ADVENTURE

In theory, I like a challenge. In many arenas, the adrenaline from contending with the unknown or untried evokes a sense of being alive that few other experiences parallel. I remember the tickling sensation in my 9-year-old tummy, my eyes following the railroad tracks in Aalborg, Denmark all the way into the horizon. One day, I would journey anywhere, listen to old stories from exotic people I’d just met and eat olives off the tree while the wind played gypsy music. And I did, and it tasted like life.

Somewhere in the eternal summer of my early twenties, a friend and I bought a wreck of a car that neither of us could drive. When we no longer trusted the guys who drove us to Andalusia, we left them with their marijuana in the streets of Sevilla and somehow found other stranded strangers to chauffeur us back home. “This is adventure,” I thought.

Shortly after, my Maker asked me to exchange my all-consuming life as a performing artist for the simple pursuit of His heart. Forsaking my ambition for His affection felt like a noble wound; as my former identity bled out, this transfusion brought a rising heartbeat, louder and louder like a tribal drum: “Make me. an ambassador. for Your love. Boom-boom! Make me. an ambassador. for Your freedom. Boom-boom! Make me. an ambassador. for Your beauty. Boom-Boom!”

On the wings of that rhythmic prayer, I crossed the Atlantic, exploded into infatuation with the only man ever for me, and embraced the eternal flow of beautiful souls He sent our way. Raising our kids amidst South Beach’s golden bodies and callous apathy, searching for the true among the fake, and finding treasures in these travelers, whose diverse paths brought them all here – that was adventure.

And yet, it feels like I am discovering the heart of Divine escapade for the first time these days. All around me reverberates the original heart cry pulsing through my own prayer: “If I don’t. have love, it am nothing. If it isn’t. from love, it means nothing!” These past weeks, it seems that every time I open a book, listen to the radio, or communicate in any way, I hear the same simple message. Outside me, inside me, a cry is rising that drowns out all others: LOVE. “Love as I have loved you. Love at the cost of your life. Love enough to cover someone else’s shame…” That’s the adventure.

It’s a thirst in me; I’m realizing that, very simply, giving when I don’t feel like it, is the secret spring. It’s doing it that’s the challenge.

Someone isn’t responding to my care as I wish they would, and my Maker whispers, “Is it love then, if this unsteadies you?”
My man is called away to someone else’s tragedy, and I resent the timing. “Is it love then, if it mustn’t cost you?”
I feel parched from anything living and loving, incapable of giving that of which I am so dry. His whisper this time is refreshing, as truth always sets free, “Exactly! Your roots have to dig much deeper for the springs of this Love. Isn’t that what you prayed for?”

Yes! As the raw strength of youth has waned along with the clear priority of raising children, I am facing an adventure no train ride’s thrill or violin’s virtuosity can substitute. I am facing the sober choices between selflessness or selfishness, between trust or control, between love or fear in the secret places within. I cannot pretend or study or delegate me way through this, any more than I can deny this insistent challenge. I can simply stare it in the face, while prayer pulses through my system and my roots plunge deeper into the healing Water of Life.

As a gentle splash in the face, He reminds me: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) “They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures.” (Psalms 36:8) “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:1-2)

Oh, to have these leaves to give! Lest this sounds lofty and dusty, the dawning beauty is that in is precisely in dying to self that the heart is set free. Where self-focus weighs us down with endless concerns about fairness and attention, the deliberate leap in the opposite direction gives us wings and laughter – this is adventure.

“So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You and what You’re made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
Oh, let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love”
(For King and Country)