like piece of glass. Clearly a piece of window pane from a fallen house. It looked like a sword to me, so I immediately assumed God was asking me to cut something out of my life… fear, doubt, etc. I prayed and asked Him to reveal what it was and had a sense He was saying, “No, I am making YOU into a sword. All these trials and bearing of hard things is for your transformation into who I created you to be.” Or something like that. Woah.
The next was just the other weekend when we were packing up our things to return back to Virginia Beach. It was after a big Nor’Easter, so there were DEEP shell beds for miles and miles. I was walking with my friend Casey who is much better at spotting sea glass than I, so naturally she found heaps and heaps of sea glass and I found just a few. (To her credit, she would wait to see if I would see them first before picking anything up). As we walked back to our families, there weren’t many shells in this particular spot, but I was looking down at my feet just in case. And what did I spot literally right under my feet? Let me show you…
The biggest, ancient, sharks tooth I have ever found and probably ever will find. A once-in-a-lifetime find. I basically was looking for glass, but found gold.
This is the story that God is still revealing to me. But it’s your story too. We think we know what we want, some of it is good and necessary for a fruitful life. Some of it is just shiny and will lead us astray. But until we learn to rely on God in all times and in all things, we are missing it. For me, it’s receiving the season I’m in and the calling on my life. It’s remembering not to look to the right or to the left and to be grateful for all the goodness and beauty around me. It’s remembering that being blessed is backwards in the kingdom of God. Being blessed means being transformed into who we were made to be because we have a loving Heavenly Father who desires to partner with us in building His kingdom here on earth. It does not always mean life is easy or that we get what we want. I am a work in progress. So are you. Grace reveals that even when we go after the shiny things, like the princess went after the wreath, He will still use that for our good and help us become who we truly are: sons, daughters, heirs to the King.
A faith more precious than gold.
A crown forged in the fire of His love.
A life that is better than one we could imagine for ourselves, a life surrendered to Him.
Even when we are looking for glass, He wants to give us gold.
When we are wanting shiny wreaths, he wants to give us a proper wedding.
His desire is to partner with us in building His kingdom, here on earth.
But first He has to make our feet like the feet of a bear, enabling us to climb the mountain and get our bear-king back.