Kingdom Come

We drove in close to midnight.
I was half asleep (the car has lulled me to sleep since I was a child–especially the narrow, winding roads leading to the mountains).
I started to wake up, listening to the stereo (powered by batteries in the front seat) skip as it played on of his favorite CDs.
The roads continued to wind. The sky was deep blue, it was cold outside.
I had been fighting nerves for days. My bag was packed with my cameras, my head with stories.
I watched as his face began to change.
The area of Cumberland, Benham, and Lynch are small, old mining towns. They were built quickly for miners and their families, at the base of the mountains, in the shadow of the very machinery that was their livelihood. This machinery, this equipment, rose like monsters from the shadowed valley. Broken pane-glass windows glinted in our headlights. The wind whistled through the cracked back windows (which won’t roll all the way up) of his car. The mountains began to rise higher above my head, the outcropping hanging over the road, making me feel small and out of control.
We had returned to the mountains. A place he loved. A place I have spent years running from... only to find my heart reaching for them once again.
A place we call home.
The mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, are quite unlike the Rockies.
The Rockies demand a certain amount of respect; they rise, naked and crowned in snow, overpowering everything in their shadow. They are a vital part of the great American dream. They whisper of gold and prosperity and danger. Their crags and peaks are home to exotic animals, to stories of great triumph and trial.
The Appalachian Mountains, I say again, are quite unlike the Rockies. It would be futile to try and describe them to you. But when I close my eyes, I see a child. I see an old woman, wrapped in a quilt. I see smoke rising from a chimney. These mountains laugh. They are full of simple joy. And yet, deeper still, the Appalachians keen. Listen carefully and you will hear the mournful cry of a forgotten culture. An unloved people, a stereotyped society. Tucked safely in green mountains, which rise from the bluegrass. Lungs, blackened by the mines. Faces wrinkled by seasons spent in the fields. They do not demand attention, nor require your admiration. But they hold a secret. These mountains will love you...
I got out of the car, immediately engulfed by the night. I was nearly knocked over by the wind.
It was one of the moments that I manage to feel even as it is happening. A moment that might not mean a thing in retrospect, a moment that even now may not mean a thing to you. But I stood in Jarrod and Stephanie’s driveway in the darkness, looking at the treeline that rose behind their house. The tall, dry, naked trees rustled loudly in the wind. A moment that felt like an hour... I listened. And for the first time in a long time, I heard.
"I am here."
I would later be sitting in the car with Caleb telling him this story, and have to fight back tears.
Ever since I was in highschool, I had sought out physical evidence of God. I often resonated with Gideon, or even Thomas–needing physical affirmation that He was real, that He heard me, and that our Father could respond. As a young teenager I began to ask for such affirmation... such confirmation of His presence. I knew, deep down inside, that even without an answer that He was real. But still I asked.
And I began to feel Him in the wind. I clung to the verse in John 3 (vs. 8): the wind blows whether it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
The strength of the wind on Friday night in Lynch, penetrated deep into the recesses of my heart. I was on a journey. I was looking for answers. Answers to hard questions. Evidence of a purpose, traces of a future. I was looking for time to spend with the man I love–I was looking for the man I had only gotten a glimpse of, the heart that manifested in his eyes. I was looking for our story.
On Saturday we went up to the State Park, Kingdom Come. We began to hike, and much to my dismay (although, I had expected it) I began to lose my breath. I was embarrassed. I was disappointed in myself. I love hiking. Love getting dirty. Love being in nature. But so often, my thorn, my ability to breathe, my "special" body gets in the way. We slowed down. We saw deer. We hiked up the amphitheater, where we stood, faces lifted upward reading the tags on the stone. Spray painted, etched, carved, drawn; professions of "love", signatures, dates as early as 1936. Our voices echoed. We hiked up even further to a massive, sloping rock. We sat down (needing to catch my breath). Caleb sat a few feet in front of me, and we looked out at the blue mountains that rose before us. He would later make a joke about our transcendental-ness. But there was nothing to be said. In the quiet. In the peacefulness. I watched him as much as I watched the mountain. And as my lungs began to fill back up with air, as the muscles in my legs began to relax, a question was answered.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done...
I picked the last trail that happened to lead us back to the road. Before we got back in the car, we went down to the playground and swung on the swings. My belly started feeling funny as I went higher and higher, and we laughed as we closed our eyes, feeling like we were plummeting to the ground.
Church was held in the Community Christian Center this morning. A brick church building, originally a Greek Orthodox structure, built at the very foot of the mountain. Caleb picked me up from the Sherman’s with bare feet. "Welcome to my home," he said as we crossed the street to the church steps.
It’s been a long time since I cried in church. It’s been a long time since I really cried at all. But I stood there, third row back (the squeaky pew), in between Wilma and Senta, fighting back tears. Fighting back the vicious tears that have nothing to do with your tear ducts, but I believe, come straight from your soul. Joey stole my heart–leaving the pulpit and approaching a quiet congregation that had "congregated" in the back pews of the sanctuary.
Love languages.
Nothing can separate us from His love.
Do not love with words or tongue, but in action and in truth.
God is love.
Love one another.
I was flooded by words that I knew by heart... not just had memorized, but that were hidden in my heart, part of the very fiber of my faith. I was still uncomfortable–uncomfortable in the sense that I had no idea what was going to happen next, or how long the service would last, or what would be required of me. But I sat there, the pew squeaking beneath me, and I was shaken.
I remembered a conversation that Liza and I had over six months ago. Talking about our calling, our passion, our future. About what it means to live by faith. About what scares us the most. Remembering that we are not called to live "comfortable" lives, but lives of un-comfort. Loving the unloved, serving the unserved, seeing the invisible... all takes courage and a large measure of faith.
I struggle with self-doubt. What do I have to offer? How could God use me and my gifts in the heart of Kentucky... thoughts and doubts that echo that of a wise woman, who 13 years ago, drove south to Harlan County to seek God’s will.
I walked out to the car last night on the way to dinner, and for some unknown reason, lifted my eyes upward. I almost fell backwards, disoriented by the number of stars in the sky. So close I feel like I could reach out and touch them...
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done.