Well.
Last Wednesday, Ivan and I drove into Highland Park together and had our 20 week ultrasound (even though I am 22 weeks). Ivan, as I thought he would, was having doubts about finding out the gender of our little one. I chose to just let him be in the process and feel all those things that go with that. But it got worse once I was laying on the table with my little bump in the air slimed with warm jelly. There were quite a few moments where I was sure he was going to change his mind. The ultrasound tech was great…patient, kind and understanding. She kept waiting until he was sure of what he wanted. And finally he said, “Okay,” with sighs coming out of every pore. “Let’s do it!”

She slips over my belly to the designated area where gender is determined and announced, “It looks like a girl.” Looks being the key word. But she seemed confident with all her 15 years of experience behind her. Ivan, being the scientist that he is, asked that she share in detail what she is looking for. And as I said, she was a patient one, and pointed out this and that which were pretty strong indicators of a little XX in there.

I had a feeling.
Ivan had a feeling.
Everybody else said boy.
I am glad it is a girl.
Not just because I have all the stuff organized by months and age in nice containers in the basement.
Not just because I think girls are a little easier in the first few years of life and I need some ease with all that is going on in my life.
Not just because I love pink.

But I was just delighted it was another girl. It taps into a deep place within me that longs and dreams of being a powerful influencer of my children. Not that I couldn’t be a wonderful influence on a little boy becoming a young man. But I am finding it particularly delightful being a blesser and nurturer of a little girl. I asked Jesus about why two girls and I was all of a sudden flooded with an overwhelming sense that God will use our parenting in a certain and special way to bless women. I have already seen our marriage do this in women’s lives. I especially feel that Ivan will be a powerhouse of sorts in fathering little girls and young women. And I can’t help but think that somehow me observing and experiencing Ivan’s fathering of our daughters will be a profound ministry to my own fatherless heart.

So I wept on the hard table and smiled as joy leaked out of me at the thought of another little girl. We welcome you, little vanilla bean.

If you ever have a toddler you will quickly find that the whining, the whimpering, the crying, and the straight up irritating communication style of that little one just won’t do. Especially when you are trying to cook dinner after working all day and just want to crawl into bed and be by yourself. But no, you have a toddler with a unique communication style, tugging at your legs, whining.

So a while back, with the words of wise Jamie in my head, I started giving Audrey some words to describe her frustration, her whining, her anger, her dissatisfaction. And the one word I really focused on was HELP.

“Audrey, do you need HELP?”
“Can you use the word HELP?”
“HELP, Audrey, HELP? Is that what you are trying to say?”

It took months of rehearsing this one little word and then all of a sudden she got it. And now she won’t stop using it. And I think I may have regretted teaching her this one little word. Sure, it eliminates, um, maybe 5% of her whining and reduces her irritation level by, let’s say, 2.8%. But it means every time she says HELP, I have to stop what I am doing and come over and help her.

We are in the garden the other day and I am trying to plant microscopic seeds in these freshly tilled and mulched beds. The only problem is that there is a massive storm coming that is bringing with it some serious winds. Audrey is, of course, trying to help me with this planting expedition but it isn’t quite working that way. I am helping her more. And out of her mouth keeps coming, “Help.” I am frantically trying to get the lettuce seeds in the ground before we have a nice little shower outside in the manure-y beds. But, it just isn’t happening. “Help, mommy.”

And it all of a sudden dawns on me, “Oh no, is this what I sound like in the ears of God?” For that is my main prayer I shoot off like a bullet to God out of the whining gun of my mouth. Sometimes on a minute by minute basis. Oh, no! I am a whining, hyper irritable, prone to fear and frustration two year old. Say it’s not so. I even taught my husband to use this prayer and he is beseeching God with hundred’s of HELP’s per day. And how many more of you are saying in your adorable two year old way, “HELP me God!” That is a lot of HELP’s! I got overwhelmed right there in the mulch and manure and my little microscopic lettuce seeds.

I have to believe He doesn’t mind all our HELP’s. Actually, I know his character is remarkably different then mine. Where I want to do my thing, have my space, only help when it is convenient to me is not at all like the character of God. In the garden that day, I realized he has his ears specially tuned for the word HELP, the way we would tune our car stereos to our favorite radio station. His heart is full of benevolence, kindness and desire to bless and do good. And most of all it is in His core to reach down and take hold of me in my soon to be muddy little garden plot where my two year old seems to be asking too much of me at the moment.

How funny that I would be reminded of this part of God’s character, his makeup, through the language development of my little daughter. It is one of the only ways he can get through to me right now in the midst of the deluge of demands that are upon this woman who is struggling to walk with Him. Or to find the new path of walking with him in this new normal.

So every time I hear little Audrey Anne’s sweet little voice choose a word like HELP over whining and spitting with frustration, it is a sermon of sorts to my own spirit to keep saying HELP.

HELP.
HELP.
HELP.
HELP.
HELP.

Tonight I stood among women, women who are gifted leaders in the Vineyard movement, and I felt honored.

How did I end up here? How did I land in this place? Looking back on the larger segments of my life, it is quite remarkable that I have come to find a home, a family within the Vineyard. And not just any Vineyard church (because I hate to break it to you; they are not all the same), but this Vineyard. This beloved home where I have such remarkable matriarchs that I look up to and receive blessing from. I grew up in the Foursquare movement, spent some time in a strange, not so theologically sound Pentecostal church in college, and then for whatever reason I picked Chicago to move to after college because Adey recommended Cheryll as one of the best therapists she knew. I was in search of a new church home where I could be cared for while I delved into old and locked places of myself that mostly related to my life growing up in my family. So I moved to Evanston, Illinois, not knowing a soul except that Cheryll was a good counselor and I stuck myself there. I originally thought I would be in Chicago for just a few years and then off I would go on my next big adventure, whatever that may be. But as most of you know, that was almost eight years ago and here I still stick.

So tonight, I was thoroughly delighted to hear women teach me some profound insights they have had over the past few years of searching out the topic of women in leadership. I have thought, processed, fought, read, studied this topic over the past 10 years and it is close to my heart. And I think I am even more passionate about than most because I have been “shhh’d” by one too many men thus locking up my voice, my potential and my power as women leader in the Kingdom. For awhile there, I would call myself (this is all in retrospect, of course) “an unhealed feminist”. Very edgy and angsty and it was a sheer justice issue for me.

Well, tonight. We talked of something different. A whole new paradigm for me to live under and out of and it so fits with the parts of my femininity I feel God has been healing and mending over the years. I also felt so darn blessed to be in on this watershed moment, as Cindy put it. I love being on the edge, the outskirts of God’s Kingdom advancing into new territory. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of what was discussed and I am not sure if I have fully wrapped my mind around the core concept of what was being presented, but I do know this: I am on board.

When these women talk, I listen and vibrate. I sit there in my chair and say yes, yes, yes! It feels as if the things they speak have been woven into the core of me since I was in the womb. It is part of my make up as a human and a spiritual being. In the end, Cindy, in her tender maternal voice, shared with us what she was committing herself to and what the next steps would be and I could not contain myself—I just smiled and smiled and smiled and was on the verge of laughing aloud. My heart felt so full of joy and thanksgiving that Jesus would lead me here. To this place, to this church, to this group of people, to this room, to this conference. In awe of where I have come and thrilled about where I am going.

I love the Vineyard. I really do. I can never leave it because the longer I am in the more I am woven into it. And the best part of it that the longer I am in it and experiencing it changing and transforming as God moves his Kingdom forward, I myself am being transformed along with it. And like I said, I am on board. Fully on board.

Throughout the last few years of my journey of walking with Jesus, I have found myself in a constant state of searching. I can see myself at times with a flashlight in hand looking for Jesus. Walking through the misty woods of worship speaking in the little Audrey Anne voice, “Jesus, where are you?” I can feel a constant state of hunger and simply not having enough. Some days I look harder than others. Most days I lay the flashlight down and search for reassurance, comfort and love in other places. And that obviously leaves me more hungry.

I was reminded of a conference I went to years ago when I first moved to Chicago. It was the 25th anniversary of my church and they brought in some big dogs to preach and lead amazing worship. There was this one sermon that has stuck with me and flitters through my heart now and again. It was out of the Song of Songs and he poetically described what I find the chronic station of my heart.

All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him.

I will get up now and go about the city,
through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him.

The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
“Have you seen the one my heart loves?”

Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
till I had brought him to my mother’s house,
to the room of the one who conceived me.

The searching, the aching, the wandering, the persistent looking, even the desperateness at times.

But the part that flitters through my heart is that finding part. She finds him and she doesn’t let him go. Clinging, clutching and holding tight. Don’t misunderstand me, I have encountered the one my heart loves in the midst of these years of searching. But it feels so far and between. I miss him. The way you miss an old friend. I encountered Jesus on a train a few months ago. It was a mind blowing encounter with him that left me dazed and dazzled with him. I could see him sitting before me in the seat in front of me, smiling like a kid, dazzled himself with the fact that he just gave me a gift and I didn’t know what to do with it but laugh, cry and say thanks with my big grin.

I was on the train again last night and part of me was hoping I would run into Jesus again. I even waited a good ten minutes waiting, looking, listening. “Jesus, where are you?” Part of what stirred this searching, besides just missing him, is that there is this huge, monumental conference coming up this week where women from all the Vineyards across the US are coming to our church to look for Jesus. And I really don’t want to miss out on this. But like I have been saying, I find myself in the dusk lit streets of life.

This morning, I quieted myself in my little closet designated for quietness, which sadly it feels like is only used every full moon. I suddenly remembered this song I stumbled upon by the David Crowder Band that is a simple instrumental song. It spoke to me. I grabbed my ipod and headed back upstairs to that quiet place and soaked in it over and over again. What I like about this song is that it is a musical illustration of what my heart feels like as the searcher. I can feel my heart taking steps forward, one in front of the other. Then the music blends and all of a sudden I feel as if I am not just moving forward but upward with rising intensity in my searching. Searching for the one my heart loves. The song draws to a close and the symbolism of the music gives me hope that him that I was searching for was found, at last, for this moment in time.

Take a listen if you like. This is the only link I could find, for it is an obscure song on their newest CD. Please, if you don’t mind, close your eyes and disregard the christianese plastered like horrible makeup all over this video. Trust me, close your eyes and just listen.

Take your flashlight in hand.