A BETTER update!

Just talked to Rick.  He is in the Seagoville Detention Center which is just south of Dallas, waiting to be moved to Big Springs, TX Federal "Martha Stewart" Camp.  This is about 5 hours from where we live.  It may take one to two weeks to move him, meanwhile we are going to try and see if there is a bed open in Ft. Worth.  He says the facility is much better and has better food and mattresses.  Air Conditioning is out which will be fixed on Monday, so unfortunately in December in TX, this is a problem.  REALLY?!?!?!  Many stories to be told and details to come.  I just wanted to give the basic info for all who are concerned.  He did get part of his meds, and should get the rest soon as they are ordering them. 

Love to all you faithful friends and prayer warriors who love our Rick so well!  I cannot wait to share some of the crazy details of his journey and to hug and kiss his flesh very soon....

God is soooooo good!!!!

An update...

Still do not know where Rick's final destination will be.  They have moved him 5-6 times since Wednesday.  He called me for the first time last night and is in a county jail up north.  He said its been horrible what he's been thru so please keep praying.  They haven't given him his medication that he needs for his heart to function properly since Wednesday.  I'll provide more details when I get them and will post his location as soon as I know. 

When it won't go away...

"... pain insists upon being attended to.  God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains;  it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."  C.S. Lewis

Pain.   It seems to slow down the pace of time.  It awakens the senses to a lost and broken and dying world.  If I had no pain, I might want to stay here, in this space of time and gravity and earth, and not with my God.  So maybe this pain…raw, burning, searing…is a gift.  A constant companion that I can’t control or evict from my heart.  I can’t destroy it or numb it or run from it.  It pulses harder some days and stings at certain moments, but it continues to haunt me.  And too much have I been focused on how to get rid of it, when I finally realized it’s not going to go away.  So what do I do with that sobering reality?  Because I know my God gives good gifts to His children and is for me and loves me and is not punishing me.  What do I do with this hurt?  

A gift.  Pain.  To unwrap what’s inside and accept it and receive God’s blessings.  He has somehow counted me worthy of trust to walk the road of suffering for the Glory of His name.  Because this pain really isn’t about me.  And as crazy as it is to proclaim the truth that it is about the Glory and Goodness of God, I am beginning to see.  And before I went through something so heart wrenching, I don’t think I would have believed that God would use suffering to show us who He really is, but now I know.  I have heard the cancer patients praise him for their cancer.  I have heard the severe mercies of unimaginable tragedy bring people to their knees crying out for a Savior Who saves.  And now I travel the path of sorrow while experiencing a joy and a peace and strength that I cannot explain or could not have manufactured on my own.  My Savior is showing me more of Himself.  And I am falling more deeply in love.

Thanksgiving was somehow extra sweet this year.   On the way to my aunt’s house I was listening to Christmas music which didn’t really have the same cheer behind it.  Which made me sad because Christmas music has always brought so much joy to my heart and our family and I just wasn’t really feelin’ it.  And then I walked into a house with fragrant smells of Thanksgiving and warm smiles and tight hugs.  It was a beautiful day.  My aunt’s house backs up to a pasture of treasures.   The sun bursting golden on the dancing grass in the breeze, rustling sounds of leaves and warm wind on my face.  Longhorns trekking through the pasture at the call of my uncle with a bucket full of treats.  A sweet pond snuggled on the side of a hill reflecting a glorious sunset.    And the smells.  Sweet smells of creation and food and children bathed in the outside wonder.   

Joy.  It was a house and thanksgiving filled with joy.  And it was beautiful and life giving and I felt so thankful to be there with my family who love Rick and miss him and love our family so well.  Medicine for a weary soul.  The kids had such a good time fishing and off-roading in the pickup truck and running through the fields and feeding the cows spending time with so many people who love them.  This was a precious gift from my good God.  Love my family so much.  And so thankful for all their Grace.  Christmas music blues no more…

They are moving Rick today.  That is the good news.  The very disappointing news is that it will not be in the DFW metroplex.  We don’t know where yet.  I hope to know by today or tomorrow, in which I will post an update.  Shreveport, LA is where his attorney said they had sent 2 of their clients recently.  That is a little over a 3 hour drive.  With 3 young children, this is a very difficult thing.  Especially with their sports games on the weekends and all of our activities and when I start working full time, it will be very burdensome.  And I guess I’m really sad.  Another dose of reality.  Another layer of pain.  Perhaps a chance to receive another gift.   God knew all along where Rick needed to go.  He has a perfect place ready and waiting for him.  A place where He will continue to prune and mold and shape his heart into the man that God created him to be.  A mission field where he can share the good news of the Gospel and bring light into darkness and serve and love and touch people’s lives.  That’s what Rick does wherever he goes.  All for the Glory of God.  

‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’  The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’   ~ Matthew 25:39-40

So what lies ahead is unknown.   The thought of finally getting to hug and touch him, is eclipsed by the thought of how often we will actually be able to go see him, depending how far away it is.  Last night I saw him one last time behind glass.  He was leaning on the Lord and trusting him.  He was encouraging me in my sorrow that we would get thru what lies ahead.   He was sharing the sweet goodbye he had received from his fellow convicts.  So good to see him like that.  A blessing.  A gift.  From a good and loving and faithful God.

Trusting the Lord is in no way a passive verb.  It takes a lot of sweat and tears and seeking and wrestling.  The Bible is the Living Word and reading it is sweet manna for my soul.  I have been in the Psalms for these last months.  And it never fails that on days of new trials, there is always the perfect word on the chapter that I am to read that day.  Today was Psalm 73.

“Surely God is good to Israel,

To those who are pure in heart!

But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling,

My steps had almost slipped” (Vs 1-2)

When my heart was embittered

And I was pierced within,

Then I was senseless and ignorant;

I was like a beast before You.

Nevertheless I am continually with You;

You have taken hold of my right hand.

With Your counsel You will guide me,

And afterward receive me to glory.” (vs 21-24)

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (vs 25-26)

“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;

I have made the Lord God my refuge,

That I may tell of all Your works.”(vs28)

A Divine Project

Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.  -Psalms 71:20

 

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.  -George MacDonald

 

Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.  -Philip Yancey

Tired.  So tired.  Its been a long 2 weeks.  I’ve been sick with an unrelenting cold that is wearing me down.  I spent two days in bed trying to recover from a cough that felt like an internal beating.  A job on the horizon fell thru.  Not one that I felt a lot of peace about, but an anticipation of financial security and a commitment to make the absolute best of whatever the Lord gives me and then back into the world of unknowns.  And the days seem to drag on.  Alone.  Without him.

When I first met Rick and we started dating, it didn’t take me long to know that he was the one.  It wasn’t because he was perfect, because he was far from it.  It wasn’t because he had a fabulous job, because he was unemployed.  And it wasn’t because he was stable and offered security, because he moved 3 times in the first 5 months that I knew him and probably had 4 or 5 jobs.  It was because he was my favorite person.  He had this unique look on life and made me laugh those deep belly laughs.  He loved and served other people like no one I had ever experienced, and was extremely generous with the little he did have.  And he was interested in my heart.  Its deepest parts.  And he knew the Lord.

I lived in Los Angeles when I first met him.  I was out there pursuing an acting career and he had just gotten out of production.  I worked at a restaurant right by his apartment in which he came in to eat one evening.  He came up to me and started asking me questions about myself and engaging in a noncheesy way, because cheese is the MO of most Hollywood dudes, and he asked me if he could take me out to dinner so he could get to know me better.  **Sigh**  That was literally one of the sweetest things a guy had ever said to me.  He wanted to get to know ME.  He didn’t want to wine and dine me or take me to some she-she party with celebrities and plastic smiles and stuffy atmosphere or tell me of all the fabulous projects he had done.  He was after something else.  A friendship, a romance, an ever-after.  

And as I got to know him and fall in love with him, I experienced for the first time the feeling of wanting to spend the rest of my life with someone.  And I was so excited that he felt the same about me.  Just as much of a mess floundering about and chasing dreams of grandeur, drinking in the LA culture nonsense and lingering at the windows of Vanity Fair.    Living in what seemed like a wasteland of shallow intensions and lost souls with the drum beat of me…me… me…  But God saved me from this place.  My soul, my heart, my life.  And He brought two imperfect people together who were smitten and began a divine project.  

And so marriage happened.  And it was a sweet and turbulent first few years.  Expectations always seem to be a killjoy and me thinking the Holy Spirit wasn’t doing his job and stepping in to take up that task never really worked out for me.  And then kids came, a business started booming, and pressures started mounting.  From simple to complicated to more complicated to neglect.  And here accumulated our baggage.  Piled on high.

 But God was always working.  Here in the mess.  We’ve had so many ups and downs and sideways and backwards.  Two passionate people with strong wills and big ideas lead to many clashing swords.  But then in all of that the desire to push through the thick tension and broken hearts, to pursue the One Who authored this union, and to embrace those sweet and powerful words, I’m sorry.  Words that are a constant in our home.  To each other and to our children and between our children.  And I am SO grateful for those words.  And grateful for the One who we ultimately offend over and over and over again, whose mercy is vast.  For Grace and Forgiveness to be the pillars that hold our family together.  Because when sin smolders black and all of the sudden fires are raging anger, there is nothing like these solid foundations to bind what may seem unsalvageable.   And not only to put the flames out, but to wash and cleanse and heal.  They are songs of hope that were bled at the Cross.  A place of sadness, a place of injustice, a place of suffering.  Where a sacrifice was made, a ransom paid, a debt forgiven.  My debt. 

When the house of cards came tumbling down and bad decisions were reaping, I was seething, and I couldn’t let it go.  It was suffocating me.   And then one day I was sitting in my dark closet crying out to God how unfair it was and how mad I was that I had to suffer from decisions that I didn’t even make.  And then in His quiet tender voice He asks me a question.  Like a whisper in the wind, and my heart heard.  “I have forgiven him, why won’t you?”  And I felt the steel pride break.  Tears began rolling and grace started flowing and I couldn’t wait to run to my man and tell him how sorry I was for holding onto ugly resentment as if I am better.  The parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35 haunts me.  Especially when I see that it is me.  Someone has to pay the price for a wrong.  In the story, the compassionate king did.  He bore the servants great debt.  But the servant was unwilling to offer such mercy, and ultimately ended up paying the greatest price.  

Forgiveness means to walk in freedom, but it is costly to the one who forgives.  However, it is the only way to prepare the heart for true restoration.  Those who have hurt me will never heal my wounds.  But my Savior will.  And He does.  When I offer the very thing He offers me when I sin against Him, Grace, he washes over those searing heartaches with healing waters and renews.  And I find my heart has a greater capacity to love.  The other way always leads to destruction.  Of a relationship, of a family, of a soul.   

One of God’s tender mercy’s in this painful journey is a sweet renewing of our relationship.  Over the last few years it has been hard to “work” on it.  We have been carrying such a heavy burden, Rick especially, that so many hurts and misunderstandings have just gotten swept under the rug and it’s been overwhelming and you don’t know where to start and so we didn’t.  But there was always hope.  Hope that when all this was over it would get better.  And even in the hardest part of having him gone and being alone and not being able to call him when I want or touch him, I can look into his big green eyes, and see a hardness melting away and a hope that I haven’t seen in a long time springing forth new life, and the joy of all of that brings back butterflies of new love.  It is a beautiful blessing and gift.  From a loving and gracious and faithful God.  Because He is good.  And He is restoring.  And He is healing.  Making all things new.  

Over the weekend there was some jailhouse drama.  The guards put the inmates in a racquetball court while they search everything.  Their lockers, their beds, everything.  Rick had been given a better mattress from someone in there who had apparently altered it in some way to make it more comfortable.  They wrote him up for destroying property.  Then, they found a tattoo gun and tattoo paraphernalia hidden in his locker and wrote him up for that.  Both disciplinary actions could constitute a stay in the “hole”.  Solitary confinement for 30 days.  Apparently the guy who occupied the locker before him was a tattoo artist and hid the jail-made gun well, so Rick and the guards before never discovered it.   Rick doesn’t have a single tattoo on his body so it would be strange if they thought it was his, but we were very worried.  They met with him and he told them that he wasn’t responsible for either of the things he was being written up for and praise God they believed him and he did not have to go in the “hole”.  

He is still sitting in the county jail.  Almost 7 weeks and we are getting anxious.  I call every week to check on the status and they say it could be several more weeks.  Please pray for them to move him quickly!!!  His beard is getting longer and hair is sprouting quickly from when he had it shaved and he tells me funny stories of the “rules” of jail.  Like you can’t look at the other inmates “people”.  When I come to visit him and see the other guys, none of them ever really make eye contact, which I thought was odd, but apparently you can get beat up for that.  There is a cocktail called “hooch” made from old oranges that some of the inmates spend their time making.  I think those guys got put in the “hole” for that concoction.  There are rules about who can talk to who and how you get to the person you need to talk to and who’s allowed to talk to that person.  And other funny crass stories that I’ll spare you the details.  Rick is always looking out for the guys that don’t have much.  Giving away what he doesn’t need and making a call for someone who can’t themselves.  Living out the Gospel, sharing the hope of Christ, loving the unlovable and pursuing joy.  That’s my man.

As for me, I’m back on the job hunt.  I’ve been looking into sales.  Would love to do something from home or outside sales or product rep of some kind.  But I’m open to anything.  If anyone has any ideas/suggestions/resources or knows of someone who has an opportunity or a job that fits one of these descriptions who I could network with, please email me at rachpayne@verizon.net.   Would love to have something soon as the holidays are upon us.  Prayers for provision would be so greatly appreciated! 

Fairy Tales and their potency...

Frodo: "I wish none of this had happened." 

 

Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

I got out my Lord of the Ring Trilogy to watch with my kids this week.  Epic tales of adventure and far off lands and battlefields bled courageously and romance of the purest kind and sacrificial heroes with good and evil always at war.  A story much bigger than ourselves always brings me back to reality.  Reality at it's deepest parts.  Not the noonday demons of impatience, discouragement and despair that try to ensnare as I am looking only at what’s before me.  But a picture, a story, a calling that goes beyond my present circumstances and ignites a heart to spur on.  To fight and believe and suffer well.  To traverse the terrain of hostile domains in the face of peril for a greater purpose beating wildly in the heart.  And it resonates loud.  

I want the story.  I want a life that means something, that has purpose.  And I think I’ve always thought that if I fill my head with enough information from books and other sources, I could get there.  And then when I have the information in my head, it is dead.  I cannot transform myself.  I mean, I might be able to will it for a day or two, but then I’m back to my old ways by default.  It seems forced, contrived, empty.  And I cannot stand a disingenuous existence.  And then I feel defeated, hopeless, helpless, because I can’t make it happen.  I can’t make super mom come flying out of her nest.  And I can’t turn on the wind that blows sexy wife while Suzie homemaker is busy in the kitchen and the maid is doing the laundry and mamacita is helping with homework, bandaging wounds, and breaking up fights.  But here is where the magic comes.  The real magic.  A Savior has come to so graciously intervene.  One with ultimate power.  This power that can shape, morph, renew, and restore.  And He’s been calling me.  Into His adventure, into a Romance, into His story. 

How do I answer such a call?  One that seems so lofty and impossible.  Just like Moses did at the burning bush.  “Please Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”  Arguing with God that He cannot do what the Lord is calling him to do.  I’ve done that.  To which God responds “Who has made man’s mouth?  Who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind?  Is it not I, the Lord?  Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say” Exodus 4:10-11.  And so God equips him.  In a mighty way.  And he delivers a nation.  But not without great sorrow and suffering.  And along the way the Lord transforms Moses.  Redeeming him and carrying him through.  I want that.

“God knows that soldiers can only be made in battle and are not developed in times of peace.  We may be able to grow the raw materials of which soldiers are made, but turning them into true warriors requires the education brought about by the smell of gunpowder and by fighting in the midst of flying bullets and exploding bombs, not by living through peaceful times.  Is the Lord uncovering your gifts and causing them to grow?  Is He developing in you the qualities of a soldier by shoving you into the heat of the battle?  Should you not then use every gift and weapon He has given you to become a conqueror?”  Charles H. Spurgeon

"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
    along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
    and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
    I will not forsake them."  Isaiah 42:16

I was trying to think of books to send Rick that I thought would be good for him and encourage him.  I have many books that I love with lots of good information.  Great information.  Explanations, definitions, theological examinations, doctrinal studies.  And although I think these are good books, I did not think that they would rouse him.  And this was one of the first times in a long time that I took a moment to think not about what I think Rick needs by my own standards, but what would bring him life.  What makes his heartbeat.  How God wired him.  It is stories.  He loves people and their stories and digging into their hearts.  He thrives in developing relationships.  And so I started to think of the books I have read that are good stories.  Larger than life real stories that emulate the themes of fairy tales.  A noble cause.  Sacrifice. Faith.  Salvation. Redemption.    Where we see that it can be done.  We see the work in progress.  We see it from the beginning to the end and we see that we have a choice.  

The first one I sent him was the autobiography of George Muller.  A story of crazy wild faith and the provision of God.  He liked it.  After reading it I could see a change in his demeanor.  From anxious to calm.  Trusting and praying and letting go of the stronghold of frustration from his situation.  Grace moving, changing, healing and saving.

Rick is adjusting well to life on the inside.  He has made friends, thrown birthday parties, shaved his head for Halloween to look more the part, written me a sweet letter, commissioned jail art of our family’s names, watched all the episodes of Sylvester and Tweedy (because that’s what the tough guys like to watch), bartered coffee for necessities, plays lots of chess and cards, and has become an advocate for these souls who do not have the means or resources to communicate with the outside.   Rick being Rick.  And a new sweet soft calm is emerging.  Like a budding flower opening for the fresh spring rains.  Drinking deep of ancient waters.  Accepting the call to the quest.  And taking up his cross of suffering.  Without complaining.  Without bitterness.  And with joy set before him.  Because there is a much bigger story.  A better one.  One that the Author will take this man and thru his suffering and thru his fight for joy, He will bring Glory to the Himself.  And that’s the story I want.  Where the true Hero is the one who saved me and is still saving me to himself.  And restoring a marriage and a mommy and a servant to my precious Savior.  And then Glory.  A passion for Glory.  May we fight the good fight till the end.  Bringing glory to the One who calls us and transforms us.  Who arms us with hope and truth and grace and gives us the strength to fight the dragons and demons.  His glory is our joy, our battle cry, our victory.