Category Archive

I realized recently that many in my community of friends are weary jet setters who are so used to the transient life that they are having a hard time “landing.” In one humourous conversation with two of my friends who’d just returned to Canada, one of them said she had a hard time grasping the idea that she had just signed up for a 3 year phone contract. My other friend piped in and said, “Yeah, I just signed a four year car lease!” I looked at both of them and said, “I know. I just got married.”

Last night, Tim and I watched The Devil Wears Prada. I see similarities between myself and Andy, the main character who cared nothing about fashion yet found herself working for one of the biggest personalities in the fashion industry.

I have a husband, a home and a secure place of work. And I live in a beautiful city with many good friends. While many people I know have asked for this kind of life, I never did. I honestly wasn’t chasing after this life. Sure, deep down I longed for it. But I was expecting something completely opposite to this, actually. Just over two short years ago, I was gearing up for a future of singleness, moving around and much transition. And I thought I would be living in pollution central.

God has a funny way of interrupting my plans. I realize that I often expect the worst of Him. As if it wouldn’t be right if He gave me a life that met my needs. As if I should only think that the hardest path for me to take would be the one He would pick out for me. I subscribe too much to the “deny myself” camp without really believing that Jesus loves me.

I forget His grace.

What puzzles me is why someone like me who wasn’t even looking for these things, gets them, while so many others keep wishing.

The answer to that, I suppose, is also His grace.

I don’t know if anyone is even reading this blog anymore. My posts have been very slow as of late. The interesting thing is, it doesn’t concern me anymore whether anyone reads.

Now that my wedding is over and I’m relatively settled, I want to write again. I miss my times of thinking and gaining new insights.

I’m longing for a new rhythm for my days. I feel like I’ve been living on the surface for too long and I want to go deep again.

The reason the vine and its branches are such a true parable of the Christian life is that all nature has one source and breathes one air. The plant world was created to be to man an object lesson teaching him his entire dependence upon God and his security in that dependence. He who clothes the lilies will much more clothe us. He who gives the trees and the vines their beauty and their fruits, making each what He meant it to be, will much more certainly make us what He would have us be. The only difference is that what God works in the trees is by a power of which they are not conscious. He wants to work in us with our consent. This is the nobility of man, that he has a will that can cooperate with God in understanding an approving and accepting what He offers to do.
~Andrew Murray, The True Vine

I’m amazed at the grace God extends to me.

I had been wanting to meet up with someone today – no person in particular, just any friend – but my attempts in contacting my friends weren’t successful. I didn’t even want to talk to God about it because I felt like He’d already given me so much and I’d just be like a whiny kid pestering Him. So I resigned myself to a day at home by myself. Then I get a call this afternoon from a friend who happened to take the wrong bus and stopped right downstairs of my place. Of course, I invited her up and we had a good time reconnecting. I told her about how she was an answer to an unspoken prayer.

Which reminds me, another unspoken prayer that God seems to have answered is connecting us with a wedding photographer in Vancouver. We’re meeting on Friday – so we’ll see how that goes!

It seems like there are all these needs and wants I have on my heart that God’s beat me to. It feels a little weird – as if He can read my mind… oh wait, He can.

I woke up this morning with a feeling of anxiety. Actually, back track a little: I went to sleep last night worried. And when I woke up, I carried a huge weight of responsibility for certain things I hoped would happen today (but really weren’t in my control).

As I chatted with the Lord, the conversation went something like this:

Jesus: Olive, what are you wearing?
Me: Worry.
Jesus: Who dressed you this morning?
Me: Um, I did.

I paused and looked down at myself. I suddenly saw how ugly and unflattering that garment was.

“Hmm,” I said, “I think Your sense of fashion is a lot better than mine. Why don’t you choose something for me to wear today?”

And with a twinkle in His eye, He smiled, “I’d be delighted to.”

Tides of surf roll on the sand
Wipes the marks of many hands
Thus the one thing that survives
Bears the truth of many tries

Sand does not give way to waves
Only through the day to day
Steady workings of the wave
Only then are beaches made

Visible this work is not
Trades these waves are never taught
God’s the only one who sees
Him alone our waves should please

~Author Unknown