Baggage Claim

The parking lot echoes with the sound of passing cars. What is left from the snow fall crunches beneath my boots. Every story begins like this, I think, as I pull my suitcase through the slush. It begins with this feeling. Sometimes, it comes from the cold clouds blanketing the sky or the sun hitting my rear view mirror at just the right angle. It's that feeling of something ending and beginning at the same time. It emphasizes the cycle of life within the dust of my soul.

Jon will find my car keys on his kitchen counter. I left them there this morning while he was sleeping. When he finds them, he will know that the car is his to keep. We had an understanding, Jon and I. He'll know that I won't be back.

The left wheel on my suitcase is coming lose. It catches on a crack in the uneven sidewalk, jolting my quick steps to a halt. I tug and negotiate with the ground by flinging the suitcase handle up and down through the air, impatiently. The wheel comes out and sends the suitcase flying, with me behind it, off the curb and into a gutter stop. I sit there with my feet in the gutter for minutes before finally clambering out and hauling my suitcase back onto the side walk. Now the lose wheel is squeaking. Months ago I would have bought a new suitcase. Today, I could drop this suitcase over the San Francisco bridge and watch it splash into the the expanse of water below. And I would take a mental picture, as I walked away, at the beauty of that splash. I wouldn't even buy a new one.

I pull my luggage into the Greyhound station. Today, my squeaky wheel will only eat away at the fellow travelers. And I'm right. I watch the pretentious mother sitting by the door bore a hole through my worn suitcase. I watch the twitch in her right eye, daring my luggage to wake her sleeping three year old. The man beside her is stretched out across two chairs with a diaper bag in his lap, snoring. My luggage goes unnoticed by him until his wife's maternal twitch turns into an elbow jab in his ribs. He sniffs and rubs his face. I continue to pass them, fully aware of the squeaking wheel and my pant hems drenched in gutter slush. She reaches for the diaper bag.

Maybe I'm wrong, I think. Maybe, I am the only one who can hear my squeaky wheel.  Jon had told me that this would happen, that I'd never forgive myself until I left. "Go already," he would say. "Stop lying to yourself." And I knew he was right. I knew I was only scared of letting go, of losing myself, of losing him even. I had been sacrificing freedom for stability. Perhaps, I was only scared that I would begin to hear those internal wheels loosen because it is the squeak that pierces your ears before you let go.

I'm ready for this to be over now, I tell myself. The bus is pulling up, but I'm watching the homeless man just outside the front door. I hear the breaks screech and I breathe in the fumes from the exhaust coming inside as passengers file out to load their bags. Then, squeak, squeak, I struggle out the front door toward the man with the sign asking for more in life. "I want less," I say. "Here." I lean my baggage against the wall beside him and I walk away. I take the long way around and breathe in the cool air, savoring the scent of fuel, the feeling of freedom, then I step onto the bus.

Thoughtful Thomas

Thomas has always been my favorite disciple. In fact, I have always questioned why so many have attached such a negative connotation to his name. Doubting Thomas, the man who we were told to never imitate. That's what I was told anyway. Nobody in Sunday school wanted to be a Doubting Thomas. The Doubting Thomases were the Sunday School drop outs. But you know what else they were? They were the ones who made everyone else a little uncomfortable with their questions. And we always knew when someone was a Doubting Thomas by the sort of questions they'd ask. A Thomas would ask the sort of questions that nobody else asked, they would ask the sort of questions that no one had an answer for. The questions that we really weren't supposed to be asking. Or were they?

Then, there was me, a People-Pleasing, Doubting Thomas. I loved and honored the ones who taught me and yet I doubted the very fact that Thomas was actually a doubter. Deep in my little eight year old, Sunday School ridden heart, I felt that God was telling me a different story about Thomas. In fact, God was telling me that He really liked Thomas and He thought that someday, I'd be a lot like him. But as a young, growing Thomas, I never said anything about my doubt. I couldn't. Not until I understood why I doubted their truth. Until then, I'd be labeled: Doubter.

Through childhood and into adulthood, God has always taken me back to Thomas. I remember in high school, during my Sophomore year, God showed me-as He delights in revealing His mysteries- that someday I'd have a son named Thomas. Of course I would! I had thought at the time since Thomas was my favorite disciple, but there was something more. I still wasn't quite sure what it was that God liked so much about Thomas. Then, at twenty-three, I found myself driving down the highway in prayer. Thomas. The word, the name, the thought, the character, the truth of it, the hope of a son all sunk deep into my soul as if God had dropped it there for me as a reminder of my childhood hero. Thomas. It had been years since I'd read the story. Why try? I asked myself. I had read the story of Thomas uncountable times, attempting to decipher, nay, define what I sensed in my spirit. One more time. One more time, I thought. I know I'll find something.

And I did...at exactly the right timing. Check it out.

John 20: 24-29:

But one of the twelve, Thomas, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples kept telling him, "we have seen the Lord!"

But he said to them, "If I don't see the mark of the nails in His hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe!"

After eight days His disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, "Peace to you!"

Then He said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and observe My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Don't be an unbeliever, but a believer."

Thomas responded to Him, "My Lord and my God!"

Jesus said. "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Those who believe without seeing are blessed." 

The process of seeking, knowing, and claiming truth as truth is indeed a process. I have noticed, after years of prayer and life experience, that Thomas shows us a perfectly mind-blowing example of this process.

In order to honor context, I'd like to go back to the beginning of this chapter to verse 19. Check it out. Before the disciples told Thomas that they had seen the Lord, they themselves had seen the Lord. I find this important because of Jesus' prophetic statement at the end of the chapter. For me, growing up, this statement about who was blessed was referred to as a rebuke towards Thomas. Perhaps that is where the label  "Doubting" was attached to his name? But Jesus wasn't inferring that Thomas had believed any more or less than the other disciples. Why? Because the other disciples first saw that Jesus was Lord, and then rejoiced. It seems to me that they too saw and believed, just as Thomas. The difference between the other disciples and Thomas is this: Thomas took his seeing a step further. While the other disciples saw and then believed, Thomas saw and then he touched. He not only saw the wounds of Christ, but he experienced the scabby and raw wounds of the Messiah beneath his very own hands. Then, immediately, he proclaimed, "My Lord, my God!" Before you think any further that this was a terribly doubtful thing of Thomas to do, notice what Jesus was doing in this sacred, wound-touching moment. Jesus addressed Thomas. Touch my wounds. I can imagine it now. Jesus walking into a locked room of eleven disciples without unlocking the door. Were the disciples hiding from the Jews again? Is that why the door was locked? Is that why Jesus didn't bother to knock. Instead, He seems to simply appear standing among them, greeting them, peace to you!  Then, He addresses Thomas, certainly aware that this was their first meeting upon the resurrection. He encourages Thomas, in detail, to touch his wounds. Not only that, he encourages Thomas to observe carefully. He even directs Thomas where to place his finger. Then Jesus says, encouraging the deepest experience of His wound, His identity in that moment, reach out your hand and put it into my side. 

Christ....
1) Directs us in seeking the truth about Him
2)Encourages us to observe carefully in seeking the truth about Him
3) Wants us to reach out to Him while seeking the truth about Him
4) Wants us to seek deeply, and to a completion. Do not stop until you are certain that the one who stands before you is the Christ.

There's more. Why did this apply to Thomas and how does it apply to us today? Let's think about it. Jesus had just been crucified on a cross by the Roman soldiers. He was turned in by Judas, one of the twelve disciples, one of their brothers. It had been three days and the disciples were still hiding for their lives, in locked inner rooms. Somewhere in there, Judas hangs himself. Did they know this yet? Then Jesus appears in one inner room full of all of the disciples except Thomas. They see. They believe. They rejoice. Later, presumably after Jesus had left them, they tell Thomas what had happened. Hold on. That is a lot to process. Not the fact that Jesus was actually alive which is a lot to grasp in itself. But the entire situation was a lot. In fact, it was chaotic. The betrayal of a brother. Betrayed with a kiss nonetheless! Then, persecution. Hiding. Fear. All this while mourning the death of their Rabbi and loss of their Savior. I'm sure enough questions were rising among them just from His death alone besides the questions of trust that might have been stirring between them after Judas' betrayal. And if trust was being questioned at all, then dissension was stirring. All this happening while outside the walls of the inner room, people, their people, the Jews, were shouting to crucify Christ for His blasphemy, or shall I say untruth. What if the Jews were right? What if Jesus wasn't really the Messiah? But what if He was? Speculations, opinions, commands, judgement, truth, falsehoods...they were being blown through out the atmosphere. If I had been Thomas, I would have been hiding in my inner room as well, waiting for the storm to calm, weary to trust anyone but the word of God.

That's just it. What if Thomas wasn't doubting Jesus? What if he was doubting man? What if Thomas did not want to fall into deception by believing the first thing he heard, even if it was from his grief-stricken brothers. After all, one of those brothers had betrayed them. Thomas would not except that a presence was Christ until He experienced it for himself, from Christ. Then, when He does, he followed his seeking through to completion. He saw just like the other disciples did. But he wanted more. He needed to know for certain that this man truly was the Messiah. He had to experience his presence. He had to touch every wound. He had to see in a deeper way and Jesus encouraged this. He even blessed it.

Today, I pray to be strong enough to be a doubting Thomas. Not to be disbelieving, but to take my time in my believing as to not happen upon deception. We may not live in the same world or situation that Thomas did, but we do live in a world that claims many truths. Even brothers and sisters within our own faith claim different truths. Let us be Thomases. Let us first seek to see and experience the presence of God before we believe what another tells us is God. Let us be diligent and bring the testing of every spirit to completion before we claim it as Christ and before we lead others to believe likewise. I would rather walk slowly and eventually know the full truth then to assume quickly and follow mankind off of a cliff of deception. Let us seek God's voice and direction and may God use people to confirm His voice. But may we never seek man for God's voice and wait for God to confirm man's direction.

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has[a] come in the flesh is from God. 3 But every spirit who does not confess Jesus[b] is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist; you have heard that he is coming, and he is already in the world now..." -1 John 4:1-3


"8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."-1 Peter 5:8 


Jesus said. "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Those who believe without seeing are blessed." -John 20:




Jesus' comment at the end of the story has been thought to be a prophecy for those who would later believe without ever having the chance to press their fingers against His wounds. Blessed are we, church, for believing without ever having touched the physical body of Christ. Blessed are we for believing the words of Christ over the words of man. I encourage you, just as Christ stretched out His wounds to encourage Thomas, to listen to the voice of God above the voices of men. I encourage you, to ask questions, to reach out and experience Christ, and even to doubt what you have been taught in such a way as to find the truth so that each time you find Him, you may exclaim, "My Lord and my God!" For you have seen with your heart, not your eyes.

"The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" By Caravaggio

Heart of My Mother

Falling to her knees,

Broken, sobbing pleas,

"Save Him. Christ Messiah.

Save Him. Christ my Son."

Years of Gratitude, 

of contemplative prayers loomed 

by delicate fingers 

and worshipful wayfarers

All tucked within her bosom like the child in her arms.

"Save Him. Christ the babe. 

Save Him. Christ my Son."

Worship at the temple,

Boys who seek for more,

her young one taught them all

like a lion's very first roar.

"Save Him. Christ the Lion.

Save Him. Christ my Son."

Joyful days are passing,

But in her heart she knows

that painful days are coming

so she holds Him close.

"Save Him. Christ my Joy.

Save Him. Christ my Son."

Steadfast and un-breaking

even as He leaves home.

She cries hidden tears when He's left her alone.

"Save Him. Christ the Rabbi.

Save Him. Christ my Son."

Ninety lashes, and He thirsted for the world.

Mocked by the masses while Mary's heart unfurled.

"My Lord, My Lord, have a drink," she pressed the wine skin to his lips.

He breathed: "Save them. My Father's children.

"Save her. The heart of My mother."

Blood dripping down His toes, the scent of death,

heaven knows, the cross, the crucifix forebode,

the life, the Christ whom all shall find abode.

"Save Him. Son of my womb.

Save Him. Savior of all the world." 

Mary's Advent

Today, I saw a traditional picture of Mary and Jesus, the halos around their heads and that sacred feeling that painters give to those renown portraits. It drew me in, into myself, into the picture, into Christ, into the past. I saw pregnant Mary walking down a dirt road to her relative's house, Elizabeth, who would soon know of Mary's pregnancy by her very own child jumping within her womb. I see the serene look on Mary's face, a look of surrender, of gratitude, joy; that glow of pregnant woman expectancy and yet something more. I have always been drawn to sweet Mary. Not because she bore Christ, but because of her heart, because of her response to God and to the Christ child.

They [the shepherds] hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the feeding trough. After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.
-Luke 2:16-19

While the world was in awe and excitement, spreading the story of the Christ child in the trough, Mary was silent. She treasured the present. She thought deeply on what she treasured. She waited. Mary knew so much more was to come. She knew that the years ahead would be full of beauty and joy and pain. The promise wasn't over yet. Christ had come, but He was still coming.

Then the angel told her...You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and His kingdom will have no end.
-Luke 1:31-33

See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name Him Immanuel, which is translated 'God is with us'.
-Matthew 1:23

But again, in my mind's eye, I saw pregnant Mary walking down the dirt path to Elizabeth's house. And I could nearly feel a leaping in my own womb as I imagined their intimate greeting and Elizabeth exclaiming How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43). And then, knowingly, from the very birth that she awaited in her old age, Elizabeth said, She who has believed is blessed because what was spoken to her by the Lord will be fulfilled! Then, Mary's response: she praised God (Luke 1:46-55).


You see, this treasuring and meditating, this gratitude towards our Heavenly Father existed

in Mary's heart even before the birth of Christ. With gratitude and meditation, Mary carried Christ, and with gratitude and meditation, she bore Him into this world. And even then, she waited, knowingly, expectant, for what more was to be born in Him and through Him. But the Lord always speaks to me personally and as my imagination was drawn back out of the Christmas portrait and into the little room in Comfort, Texas, I saw the parallels in my own life with the life of Mary. I saw that I have been drawn to the heart of Mary because God has called me to have a heart like Mary when responding to Him and His promises that He has conceived in my spirit. And I am grateful in realizing that I have been blessed with many Elizabeths along the journey. 

Consider your relative Elizabeth-even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called childless. For nothing will be impossible with God.

Luke 1:36

Wildflower Days

"Like WILDFLOWERS;

you must allow yourself to grow in all the places 

people thought you never would."

-E.V.

Break-Me-Free: Self Portrait

Here's a little sneak peek of my self portrait, Break-Me-Free. You can see the rest at my photography website: 

 http://nakitaelizabeth.wix.com/photography 

I believe that we all reach a breaking point in our lives at some time or another. I also believe that it is at this very breaking point, when we think we can go no farther, that we rise above and are finally freed. Sometimes we need to be freed from the very perception of our selves before we can begin to see clearly. I have titled the second part of this collection: Broken Mirrors Still See (coming soon)with the thought that perhaps mirrors see even better broken compared to when they are "perfect".

The Promise

"Where is your faith?" Jesus asked his disciples in the midst of a stormy sea...

A couple of weeks ago at ST. Helena's, Father Patrick Soule presented "a great perhaps". His perhaps was this: Perhaps, in Matthew chapter eight, Jesus did not say "Where is your FAITH?", inferring that we lacked faith. But perhaps Jesus said, "WHERE is your faith?" Implying the question that asks "Where have you placed your faith? Where is it?"

In the past, I had found myself afraid to speak about difficult circumstances, and unanswered  prayers because I was afraid that if I spoke how I felt, my doubts, my fears, my questions, then I would be lacking in faith. When I did speak my fears about a situation, I felt rebuked for not having faith that God would provide.  If I had faith, then my mountains would be moved. "Have faith," They'd say, shushing the doubts floating above us, "God's promises will come to pass. You need only to believe."

But wait. Believe in what? That God will bring His promises to pass? That this long awaited moment, most assuredly, will happen. That God will actually do what He says He will? That the mountain will be moved?

I always assumed that they meant these sorts of things to believe in. "Believe that He will, Nakita." I would repeat what they said to myself. "Believe that He will. You have to believe and it will happen." I'm sure these God-loving, God-fearing people did not mean to force such anxiety into my poor little, believing heart that could never quite believe enough. But that's life. That's living in an imperfect world with imperfect people, and being an imperfect person who is sometimes vulnerable to the deception of Satan. But sense then, I have come to a revelation: It is not about the power of our belief when we are trying to move mountains. Rather, it is the power and beauty of our God and His ability to move the mountain or to carry us over it (whichever He sees fit to do). This whole faith thing is not about whether God will deliver, it's about whether He is enough for us when He doesn't deliver. Just Him. You and Him, alone. Me and Him, alone. It's not the believing in His promises, it's the believing in Him and His HIMNESS that counts.

WHERE is my faith? When I am honest with myself, my faith has been in the coming to pass of God's promise. Surely, God is faithful to bring forth the birthing of His promise in my life, I believed, I repeated to myself, as I was so desperate. But I was desperate for the promise, more desperate, perhaps, than I was for God.

WHERE is my faith? I have left it in the hands of God.

My faith is not in what I believe God will do, but it is in who He already is. It is in His surrounding presence. That is where I have left my faith.

It is in the end of the story, in Matthew chapter eight, that the disciples find themselves asking each other, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey Him?" Their question was not focused on what Jesus had done or the storm that He had delivered them from, but it was focused on His character. This was a sort of question being asked by men who inquired to know Christ. "What sort of man is this..?" I can almost hear their awe-filled question. Perhaps, it was a question that began as a whisper, a question that slowly grew in strength and excitement as the voice filled with an understanding, a knowing of the Christ and who He is, a belief.

Perhaps, this is why we wait. So that we can learn things like this. God will make you wait for years to receive His promises, only for you to find out that He is the promise. And He has been waiting for you the entire time.