Sabrina Fair {Where it Went}

Sabrina fair

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,

Listen and save.

-John Milton

I remembered something about myself last night that I hadn't thought of in a long time.

It involves a pretty cheesy 90's remake of what I hear is a more classy 50's version, originally starring Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.

(source)

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90s cheese or not, I'm still a Harrison Ford kind of girl.

Which, incidentally, is not what I remembered about myself last night.

(I was always in touch with that.)

(AND that's why I am so proud to be the aunt of Truett's "Harrison Ford grin." And, of course, the aunt of Truett in general.

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(and in case you wanted to see a more recent picture of Truett, here's one from spring break before I edited out the dog poop.

His auntie is a genious.

...

You STILL don't spell genius with an "O." fyi.)

(one day I'm going to learn to just consolidate all of my parenthetical content into one set of parentheses. It's the suspense that keeps you coming back, I'm sure.)

(it's entirely possible that I shocked myself too hard with Dash's training collar. I'm his godmother, you know.

)

Yes, I am done, thanks for asking.

I remembered that I wanted to be Sabrina when I grew up.

I don't know that I could've told you why I wanted that so badly back when I was 6. (and 7, 8, 9, 10). I couldn't even really follow the plot of the movie at the time. I drove my family crazy asking questions because I never could pick up on the fact that Linus is only acting like he's in love with Sabrina for half of the movie.

Love was love to me then, I guess. I didn't really grasp the sinister intentions thing.

I'm sure I wanted to be Sabrina for the obvious reasons that many 6 year olds want to be in their 20's. You get to be pretty and independent and adventurous and, apparently, have Harrison Ford fall in love with you despite himself.

I remember loving her relationship with her dad and the other Larrabee servants. She got to wear red lipstick, so that was cool. And I adored her short sleeve, button up, collared shirts. Wore them all the time when I taught school or paraded in the back yard with my adopted kids or explored Paris in my imagination.

I'm sure I was attracted to her optimism and unbroken spirit and intelligence.

I didn't make the connection until last night that she also loved taking pictures. So many things I wanted to have in common with Sabrina.

The last time before yesterday that I'd watched the movie, I was a senior in high school. Following a decision that had nothing really to do with Sabrina (at least not consciously-- the depth of my admiration from childhood probably had some residual effect in my adolescence), I was preparing to move far away.

I didn't trust that with the comforts of home and family nearby I would really recognize the daily work of God. It's not that I couldn't. I just knew I wouldn't.

Or, rather, God knew. I wouldn't have dreamt of actually moving on my own. Paris and journals by the river reflecting were for playtime that grew up, as I did, into daydreams. It was God who took my "wouldn't it one day be fun if possibly..." and turned it into a call that begged, "will you this day, in obedience, actually move away from the known?"

Based on what I knew about callings from the Lord, I didn't think I could say no. I'm indebted to those beautiful volunteers and the hours they spent teaching the somewhat reluctant-at-best listeners (from the ages of wriggling in our plastic chairs to texting on the youth room couches) about Israelites and apostasy and overwhelmed Moses and flawed King David and blinded Paul and the hungriest servant of all, the most obedient to God, Jesus. Those people who taught that God grants all authority to dream and gives all reason to give thanks in every season. Those people who taught me to see that God purposes experiences and uses weakness.

(something I'm daily learning more about, especially in reading 1000 Gifts).

Of course, I'm also grateful to the people (*cough* Carrie Blankenship, *cough* Juli Paddie, *cough* Holly Douglas) who so graciously informed me of swirling rumors of rat infestations and crooked, dangerous roads and all around horror stories from UMW that warranted from me a serious reconsideration of the Virginia thing.

I was more determined by the day (after reconsidering my decision by the day) that what made my life so good at home wasn't all bad-- it just wasn't God. I'd come to know God there and had no doubt that He cared about and was involved in my life. But there was very little need for Him. Everywhere I turned I was blessed enough to get the help I needed very immediately from those who cared enough about me to give of themselves.

Blessed, blessed, blessed. That's what I was. I just kept taking the blessings, filling with them. Take, take, take. Full of blessedness, yes, but ready to explode, nonetheless. And I felt I should do something other than stay there, holding the good things in for myself.

And it made more sense every time I questioned my homebodied self's sanity. Give up this comfort and be comforted.

It was the difference between stagnation and growth. Quite the stakes for a 17 year old idealist.

There's one huge difference between being comfortable and being comforted and it's a Huge Difference I wanted to know. Like the Israelites in covenant with their Deliverer, I wanted to know the God of these words:

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.

²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

²⁷ And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

²⁸ Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

²⁹ I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you.

-Ezekiel 36

In Arkansas, surrounded by people who only ever want me to know the good in my heart, who weekly urged me to act out of the goodness of God dwelling in me, I never knew the depth of the badness inherent. People everywhere, all the time calling me lovely meant I was ill acquainted with the God who saves from uncleanness, unlovely.

Maybe I am pretty or graceful or wise or good. It could be possible.

But pride, arrogance, fear, complacency, weakness lay below the surface.

And real pretty graceful wise good is only possible by the holy, righteous servant God taking towel from his waist and wiping filth from between toes, washing the discharge of sin and humanity from garments that should keep us from the temple.

Give up the comfort, and take heart.

¹³ I remain confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the LORD

in the land of the living.

¹⁴ Wait for the LORD;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the LORD.

-Psalm 27

Truly-- though we goofed off with sound effects and ridiculous choreography in that domed building of white that canopied my childhood-- honestly I've learned what I joked of in the great company of my siblings that yes, yes, Luke and Emily, it's a game of give and take.

One can only take take take the good blessings before the good Lord, the Giver asks us, me to actually look like Him in all of his give give give.

What's more, the day will come when, in all of my taking, He'll ask me to receive the hard things, not packaged as this desirable outcome we've come to define as "blessing"and still be faithful in calling him good. Hard days will arise when I'll be tempted to repeat "I don't deserve this, God, I don't deserve this!"

"And the good?" I imagine him asking. "That you deserved?"

I don't know that the God of love laughs in faces, but I know He gets angry where His jealousy is warranted. That I would willingly accept the good and hold it in higher regard than the grace by which He gives all things, even the hard?

"Woah is me" said the prophet Isaiah, and I echo his exasperation with self.

When Sabrina moved to Paris, she hung on her wall a corkboard. Completely empty, her intention was to tack the board with memories made in a new phase. I decided to approach college similarly. I needed to make new memories out of the phase. It was my responsibility not to sit around and mope at this place of knowing very little anything, anyone. I couldn't statically stare at that which I didn't know and curse its foreign-ness.

If the Israelites had done that, they'd have starved. Manna means "what is it?" They had to learn to give thanks for what they didn't yet know to be blessing. (yes, this is another reference to the book-- page 22).

Deep down I think I needed some experience in what I didn't yet know to be blessing.

I needed to know that I could relocate, go out and gather things for my metaphorical corkboard. I needed to learn to feel much less deserving of the gifts, so I could catch the miracle of God still loving me enough to give so graciously. I wanted to know that I could look at the phase full of things I didn't know, of "what is it?" and be truly thankful with each moment I found to take to my board.

H.W. Beecher: "Pride slays thanksgiving... a proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves." (One Thousand Gifts, 178).

There is such joy in looking at every moment as undeserved and yet there. Here. Grace is now. In thousands of ways, grace surrounds me every day and I miss it. In so doing, I miss the joy that is every day humbling the self to receive the blessing.

Sometimes I secretly want to just be less blessed so as to have less responsibility. But I know that's crap and it's not the sacrifice that God's looking for.

To quote Ann Voskamp,

"The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing towards self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out... The demanding of my own will is the singular voice that smothers out joy-- nothing else... A sense of entitlement-- expectations-- is what inflates self, detonates anger, offends God, extinguishes joy." (page 177, One Thousand Gifts)

I shyly did not expect much in the way of things to fill the corkboard. Sheepishly, really. Perhaps that's why this passage was laid on Mom's heart for me to remember lifelong:

² The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

-John 10

Other times I confidently, silently, let myself feel entitled to the friendships and the moments and the everything I've found and come to know here. So much so that many of the 29,252 pictures I could theoretically tack to a board were taken with nothing more in mind than how great life was going for me.

I was quick to forget the boots and the shaking and the praying that I could make it 4 days, much less 4 years.

4 years later and I keep thinking to myself "where did the time go?" There are 29,252 ways and more to answer that question. But whether I have a pictures of the moments or not, that time didn't disappear. Every second of it I lived. It is possible, though, that some of it got lost in the stress and fear and squabbling and entitlement. So as I scrolled through my iPhoto library this weekend, I recaptured the moments and named them-- some for the first time-- grace.

I am undeserving, but He is so unrelenting.

This is where the time went:

²¹ When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
²² I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

²³ Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

-Psalm 73

4 years of primer for the next. Primed for now.

"... his sheep follow him because they know his voice."

Sabrina Fair, listen and save.