the fort
“I understand that these big life transitions are normal. Life just keeps ebbing and flowing. I welcome the few rapids that come with an exhilarating shove into a season that I had my sights set on for miles and miles. When I know the terrain, I find myself weaving in and through the challenges with an underlining confidence. Yet lately, the river bends and curves sharper now…..the white water has risen and all I can do is ride this thing out. I thought I knew what it would look like……I even pulled to shore and paced beside the river to route the course of least resistance. But no...I am at the mercy of the current. I have no more fight and no more strategy to offer.”
A journal entry from mid May.
On paper, it all sounded pretty simple - wrap up a two-year long project and launch it into the world, graduate somehow, move back home then do whatever God says to do. But this transition has felt a n y t h i n g but simple. I drove back and forth from Dallas four times in two weeks right after driving back across the desert from California. The Black Pearl is a good steed.
My mind was in a swirl of confusion and doubt. Home didn’t feel like home. The fears of being deceived or trapped seemed to drown out the still small voice my heavenly Father. I was white-knuckling the endless cycle of questions…trying to wring out the truth. Anger rose into my chest with each passing day of wrestling. This was not how I desired or envisioned my new life to be………
On one of my trips to Dallas, I walked around my childhood house one last time before Dad sold it.
The re-stained door opened with the familiar creak. As I stepped inside, the nostalgia was abruptly interrupted by the blinding sunlight bouncing off the freshly painted beige walls. I stood in shock. I was a stranger in my own house. I slowly walked down the hallway towards the kitchen…almost nervous to create any sudden noise that would startle the artificial tranquility of the atmosphere. My mother’s stained-glass light-shades had been replaced by a more “minimalist” style light fixture. Her green floral couch on which we watched all the football games growing up - gone. The coffee table Molly had been small enough to sleep under when we first brought her home - gone. All the framed awkward photos of us without Mom that were displayed on the mantle after the divorce - gone. The table and chairs from which we shared meals and family banter around - gone. The little dent in the wall in the hallway where I had slammed my foot into a glass vase while jump-roping in the house then sobbed as dad pulled glass shards out of my leg - all but a memory now. It felt so small as an empty structure.
I went back down the hallway towards dad’s bedroom. The door was closed. I hesitate…anxiety crept in. This is the door that had bruised my desperate hands and remained closed time after time. A door that held a prisoner. A door that cannot keep out the weight of words or even worse, no words at all. A door I wish I could burn.
I turned the knob and opened it with ease. The room was empty too…the light showered in with its golden glow. The space was actually quite pleasant. Instinctively, I checked the closets and cabinets…nothing. The muscles in my shoulders relaxed a bit.
I really don’t know why but I went back into his closet…crawled onto the floor and laid on my back. I closed my eyes. My mind began to drift………
The Lord brought back a memory I hadn’t thought about in years….
Thunderstorms as a kid were more than a rude interruption to peaceful slumber…..loud claps of thunder sent waves of panic that had us convinced that our bedrooms were at risk of ripping off the house and blowing away. My window would rattle as sheets of rain relentlessly slapped against it. There was no time to waste - I jumped out of that twin bed with purpose. Fo-fo (my favorite stuffed animal) would be clutched under my arm like a running-back carries the pigskin. Heart pounding…I grabbed my favorite book, bound down the stairs, leaped into mom and dad’s room squealing,
“I’m scaaaared!!”
Josh showed up behind me .5 seconds later with his stuffed companion and whines,
“can I sleep with youuuuu?!!”
Dad would usually be awake by then…probably expecting our timely intrusion. Mom would wake up just long enough to hug us tight. Dad would then gather a few pillows, blankets and that old thick sleeping bag…then lay it all out on the floor of his closet. We called it the fort. If this was in the crux of thunderstorm season, the fort would already be well established. We’d wedge ourselves down there next to his leather dress shoes and bins of old triathlon gear and hide from roaring tempest outside. Dad would wander around the house or check the news for weather updates for a few minutes and then he’d come back. He’d kneel down and whisper to us…
“I checked the whole house and guess what, not a single wall has fallen off.”
“Daaaad stoooop”…
“You are safe…..now go to sleep”.
The fort became a bit more crowded when we had tornados roll through nearby. Mom would squeeze next to us with her laptop and work on emails while watching the radar. Dad would watch the weatherman from the living room and only came into the fort to bring us snacks unless things were lookin really sketchy. The fort forced us to come together. It was also strangely sound proof which amplified its sense of security. It became my favorite place to sleep. Sometimes, as thunderstorms would subside…I would sneak into the fort after everyone else fell asleep and Dad would wake up for work the next morning to a small, sleepy intruder sprawled out between him and his button-downs.
I opened my eyes to empty shelves and a quiet house. My cheeks burned.
Those stormy nights and that little kid were a distant past. I found myself grasping for that feeling again…security in my father’s presence…….
I wandered upstairs. My room was smaller than I remembered. The only thing left was a painting of the ocean that used to hang above my bed stuffed in the corner of the closet. My childhood was marked by a deep love for the ocean before I even knew what it was like. Josh’s room felt really small too. Years of height measurements were still scratched on the doorway in a rainbow of sharpie. Six foot was a biiiiig deal. Both rooms repainted…my sunset orange ceilings and his royal blue walls - gone.
All the books in the hallway were gone. The big office / studio was completely bare. Dad wrote his book in that room. Mom established her own business in that room before she moved out. It had been a space of doing and a space of hiding.
I walked down the stairs slowly. There used to be rub-on vinyl cursive letters on the wall halfway down the steps that said “family is a journey to forever”. Mom had big plans of putting our family tree on that wall so that we could learn where and who we came from. But those few words were as far as she got into her project before she packed her bags. I always found it painfully ironic. I don’t know why we didn’t rip it off sooner. Maybe laziness? Maybe hope?
I got to the bottom and leaned out off the curve at the end of the wooden hand rail and swung off the bottom step...a dismount of habit (its more fun in socks). I took one last gaze over the inside…at every tile and texture…before closing the creaky wooden door behind me. “Thank you Lord….”
This vessel of growth, hardship and joy is now all but a memory.
The thunderstorm memory rattled around in my brain for a while……the Lord was confronting something in my heart.
He is so good. He knows exactly how to speak to us in ways that we understand because he made us. I don’t have to show up with my strengths finder results or a list of my enneagram number weaknesses. He k n i t me together…a task that demands careful consideration of every tiny detail. He is a true craftsman. And he knows that memories catch my attention…..and I am beginning to truly understand…
That He doesn’t lose patience based on my confusion or fear, He holds His hands out, “can I help you”. And when I run, He is always ready to welcome me home but then refines me within those moments so that the urge to run dwindles more and more as I draw nearer to Him.
I am not an inconvenience to Him ever, even if I’m sprawled on the floor between Him and proactiveness. He is secure and steadfast…my doubt doesn’t make that any less true. When storms come, “the dark cannot whisper away what He said in the light”…..because His IS the comforter - and not one that coddles us to give up the fight but gives us the strength to face the storms and find peace in His presence.
Ezekiel 47 talks about the presence of God flowing out of the temple as a river. The Lord gradually brings him deeper and deeper into the river, first to ankles, then knees, chest and then deep enough that He could no longer pass through it…..He was totally at the mercy of the current. He didn’t bring him along the riverbank and walk him through the future. There was no map or blueprint. Just an invitation. And a fully committed heart of trust in the Father.
So maybe stepping fully into the current is not a sign of weakness but quite the opposite in the kingdom of God. I hold my hands up and give Him what I have even if it’s just my callused palms…because learning how to be a daughter means that I give up my right to understand it all. The invitation was not to work out the best strategy or achieve the next standard of moral excellence…or even to dig up the profound meanings to divine direction that can be shared as evidence for intimacy.
The invitation was to “come”…… to t r u s t. To learn how to cherish His words and seek Him with pure intent while also trusting His pure intent. (He is not a God of games, waiting for us to “get it”…..thank goodness!!) To be at His feet, walls down and ready to say yes to the next thing knowing He is good. That is where I want to be forever…
His river is the sweetest one to be immersed in… no matter what the skies look like…
