Can I Trust God?

My church is spending the next six weeks “Rebooting” and asking some pretty basic questions about our faith. We’re also having a variety of people share a testimony that responds to our question for the week. I got to share today. Here is what I said, plus a little more.

The question of whether or not we can trust God is an important one. For if the answer is no, then we may find ways to serve God or even obey God’s laws, but we can’t truly love God. Having grown up in a church and in a Christian family, I was well aware of serving God and obeying God, but it took me longer to recognize what it would mean to love God. I think my childhood perception of God—that God was somewhat like a cosmic Santa Claus, blessing me when I was “good” and cursing me when I was “bad”—actually did carry over into my adult understanding of God, certainly in more mature ways, but they remained. But thankfully, there did come a point when I learned that not only could I serve and obey God, but that I could trust God, too.

The summer after my sophomore year, I served as a summer intern at FUMC, Winfield and from a series of some conversations—with the retiring pastor, Rick Frisbie and with the youth pastor, Bill Podschun, I began to think that God was maybe, possibly, might actually be calling me to something. I had no idea at the time that it would be to become a Campus Minister, but just knew that I was feeling a stirring about ministry.

If you know me very well, you know that I’m a planner. I like to know what’s going to happen, when, and be able to prepare for it. But as I walked further in faith in learning to trust God, I began to see that my plans simply couldn’t be made. I couldn’t have a “back-up” plan, just in case this whole ministry thing doesn’t work out! The stories of people in Scripture became my stories as I read about how Elisha burned the plow that had been at the core of his livelihood before he was called to serve God and about how Peter walked on water, faltered, but believed again. I wanted to be like these servants of God and believe, but I feared—what if it doesn’t work that way anymore?

As I grew in my understanding of the trustworthiness of God, I had a series of everyday experiences when I saw glimpses into God’s heart, but none was more powerful for me than an experience I had just before my last year of college. I had, by this time, responded to God’s call to ministry, but still was unsure what that would look like. I decided to do a semester-long internship in Colorado that cost a significant amount of money—more than I had access to. I was working with a group of High School girls that summer and asked them to pray with me for $2000. We prayed all summer long. As August was coming into sight, I still was short this money. However, would you believe that August 1 came, I got a letter in the mail that said I had been awarded a scholarship in this exact amount! The girls who had prayed with me and I celebrated God’s faithfulness. And then I did the math! I actually had a need of about 1 more thousand dollars! Why hadn’t I done the math first before we started praying?! Anyway, I knew that I had about that much in savings and could just pull it out and live on ramen noodles for the semester. The week before I was to leave, I got a phone call from the secretary in the office where I was working that summer up at Southwestern. She told me that she knew of my need and her church wanted to support me by giving a small scholarship which had already been sent to the financial aid office. As I went up there the day before I was to leave for Colorado, they told me that since it had been from a church, they were matching it and I would it would total $500! I was silently thrilled and recognized that I was only short $500—which I could easily cover with my savings. I stopped back by my mailbox one last time before leaving campus and discovered a card…once again from the same secretary whose church had given me a scholarship. It was a note wishing me blessings for the semester ahead and inside a check. Guess the amount? Yep. $500. If I ever wasn’t sure if I trusted God, in that moment I knew that I did! The day before I needed it, God provided the exact amount of money that I needed. I remember saying internally to God right then, “God, you are SO good!” And echoing back in my mind, I heard God say to me: “why are you surprised? Is it not my character to be good? Is it not what I do to provide?”

Can I trust God? Yes. Is it always easy? No. But we can learn to trust God when we recognize that God’s character is trustworthy! God is a provider, full of grace, and the definition of love. Recognizing that it is this very God who wants to be in relationship with me and will even give me the courage to step out in faith allows me to be able to trust that while I may not know the details, I’m responding to a God who does! God is good, and now I’m not surprised!

What to Leave Behind in 2009: The idol of Efficiency

I have said before that my middle name is Efficiency. Ashlee E. Alley. Well…that’s a bit of an untruth…the E. stands for Elaine instead of Efficiency, but, close enough. I really, really like to get things done in an efficient manner, requiring the least amount of effort for the greatest amount of impact. For example, at one point while doing some work on personality, I discovered a chart that had a listing of greetings that different personality types (as determined by the Myers-Briggs test) had for one another. I laughed out loud when I saw the one for my type: “Have an efficient day!” I laughed, because a common greeting for me at that time was, “Get lots done!” I was in seminary and, apparently, was concerned about the efficiency of the workload for myself, and others.

Unfortunately, efficiency is really not the way that Christian maturity works. We can’t do mass discipleship (that’s indoctrination). We can’t do speedy spiritual disciplines (that’s the world’s way). We can’t have reactionary solutions to problems (they’re merely band-aids). Efficiency simply is not the way that God works. Think about it: how efficient is it that God entrusted the task of evangelism, of telling the Good News of Jesus Christ (and him crucified and resurrected) to the flakey disciples. Granted, the disciples (and we) have a H.U.G.E. advocate in the Holy Spirit, but God still uses humanity to introduce Christ to a lost world—this isn’t the most efficient manner of telling others about himself. No…what God could have done if efficiency were top priority is to have preserved multiple written copies of “God’s plan” (sorta like tracts) all over the known world. Also, surely God could have given us a Methuselah to live for 1000 years and verify the veracity of these tracts and God’s plan. And yet, we do have the written words of Scripture, which some of us seem to (try to) discredit. And God has given us prophets, teachers, and the Holy Spirit to testify to God’s plan of redemption for the world by following the way of Christ. But, due to our human nature, we see that efficiency didn’t work, so rather, God relies on the hard work of transforming us, his children, and entrusting us with telling the story of Jesus Christ. In short, efficiency is not the way that God works.

Not only is evangelism not efficient, but neither is discipleship. In my own relationship with Jesus Christ, I’ve had to learn not to bow to the idol of Efficiency. It’s not easy for me, as I tend to schedule myself with small margins of error between meetings, events, or appointments. But I’ve found that Efficiency requires a pretty steep price. My creativity is sacrificed in order to balance multiple trains of thought. Also asked of me is my ability to focus singularly on one thing. My multitasking brain thinks about several things at once and even when I’m trying to focus on a sermon for next week, my mind wanders to the service project for this weekend. And often if I do try to focus on one thing, I get through my first event feeling a sense of panic when the next activity appears as the next first priority.

As I approach this new year, I am casting down the idol of Efficiency. I’m praying for God’s grace in letting go of this idol that for so long has grasped my priorities, my values, and my calendar. Instead of bowing to the idol of Efficiency, I am resolving to be patient. Patience, as one of the Fruit of the Spirit, is something that only grows through the grace of God. I’m asking for more of God’s grace this year, that I might not seek to accomplish the most things, but rather, that I would seek to accomplish the things to which God has called me. I’m asking God to give me the patience to “wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord”, instead of making it happen myself.

There is a song that I remember from my childhood that reminds me of what patience looks like: “Have patience…have patience…don’t be…in such…a hurry. When you get…impatient…it only makes you worry. Remember…remember…that God is patient too…and…think of all…the times…when others…have…to…wait…on…you!”
If I recall, the tune is somewhat of a bumbling, slow, and unwearied sort of a tune. It’s true: impatience (or efficiency) does make me worry. And God is patient. And my efficiency has a cost for others.

As I usher in the year 2010, I ask for God’s grace to release Efficiency and embrace Patience. Thankfully, I also get to release worry and being scatterbrained. It won’t be easy, I’m sure, as I’ll have to embrace other qualities along with Patience (like relinquishing control and trusting God and others). So Efficiency—be gone! Patience—come! Please. And even if you don’t come quickly, I resolve to prepare myself for your arrival. The fruit of Patience is a much more desirable harvest—a heart singularly focused on responding to God’s call in the world. May it be so in 2010.

My Rule in Life: Stop to Smell the Roses

Each spring/early summer I am greeted with a nice surprise--blooming roses! The previous owner must have liked roses, as they were the only living plants in my yard when I bought the house--2 full sized rose bushes and 3 miniature bushes. The full sized bushes look quite old, but after some generous rainfalls the first spring I lived here, I saw buds start to come to life. I was excited to see them bloom and thought of my Grandma (who would have been 105 years old yesterday!) and her carefully nurtured backyard paradise. I noticed one day as I hurriedly ran out the door, that my roses smelled just like Grandma's backyard. I stopped, looked closer, and then drank in the sights and smells of my two blooming rose bushes. They were different types of roses, I noticed for the first time. One was pinker and the other a more peachy tone. The peachy ones smelled better, but weren't as pretty as the pink ones and they both offered their gifts of beauty to one who appreciated it, but was often too "efficient" to notice the offering.

I've lived in this house for three springs now and I've developed a rule--I cannot, under any circumstances, walk past my roses without stopping to smell them. In fact, sometimes their thorns even reach out and grab me as I hurry past if I try to ignore them. It's a small reminder to enjoy the beauty of creation and not hurry past all the unexpected evidences of God. I'll admit, there are times when I neglect watering them, and yet, they still bloom. Eventually, however, a dry spring or summer will come and they will cease their blooming. But when I water them, O how generous they are with their gratitude, blooming flowers sometimes even into the first snowfall! They are unexpected blessings and scented reminders of fruitfulness.

So it is with our spiritual lives. We can get by for a short time on "showers of blessings" but what a true spiritual blessing it is when we position ourselves for God's gracious outpouring of love and righteousness by turning our attention daily to God. In my prayer book today, I read Isaiah 50:4,

Lord Yahweh has given me a disciple's tongue, for me to know how to give a word of comfort to the weary. Morning by morning he makes my ears alert to listen like a disciple. The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear.

Even stopping to smell the roses helps me to listen and sustains this weary disciple with a word from God. And so, I have a rule. A rule to stop and smell the roses when they are in bloom. And to water them when they are not, so as to wait expectantly for when they are ready.

A Call to Prayer

I have always been a strong believer that prayer "works." I remember as a child, praying nightly the same memorized prayer that my sister and I "developed," including a prayer for all of our family and friends by name and also a prayer for the "whole wide world except for the bad people." Well, my prayer may not have been theologically coherent, but the intention was pure--by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, to present my requests before God. I remember that understanding growing as I learned different ways to pray, through journaling, through reading Scripture, in groups and alone. I also grew deeper in my faith as I read Richard Foster's book Prayer and Bill Hybel's book Too Busy Not to Pray. I read of believers across time who have prayed and then the impossible became possible, such as Peter's miraculous release from prison in Acts 12, even when the church who prayed for him so fervently didn't believe it when he was released! Prayer is a means of connection to God, but also has become a lifeline to me, as through prayer I have experienced God's love, the love of community, and even sometimes the challenge of being corrected. That's why this is so important.

Starting on May 18, a prayer effort for 40 days will be beginning. It is not an "official" action by any group, but rather a response by some folks to an Open Letter that was posted by Ben Simpson. The result of the Open Letter is a prayer campaign that has involved clergy, young and not-so-young alike, who are interested in lifting the UMC up in prayer in an intentional way. The hopes for the prayer effort include a sense of witness of the work of Christ in our lives individually and also in the UMC. Would you be willing to pray with us?

You can find the prayers here. They are being hosted on the UMC Young Clergy website that has just been officially launched! I do hope that you'll join me in prayer.

You Are Not Alone...

In mid October, I attended a women’s retreat led by women from my church. One of the speakers, Lisa, a woman that I’ve known for over 10 years, was sharing an experience about how God reminded her of his love during a particularly difficult time in her life. As she went about her day, she began noticing flowers. Not just any flowers, but yellow flowers with a black center. Sometimes the flowers were sunflowers, other times wildflowers, and sometimes they were printed on t-shirts, bags or in pictures. Every time Lisa saw one of these flowers (which was often), she was reminded of God’s love for her. It was as simple as that. God notices her and he loves her and as a symbol of his love, he sends her flowers.

As she was speaking, I was reminded of a time when I went alone on a silent retreat. I had gone hiking and as I was moving from place to place, I discovered that a butterfly seemed to be following me. For probably an hour, the butterfly was my companion. At the end of the day, I sat on a bench and spent some time in prayer and journaling and discovered, once again, that a butterfly had joined me. In that moment, God was more tangible to me than I had remembered in quite some time. Lisa’s story of the yellow flowers brought my encounter with the butterfly to my mind.

The next morning, I was standing in the church office, speaking with several people and a magazine caught my eye. The cover was a photo of a swarm of butterflies. I smiled as I thought back to the day before, when I identified the butterfly as an experience of God’s presence several years earlier. The next day, I saw a moth as I walked into the Student Center to go to lunch. I laughed as I thought of the fact that it wasn’t quite a butterfly, but that a moth was the next best thing! On Tuesday, I had a meeting with my District Superintendent and would you believe what she was wearing on her lapel? A painted butterfly pin! I began to put together all of my “butterfly sightings” and thought that maybe, just maybe God was sending me a little message.

You see, I’m not usually one to “look for signs” or read too much into what is happening at the moment, but I most definitely believe in a God who cares about each of us individually and communicates with us. I know that God loves me, but sometimes I suppose that I, like Lisa, tend to get overly busy and distracted and feel lonely and need a reminder of God’s love. On Wednesday, my suspicions that this may be a part of God’s plan were confirmed as I went to speak to a woman that occasionally attends our chapel services. As I spoke to her, I noticed that she, too, was wearing a pin: a painted butterfly! I almost laughed out loud and as I did, I remembered that Reinhold Niebuhr said that laughter is the beginning of a prayer. I decided to thank God, right then and there, for the little ways that he was showing me that he loves me…I know in big ways that God loves me—I know the joy of being a Christian, I have everything that I need, I have a strong sense of calling, I have friends and family that show me love—but the butterflies began to minister to me in a very intimate way. The next day, I was reading a friends’ blog from several months earlier when I happened to see pictures of her family at a butterfly farm. On Friday, the butterfly was on a student’s t-shirt. On Saturday evening, I realized that I had not yet seen a butterfly. I was coming back from the grocery store and listening to the radio when the DJ spoke about how he used to dismiss people’s stories of “weird” things being God’s voice but he had come to realize that God could speak through anything, when just then, my headlights caught the side of a house that had 3 painted wooden butterflies attached to the side of the house. If I had any intellectualized skeptic left in me, that soon disappeared!

Over the course of an entire week, a butterfly had been present with me in some form or fashion every single day. I began to think back through all that was happening in my life: I was entering a time in my life that was particularly stressful, a time when I was looking for God’s guidance and strength in a new way and somehow the vulnerability of the butterfly has become a gift from God to encourage me through these difficult days. Would you believe that every single day for 6 weeks, I saw a butterfly? It’s true! Perhaps my butterflies were sent to give me that extra little bit of encouragement during a particularly difficult 6 weeks. Perhaps there have been butterflies all along, but I’ve been too busy to notice. Perhaps there is another explanation. However, I choose to believe that God was sending me a message that isn’t too different than the message that he sends to each of us, if we would only have the ears to hear it. That message is this: I love you. I notice you. I’m with you. I will give you strength. Be not afraid.

P.S. One of my butterfly sightings during that 6 weeks was the cover of the book that is shown above. I was examining a book catalog and spied the little butterfly in the picture. And then I read the title of the book!

The Good Old Days!

This weekend was my 10 year class reunion from college. Once I was able to get beyond the fact that I've been out of college for an entire decade, I decided that I was going to have fun with it! Here are a couple of my observations:

• The groups that we hung out with in college were nearly irrelevant after 10 years! Obviously you want to catch up with your friends, but I found it as exciting to catch up with people that I had barely thought about during the 10 years that have passed!


• The more things change, the more things stay the same. While there may have a been a few surprises out of people, people more often were pretty similar to how they were when we were in college. For example--Burt (now a doctor) announced politely that he was going to use the restroom. Chris (now a lawyer) said, "Hey guys--here is our chance to all run out of the restaurant and leave him!" And then, after about 10 minutes, Chris points out that we still have our opportunity to leave Burt since he had not left the restroom yet. What the heck was he doing in there?


• College yearbooks can provide hours of free entertainment. With a couple of guys providing color commentary, stories from the "good old days" were told, critiques were made on the fashions of days gone by, and guesses were made on where people might have ended up. Or at least that is the edited version of what happened on Saturday night with the yearbooks. :)


• Southwestern College does a great job of educating it's students! I have to say that I was VERY impressed with some of the accomplishments of some of my classmates, and I'm not just talking about the jobs that they've held, but rather the people that they've become! Most of the people that I spoke with are serving in their churches, in their community, and wanting to make a difference in the world!

I just think that it was amazing that nearly 30 people from the class of 1998 came back to visit Winfield and Southwestern! Most brought their spouse or family and all brought some good memories! It brought back some old memories and gave us a chance to make some new ones.

Changing Gears

It seems that this is the time of year when I feel a little torn between the quiet "dog days" of summer and the busy "Fall Frenzy" of a new year. I've had quite a bit going on this summer with some projects that I've been working on and my sister getting married, but I've been able to rest and relax a bit, too. I haven't had much contact time with students, so obviously I'm excited to reconnect with current students and meet the new ones that will be heading our way. Looking backward to what is behind and looking forward to what is ahead is not always comfortable. It's hard to truly be present in the moment when our heads and hearts are rooted elsewhere. My transition, thankfully, is not a major one. I'm not moving, or getting a new job, or getting married, like many others that I know. But the rhythms of my current day-to-day life are changing for the next phase of the year.

Rhythms are important. They remind us that our current circumstances are temporary...just wait until x happens and then y will happen. They also help us to order the chaos of our life...we can put a little order to the pandemonium when we get into a rhythm. And rhythms shape and form us...there is a level of submission required in order to truly lapse into a rhythm.

One rhythm that I've been thinking about this summer which carries me into the fall is that of prayer. As noted before, I've been praying the "Divine Hours" this summer, praying the Morning, Midday, Vespers, and Night Offices. The Morning one felt pretty natural, and even the Night one, too. But the Midday and the Vespers? Those two cramped my style a bit. I decided to pray the Midday Office upon returning from lunch. Occasionally I forgot and already got started checking my email or returning to the project I had left prior to my lunch break. When I did, it took every ounce of discipline that I had to stop what I was doing, break the rhythm of work, to enter a different rhythm, the rhythm of prayer. The Vespers Office was similar. I found myself trying to pray it before I left my office to head for home, but quickly found that undesirable. Instead, I opted to pray the Vespers prayer after dinner. Again, the difficult thing is not the actual praying, but subverting my agenda for the rhythm of prayer.

After a summer of praying in this manner, I have several reflections. First of all, nothing "magical" happened during these times of prayer. Sometimes (dare I say it?), I felt like I was robotically reading words, albeit it holy words. Sometimes, my mind or heart engaged more and I was temporarily blessed. But rarely did the prayer do anything to me. Or so I thought.

Sure, I'll grant that praying this way did not lead me to some of the more "emotional" encounters with God that I've experienced in other manners of prayer, but praying the Hours led me to a whole different kind of experience in prayer than I've known before, and it is all tied up to the concept of the rhythms. We're commended in Scripture to pray without ceasing and (as the Psalms often assigned in my prayerbook say) pray in the morning, at noonday and at night. I've often said that I felt like I've done that by continually throwing up prayers (pun intended) all throughout the day. Now, don't get me wrong...I think that God is pleased when we ask for help in all things, but I also think that often my "throw up prayers" are more about my lack of faith or patience or wisdom that can only be changed through the slow, constant, rhythmic formation of sustained reorientation (if there is such a concept). Praying the Hours allows someone else to set the agenda. Sure, I can still lift my heart to the Lord, but I'm also being reminded of the need every morning to ask God to "preserve me with [God's] mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome with adversity; and in all I do, direct me to the fulfilling of your purposes; through Jesus Christ my Lord" (emphasis mine). My agenda takes a back seat, when I pray at the end of the day, "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." My own individualism who wants to keep things on track is derailed, to the agenda of the One Who Is REALLY In Charge.

So has my praying four times a day done anything? You bet it has. It has made me more willing to listen, not just to God, but to others. It has given me perspective by joining in the prayers of the saints across time. And it has created a rhythm in me that is able to join more closely to the rhythm of God. So, crazy, busy fall...here I come. Despite the chaos and commotion that is campus life in the fall, I enter with a sense of peace and expectation that through it all, God is sustaining me. Thanks be to God!

Our Father

One of my spiritual practices this summer has been to pray through the "Divine Hours," as Phyllis Tickle calls them in her manual of the same name. It's "praying the hours," founded on readings from the Book of Common Prayer. Last fall I started praying the Morning Office, usually with a couple of students before their 9:00 class. However, I haven't really prayed through all the offices until this summer. This morning, while praying the Morning Office, as I've done most mornings for the last year, I prayed the Lord's Prayer.


"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread..."

You know it, whether you pray trespasses or debts, you know it. Anyway, as I was praying these first three lines, I was struck by something that, ashamedly, I've just noticed. I noticed that I had just prayed in the plural..."Our Father...Give us...our daily bread." Praying the Lord's prayer has not been one of my common practices, except for in church when I pray it along with the rest of the congregation, until I started praying the hours. And throughout most of the year, I prayed it with students. This summer, I've been praying the Lord's prayer by myself, but today the "corporate-ness" of it really struck me.

One of the powerful things to me about using Divine Hours as a guidebook for prayer has been the idea that while I'm praying this prayer now in my time zone, an hour from now, someone in Mountain Time will be praying it. And then Pacific, etc. The idea of continual prayer, around the world becomes a reality. I think this morning I sensed a similar reality, except on a bigger scale with the Lord's prayer. While I was praying, I realized that while I may be praying it alone in my living room or in my office, "the saints," both living and dead have prayed this prayer innumerable times. Hebrews 11 and the first verse of Hebrews 12 comes to mind, "Here we are, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses." The faithful prayers of so many, initiated by Jesus' important prayer, help us hold that prayer in proper context. We can pray to God, requesting for God's kingdom to be realized here on earth and that God's purposes would be accomplished. We can be grateful for the provision that God gives us through physical things and receive the forgiveness of God, as well. We also can ask for God's protection through all of our trials and temptations. We. Sure, I individually could ask for these these things, but this is a prayer for all of humanity. It reminds us that we haven't "arrived" yet. And, due to it's universality, it is a prayer that helps us experience community, even if we're praying it alone in our living room. Thanks be to God!

Summer Vacation (Books and Travels)

In my last blog, I wrote about how great it was to read some of the books that I've been wanting to read this summer! That remains true...I've read two more books since I wrote that last and I'll give my two sentence synopsis of those two books:

Taking Back the United Methodist Church by Mark Tooley. This book was written just in time for all the delegates of the quadrennial General Conference by the UM Action Director at the Institute on Religion and Democracy. While I think that the book had lots of good information in it, the sometimes inflammatory tone could perhaps mislead readers, especially readers who have a beef against the IRD or Tooley. Reading the book gave me some background on some of the contemporary controversies in the UMC (for the good or for the bad). (Sorry...that was three sentences.)

2.) The Shack by William P. Young. Paraphrasing Eugene Peterson in his accolades of the book, The Shack is a modern-day Pilgrim's Progress. That's pretty high praise, but (if you don't take the theology too seriously, as it borders on modalism)the book is encouraging and helps to answer the question of how God is at work during difficult times. (There...I did it in 2 sentences!)

I also got to go on vacation since my last post. I visited friends in Oxford, MS; Lake Arthur, LA; and Mandeville, LA and had my fill of southern food! Borrowing from my good friend Katie's blog, I'll adopt her style of 5 words or phrases to summarize my trip:

Oxford--Laughter. Conversation. Great Food. Southern Charm. Kindred Spirits.
Lake Arthur--Stories. Giggles. Crawfish. Spiritually Relaxing. Felt like home.
Mandeville--Barfing Baby. Rest. Catching Up. French Market. Sharing Secrets.

I had such a great time with Corrie and D., Melanie and her family and Shannon and Jeff! Thanks to you all for hosting me! What a gift each of you are to me...

I ended my vacation at a family wedding in Springfield, MO. After 2300 miles and about $200 in gasoline, I arrived home exhausted, but feeling incredibly blessed by my friends and family!


PS I listened to two more great AudioBooks on my travels, Light from Heaven by Jan Karon and Morality for Beautiful Girls, one of Alexander McCall Smith's books from the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Both were great!

27, er, I mean 9 Dresses

So...you guessed it! I get to be a bridesmaid, AGAIN! This time it is for my twin sister. The picture to the left is them. Don't they look happy? They are...and everyone else is pretty happy for them, too! For any of my friends who read this, here is their wedding website.

Accomplishments and Disappointments

Last Sunday, I accomplished something that I’ve talked about doing for 3 and a half years! My friend (and former running partner!!), Corrie, and I began talking about running a half marathon back when we were running around the gym in the Luce Center. It seemed like a far off goal, as even then we were “building up” to running a 5K, a mere 3.1 miles. But, we talked about it, even talking about where we would run the race. Life happened and I moved away, but we still talked about running one at some point. Then, “Life” passed me by as she continued training without me and ran a half marathon a year after I moved away.

And yet, I was given another chance. Last fall, my sister began talking about running a half marathon. When Amy brought it up, I told her that I was going to run one, too! I don’t think that she believed me. To her credit, I had really only started running again in August, and even then, it was just 1 measly mile. By that time it was October and I had worked up to 3 miles (but only once or twice!). What was I thinking? I wanted to be able to run 13.1 miles by the spring? Well, fortunately, I wasn’t thinking, just acting on a desire that had been planted in me three years earlier!

And so, armed with a new pair of Adidas, and some new workout clothes, I started running “purposefully” last November. My sister pushed me to run (even on Thanksgiving Day) even when I didn’t want to, and then my pride took over! I had told people, namely my sister (who, by the way is in awesome shape), that I was going to run a half marathon in the spring, and by golly, I was going to do it, even if it meant running on holidays. Throughout the winter, I bundled up, avoided the ice and snow, and ran anyway. I enjoyed the “think time” of being able to just go and put my brain on autopilot while I worked my body. By Christmas time, I was bored of my own brain and bit the bullet to buy an iPod to be my training partner. I was ecstatic when I discovered the Nike+ system that charts my mileage, my pace, and the length of time I’ve been running. Soon, I abandoned my old (shorter) routes of 3 to 5 miles and I set out to blaze a new (longer) trail, with my iPod as my guide! This was wonderful, as I didn’t have to take the time to drive my routes anymore. My distances were able to be downloaded, analyzed, and recorded for me to study to improve my pace. My iPod and me—we were a great team! It always told me everything I needed to know!

Race day came last Sunday morning in Lawrence, KS, and I was absolutely confident! Sure, I would be lots slower than my sister, but I would make it—no problem! During my last long workout, I had run 11.5 miles in 2 hours and 5 minutes and I was ready to go. It had not been easy, but I knew that I could make it one and a half miles further. As we set out running that morning, I quickly settled into my pace (SLOW!) that I knew I would be able to sustain. It wasn’t a breeze, but I was making it. I sure was looking forward to being done, but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other…on Mass. St…by the stadium…up the hill to the Campanile…up another hill…and through residential areas. About mile 9, I began to be perplexed. I caught a glimpse of the mile marker and something didn’t seem right. I had pressed the button to hear from my iPod about my distance a few minutes earlier and it had told me that I had run over 10 miles. I was confused by the sign, but convinced myself that it must be wrong. According to the times that I had run the week before, I was on pace to have already run over 10 miles! I kept running, putting one foot in front of the other…a park…another hill…a water station…and then, finally, heading back in the direction of Haskell, where the race was to end. I pushed the button once again and heard sweet, wonderful words: “You’ve completed 12.5 miles.” Yeah! I’m almost done, but something didn’t quite seem right. I couldn’t even see the stadium yet. My worst fears were confirmed when I saw the mile marker sign marked 11. A panic set in as I realized that my iPod had been feeding me wrong information through my race that day. The worst of it? I had been sharing my information with a fellow runner who was just as ready to be done as I was! I silently despaired at the thought of 2.1 miles to go instead of the .5 miles that I thought remained. I confessed to my fellow runner that I had been accidentally feeding him wrong information and he confessed that he had stopped believing me a mile earlier when he passed the 10 mile mark (which apparently, I had explained away). Those last 2.1 miles seemed like the longest miles ever. My blister from the week before had returned, my knees ached, my head spun, and my toes hurt. But, I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I prayed, I thought of the well wishes that I had gotten from students, friends, and family. As I headed toward the finish line, I saw my sister, some students from Southwestern, and the rest of my friends who were waiting patiently. I took the headphones out of my ears and I kept repeating the words, “I will not stop running, I will finish this race,” in my head. Somehow, I managed. For the next few minutes, everything sort of turned into a blur of pain, water, and the now unfamiliar feeling of standing still. As I told my friends about my iPod, my sister asked me, “Didn’t you see the mile markers? They should have told you how far you had run.” My answer? “I think I saw most of them, but I didn’t want to believe they were right. I wanted my iPod to be right.” I was struck by the truth in that statement. How frequently do I see the signs in life about something, but I explain it away through my own rationalizations, excuses, or ignorance. How many times do we look at something, and still not recognize the Truth standing right in front of us?

My finish time was disappointing. It took me a very long 2 hours and 40 minutes to finish the race. I was shooting for 2 hours and 20 minutes. I got home and downloaded the data to my computer and laughed out loud when I looked at it. I managed to keep the pace in my “desired” range (10:30-11:00/miles) until I ran 13 miles…according to my iPod, anyway. It takes a serious dip after it records 13. I wasn’t prepared. I thought I was. I had run for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. I thought I had run 11.5 miles. But, I was relying on a wrong system to tell me what to do. My iPod had been wrong on race day, but it had also been wrong every other day that I had trained. By my calculations, I must have only run 10 miles the previous week, causing a pretty big jump to 13 when it really counted. While I faced the disappointment of not hitting my goal, I did enjoy the satisfaction of completion of the race.

That’s what it’s truly about, isn’t it…finishing the race? In our Christian lives, we often think that we’re on the right track, doing all that we need to do, listening to God’s voice, and then sometimes, we’re put to the test by our circumstances and we discover that we really weren’t quite as prepared as we thought we were. We stumble. We fall. We sometimes even lead others astray by our actions. But fortunately, God continues to surround us with people cheering us on, encouraging us, and challenging us to get back in the race. And certainly he leaves us mile markers. If only we have the eyes to see them.

We Will Never Forget

I woke up this morning to fog outside. I don't live in a valley or near a body of water, and yet from time to time we wake up to fog. The sun is now out and has burned it all away, but the fog of the morning sticks with me. It reminds me of that foggy day 10 years ago today when Holly died.

I can't believe that it's been 10 years. In some ways, it seems like just yesterday since everything about that day is so vivid in my memory. And yet, it seems like a whole lifetime has happened in the decade since Holly died. It was the Monday morning after the Super Bowl and Leslee, Danny and I had just come from Responsibilities for the Future, a capstone class for graduating seniors that we had affectionately dubbed "Death Class" since we had spent the first 3 weeks of class talking about death and dying. We had just read Tuesdays With Morrie and discussed what it meant to die well. As we were walking down the hill back to our apartment in Reid, Martin met us on the hill and told us that he needed to tell us some bad news. The world was spinning as he told us about Holly's accident on the way to work that morning in Wichita. Leslee cried, Danny supported her on the walk back to our room, and I tried to tell Martin all the reasons why I was sure that she was not really dead.

I didn't know what to say to people. I remember when they gradually started flooding our room. First, Amy came and told us that Dawn had told her in the stairwell in the Student Center. Then Kellie came. Then Amber. Gradually all our roommates and neighbors gathered in Reid 204. All our roommates except for Holly. She was notably absent. Her stuff was everywhere in the room, reminding us at every turn that she would never come home again. We still didn't believe it, but we knew that it was true, expecially after we went to the funeral home and saw her with our own eyes. Someone had come by our room earlier and gotten some of her sweats and a t-shirt so that they could dress her in her own clothes as they sent her body back to Colorado. When we saw her in the funeral home, she was wearing her high school track t-shirt, had her eyes closed, her hair slightly damp. She looked asleep. And that's when we realized that she wasn't just asleep.

Over 100 people came by our room that day to mourn with us. I didn't even realize that I knew 100 people. And yet, they came--some of them to talk to us, some of them to sit on Holly's bed, some of them to just say that they had "heard" and Holly would be missed. We looked through a HUGE box of pictures and began a memorial for her. Pictures of her laughing, her Homecoming Queen portrait (which she HATED because one of her eyes was squinty!), pictures of us girls going out, and of her boyfriend and her. We laughed, we cried. We felt guilty because we were able to laugh and cry and she wasn't. And then, the memorial wall outside our room began to appear, like what happens with celebrities when they die unexpectedly. First, our posterboard filled with pictures, then notes we left for Holly, then flowers, cards, signs, pictures and gifts left by others. We all wanted to say something to Holly. Things that had been unsaid when she was still alive. Things that needed to be unsaid now that she was gone. Things that would bring us peace and solace during this time of grief and sadness. It was almost unbearable, and yet, in the awfulness of it, we began to heal.

The room that Leslee and Holly shared felt cold. We didn't want to abandon that room where Holly had slept and we didn't want Leslee to stay in there alone, so Amber and I moved our beds into that bedroom. Somehow we felt reconnected again, all 4 of us. We began to be able to talk about Holly without crying, then felt guilty for that, then realized that she was the first to flash a smile and we should not let her smile alone, so we laughed--at her, with her, at ourselves, now without her. We didn't want to forget about her, so we talked about her. I still think that she got the last laugh on that one as two years later I was finally able to find the beeping noise that went off every afternoon at 2:20. It was the alarm on her sports watch that had fallen deep inside my couch. The watch still works and I never have shut off the alarm. I don't hear it often due to my schedule, but it reminds me of Holly's presence.

The last decade has brought laughter, tears, joy, pain, marriages, babies, and careers. Our friends and our neighbors join in our celebrations and our pains, and yet, one is absent. Holly remains in our hearts and in our minds as we "carry on" with our lives. The foggy weather appears every now and then, hanging heavy, reminding me that I am surrounded by something that I often cannot see or feel. Like the air that always surrounds me, so does Christ's presence surround me. There are many days, like the one 10 years ago when Holly died, that you wonder where he is. Some mornings, however, the air becomes visible, and in the midst of the fog, the Son comes out.

Holly Jo Mitchek, '98
We will never forget you

Newly Resolved

It's that time of year when we make all sorts of new resolutions--to lose weight, to exercise more, to de-clutter our lives, etc. We start out strong, but after a couple weeks, our newfound resolve starts to shrink and we throw caution to wind and drive through the Dairy Queen for a Peanut Buster Parfait, throwing our trash in the backseat with last week's Wendy's bag (I'm only throwing out an example--I would never do that!). Well, while I do have some healthy goals (like drinking more water, less Diet Dr. Pepper and running a 1/2 marathon this year), these are my resolutions for 2008:

1.) I resolve to have more fun! It's so easy for me to get focused on tasks, to-do lists, and responsibility that I neglect leisure. But, this is the year of fun for Ashlee Alley! Watch out! Seriously, often I end up so tired of planning things for work that I don't initiate social things, but this is the year!

2.) I resolve to enjoy music. I love music, but somehow I tend to get stuck in a rut of that unnamed national "positive, encouraging" Christian station (embarrassing, I know) and live in the Christian ghetto of 2 or 3 new hits and a bunch of old stuff. Yikes! Well, armed with my new iPod nano (which I love, by the way), I'm going to try to step out and really enjoy music in '08. Let me know if you have some new suggestions for me!

3.) I resolve to slow down. Really, I do. I tend to feel like much of my life is lived on a hamster wheel--lots of running and not much "progress." Well, I know that this is not the way that God has wired us to live. It's not honoring to God, to others, or to myself and I'm going to learn how to avoid this trap in which I find myself.

Well, these are pretty big aspirations, but they're my resolutions for this year! I can resolve as much as I want, but really, only through the grace of God can I become who Christ is calling me to become. Here's to 2008...