Tintagel

The summer after my Sophomore year of college I studied abroad in England. My alma mater has a long-standing program that allows students to earn credit hours in English courses while traveling to the sites and communities that inspired the literature they are studying. It’s safe to say that as a mathematics major, I had never planned on joining the literature peoples’ trip.

After growing up under parents who firmly believe in making their children study abroad, I had planned on going on the business department’s trip, the one that made the most sense for my mathematics major. But, during the Spring semester that trip was cancelled (all credit to the economic downturn of 2008). My mom, the literature major at heart that she was, was not at all thrown by this change of plans and just shifted her focus to now urging me to consider the study abroad in England. Our conversations looked a lot like this: a daughter saying it was probably too late to apply now, reminding her mother she was not a literature major and that this was a trip geared to those type of people which she was NOT, and then her mother trying to explain to her panicking daughter it was still worth a try, that studying abroad was about far more than just the courses and could expand her horizons in ways she could not see yet. (I know, I know, we all know she was right, but give me a little credit for at least listening enough to fill out the application.) But another hurdle came: a few weeks after applying, I tore my ACL in the last game of our season.

At that point, I clearly thought God was closing doors and showing me I was supposed to have a summer at home in the suburbs of Chicago, rehab-ing a bum knee and getting ready for the next basketball season only six months away from my surgery date. But somehow, thanks to my parents’ encouragement and God’s ability to work His will despite our worries and fears, I ended up flying over the Atlantic two months after my reconstructive knee surgery.

Growing up I admired people who had diaries, who regularly recorded their thoughts and days, but found myself incapable of being able to consistently do so. My comrade during those first two years of college, Lissie, journaled regularly and as a result, re-ignited the desire I had to try again to, even if it was irregularly. She even bought me a journal and although my entries were few and far between those first two years, I decided to bring it with me to England. That summer, I wrote every day. Every day.

That trip changed me. I fell desperately in love with traveling and the act of immersing into a world completely unknown to me beforehand. I explored in every way possible. I was the only math major on the trip but I lived, laughed, and journeyed with people that came from a world of studying literature. They fascinated me and blew me away. None were college athletes, most hated math, but I learned from them and cherished getting to know people who were so unlike me and the people I had been surrounded by for the first half of my college experience. They were incredible people and the friendships that formed over that summer still hold a very special place in my heart.

That summer marked one of the sweetest times of growth, adventure, and unexpected blessing in my entire life. God had taken a lot from me in the years before that trip. You could say He was doing a lot of pruning. Right before that trip, He had brought me to a place where there was no clear pathway, no sense of future direction, just a lot of altered plans and ultimately, a lot of fog. That trip was the perfect example of what it meant for me to live with absolutely no safety net. Everything familiar, everything I thought I would be doing or that would make sense to do, did not have a place in my suitcase. No cell phone capability, no normal habits of living; I could not even bring expectations because I had zero clue what to expect. I had to rest in the fact that God was seeing the picture I could not yet; that He knew which way the path would wind and where it would lead. That was literally all I had.

When you read through the Old Testament it is remarkably clear that God repeatedly calls His people to REMEMBER. I think He still calls us to do the same. He wants us to actually stop and remember what He has done in our lives: the times He has acted for us in concrete ways, the times He has truly shown us how present He is. If you have not read the story of Joshua finally leading Israel to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised land (Joshua 3-4) you need to stop reading this right now and read it. I really mean it.

It closes with Joshua explaining why the Lord wanted them to bring out twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan. He explains they are to serve as a memorial of what the LORD had done in their lives. At the end of chapter four, Joshua explains that when the children will ask what the stones mean, when the story is re-told, “all the peoples of the earth [will] know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.” Therefore, “stones of remembrance” has become the name I give to the times in my life that serve as incredibly powerful and personal reminders of when God has worked in mighty ways and absolutely blown my mind.

One of the first moments that I knew would serve as a stone of remembrance in my life occurred during that summer in England. I was sitting alone, on the edge of a cliff in Tintagel. There are no words, no matter how masterfully chosen or beautifully strung together, that could describe the beauty of that scene: the cliff I sat on, the soft wind, and the never-ending ocean and sky in front of me.

God met me on that rock.

That time with Him was so much more than I could ever imagine and I will never be able to adequately explain it to any person no matter how hard I could try. As I sat on that cliff I could have worried and wondered about anything in my life, because literally every category of my life at the time was unclear. And yet, that time is one of the very sweetest and most poignant stones of remembrance I have. It is reminder of sitting in God’s presence, seeing His glory, and truly being rocked by Him. It is a reminder of what God does when I truly let His will be mine, no matter what.

Lately, I have been wrestling with God over the new level of uncertainty about what lies ahead. When I first started trying to write it was all so exciting, but lately I have started realizing it is making me question a lot of things I never have before. I am a high school math teacher and basketball coach and for the first time in my life I am wondering if that might change. I have always felt so affirmed in those positions and now teaching, coaching, and writing all seem up in the air and I do not know which one, or any, are going to land. Voicing those questions feels dangerous and unsettling. I have been praying through these emotions and questions but still cannot see what God is wanting or where He is leading me… at all. The rising uncertainty I feel, the fears I have about what could lie ahead, has made me desperately want to just return to that cliff. I want to be back where I feel inexplicable peace, indescribable joy, and a satisfaction in my God that this world cannot rival.

But today it hit me….God is still in the process of answering my prayers. The only way for me to ever return to the power and sweetness of Tintagel is to first return to the place before Tintagel… the place with more questions than answers, the place where you are staring at the road you are about to walk down and it is completely covered in fog.

I am learning that that is the exact moment when stones of remembrance matter. They are God’s gift to us so that we can find real comfort when we are fighting to trust Him, when it is not yet time for Him to give us the answers we are so desperately wanting. By them, He can remind us that we have been here with Him before… and HE was faithful.

Six years, three months, and seven days ago I got on a plane to England, amidst a season marked by questions, having no clue what God wanted with me, what He had in store for me, just submitting to His will and seeking it.

I had no clue that God would ever meet me so powerfully on that cliff…

Remembering Tintagel is my comfort tonight.

#fear #HisWill #writing