Outside the Window

Dear Levi,

Outside the window of this Starbucks is the Radio Shack symbol glowing in the gathering darkness of night. Somewhere across the expanse of parking lots, is your car, little Santana. And somewhere out there, is you. How are you tonight?

I never come here, to this corner of Oklahoma City. I stay as far away as possible, because I know it would grieve you. But tonight I came here to be a little blessing for someone. I've always wanted to get to know Ms. Kari better, be a blessing to her, and she suggested this place. So I drove down here from work and sat in the corner and uploaded all the letters I've written you in my little notebook over the past month. And I can see Walmart glowing through the distance, and under the cadence of Latin music over the speaker, my heart misses you.

Are you happy? You look so happy when I see you. I don't know why God has deliberately put you across my past the past few weeks but it has almost been more than my heart could bear. You would not believe the bottles of tears that have literally been wrung out of my little frame after each service. It's like a wound that keeps oozing and bleeding, a pain that grows deeper, and all I can do is go to God in prayer.

God, take this love away. Heal this brokenness. Or give me the grace to endure the loneliness. God, please.

Maybe it's the holidays. Maybe it's because I'm sick. Or maybe it's just time. All I know is that God has brought me to this place for a reason. And if he is to bring you back into me life, this time of pain and emptiness and exhaustion is for a reason. And if you are to be happy with her for forever and never ever think on me again.. then somehow, this is for God's glory. Even if I don't understand it. Even then.

I was listening to Ms Kari talk about how God is working in her life, and thinking how much respect I have for her. To just hear a lady who is trying to honor God in her heart under the pressure of so much expectation from every direction she looks. And I was so challenged... I hate the limelight, I dodge it all the time. But when I am in it, am I honoring God? Am I being an honor for a Heartland graduate? For the daughter of my parents? For the daughter of a King? And I was so challenged about some little things in my life that I have kind of let slip, little thing that haven't really bothered me much but that may not be the best things for my life.

I don't even know why I am writing about this. I just know that I am trying to be as pleasing to God where I am as possible. Even here, sitting at the art deco table with a small cup of chocolate chai latte, looking out the big glass window across to where you are, so so so so far away in body and even more so in spirit... God has me here tonight. And in His plan, this is the best place for me to be, no matter how badly I want to be wrapped up in your arms, how badly I want to feel your fingers massage the sickness from my throat, how badly I want to feel the warmth of Satanna.

Will my love for you never die? Will your love for me never return?

Oh, please be happy across the parking lot. Please, be happy in the life outside this window. Be safe, sweet prince, be free, be happier and lighter in spirit than you ever were with me. But at some point... think on me. Think on me kindly, sweet prince. Little Levi, think kindly on your Noelle.

Your star,
Rigel

A Quote

Dear Levi,

Dear Levi,

I heard a truly phenomenal quote: “No one’s relationship with Christ will ever rise above the level of his praying.” Wow. What a thought! The credit goes to Dr. Frizzell from his book How to Develop a Powerful Prayer Life. I’ve decided that I need to be reading after godly minds, to help broaden my own perspectives and horizons. Because I don’t have a lot of life experience or all the answers, to be honest. This year has been successful in regards to demonstrating to me how pitifully naïve I am, how needy for direction from godly leaders, my dad, the Bible.

But this quote made me think of you. When I say “you made me a better Christian,” this is what I mean. You had such a real, living dependency upon God through prayer. I recall late at night after work, or just driving to a random park, to pray through your exhaustion. I was speechless most of the time. You demonstrated to me my own lack of prayer life. And you, Levi Pierce Fowler.. you inspired me. Did you ever know that? Maybe I never told you, or never got it across. I should have told you every day, while I had that chance…

Thank you for being you. For showing me what a real, living prayer life looks like. For giving me an inspiration that resonated through the length of dark and silent months to still burn so brightly in my memory.

You would be proud of me… or at least in my dreams, yo uare proud of me… I’m trying to be like you, like the example you set to me of Christ, of Paul and Peter and the many other heroes of the faith… I’m trying to change. I have changed. Maybe it was the necessity of the situation, when you only have prayer left because everything else is gone… I began to pray a whole hour every night through the summer, and in the cold creeping chill of autumn’s nocturnal frost, the prayers have become more solemn, more resigned… the long enduring prayer of a dream that may never be answered, the quiet prayer of a sinner at the mercy of a Holy God, the lonely prayers of a girl so far away from her family to a tender Father, the humble prayers of a heart pained with the burden of those around me, the needs of my loved ones, the challenges of work, the ministries in church and the nursing home… And somehow, God still listens to me. Why?

Your star,

Rigel

Amos 9

Dear Levi,

You walked out of church tonight. Was it because Pastor Gaddis was preachign from Amos? Was it because he was preaching on God rebuilding the broken down houses and vineyards? And why did you walk out the front of the church? Was it so I would actually notice now that I don’t look for you anymore? And why did you leave and not come back? Was it to reaffirm to me that you are truly never coming back for you star, your little Noelle, no matter what God could do if you would just let Him? And did you walk out on church and her just like you walked out on me and what God may have been calling us to do? And why, oh why, do I not understand you at all? I miss, oh how I miss, my sweet Levi, my precious little prince. You have become such a confusing, unfathomable mystery to me… but saddenly so…

What am I to do? I sat there in church stunned cold, my whole body shivering in shock at seeing you just walk out of church. Much the way that night you left me froze me blood in shock. I would never have in my wild dreams believed you to do either; and yet, there I have been wrong, wrong, wrong like a bad train wreck of stupid, naïve errors.

It made me cry, you know. To remember you so happy once, so in love with God, and with me, and with life. And see that you seem so hapy ever since the fallout, but only remember your bitter, anguished tears; your struggle with God, with me… with yourself..

I know I have no control over your decision to walk away, and the decisions you make now. But I know I contributed to why you walked away, and started down whatever road you’re on. It haunts me, that guilt. And the fact I will never be given the chance to rectify it… I’ll never hear you say, “I forgive you.” Or “I love you.” Or feel your hug, a Levi hug.

You missed a beautiful sermon. But the words of God are still there in your Bible.

“In that day I will raise the tabernacle of David that is fallen.. I will raise his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old… Behold, the day comes, saith the Lord… they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof: they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit thereof them…” Amos 9:11-14

\That is my prayer.

Your star,

Rigel

Parking Lot Car

Dear Levi,

There is a car in the parking lot at work that is a little bit like Santana. Such a happy-go-lucky blue-green color. Sometimes, my heart squeezes and I feel it so unfair; but other times, I have to think it is God being kind to me. All I know is I miss you more each day. It never got better, the pain just moved deeper inside of me. Did you feel anything at all? Ever? Do you feel anything at all? Ever? Ever?

Your star,

Rigel

Yellow, Yellow Butterfly

Dear Levi,

Something amazing happened today. I went outside on lunch (yes, it’s amazing that I finally have an hour lunch just like you, too!) and stood in the sunshine, basking in the liquid warmth. I’m so unaccustomed to being in a huge dark building without my big glass windows, swinging patio doors, and cheery drive through window. I soaked up the freshness of real air, admired the rolling dark grey clouds bringing in another thunderstorm, and strengenthed from fingers to toes.

And when I looked back up, I saw a fluttering in the landscaped bushes. I couldn’t believe my eyes – the most beautiful, exquisite yellow butterfly! As yellow as you could ever wish for yellow, without another psot of color anywhere. I remembered the butterfly bushes at the park in Edmond, with the baby trees of every kind, and the bridge… and you. This yellow, happy-go-lucky butterfly fluttered into the air over my head and disappeared high up into the skies. Amarillo, right? The world you taught me. Did I ever teach yout the Russian word? Zholtii. Not quiet as pretty, but still so lovely a meaning… 

I walked back inside from break and opened the folder where I am keeping my letters to you during desk work, and I caught a glimpse of my raindress in the mirror, the one Nina helped me buy on Sumskaya Street, a fine classy pencil suit of perfect yellow linen, complete with little amber drop buttons and a trench coat collar. You’ve never seen it. I was holding it as a surprise in the spring….. when I did finally pull it out I was all alone, and it was my graduation rehearsal, and I had lost so much weight it hung sadly on me, tired and lifeless.

I can still see that little butterfly in my mind, effortlessly fluttering about. It seemed like such a good omen, a kind of sign from God, a whimsical promise of happier days to come. Why would God even take time to think of me? Why? His mercy and kindness is so humbling, that he would notice the girl in the yellow dress and the butterfly in the yellow wings, even if no one else does in this city.

Your star,

Rigel

Motion Picture

Dear Levi,

Sometimes I have no idea what to write you. It’s like there is a huge, empty hole inside my head, all I felt and think is numb. I try my hardest to never look to see you in church, but sometimes, it is inevitable… my soul still knows somehow when you enter the scene. In the brief, painful moments I feel so numb in my head. Maybe I’ve burned out my thinker.

It’s like I’m looking from the outside in on life, watching her live the moments that were mine, live the life I dream of. I watch you move and talk and text and plunge your hands into your pockets.. it’s eaerie, it feels unreal, like slow motion. Like I’ve died and no longer exist in reality. Or maybe that I never existed at all to you. You never look my way, never flinch, never hesitate. I feel so completely invisible, hopelessly trappbed beyond this impenetrable wall of glass. On you go, and her, and life, and my feet are pulling through quicksand of slow motion. Life continued for you so easily, without missing a beat, and it never did for me. I try to make a life, feel anything that feels like “Noelle” again… but she is gone, exisisting somewhere in that reality that was so effortlessly deleted from your desktop of life. She never came back. She sat there at the window table at The West or maybe curled up on the snowy hill overlooking the boy’s dorm, and there she still remains, exiled by your dismissal, a lost soul broken and lost of love.

The life that I’m living now feels so distorted, a cheap counterfeit of Noelle’s life, an impostor hosting her body and mind and trying to convince her it’s better somehow. Most of the time, I leave her and the grief and anguish locked up in the back of my mind and drive on, hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes firmly fixed on what you told me to go do and be. I don’t look for you because I know don’t know you, this Noelle, and so it doesn’t hurt so much that you don’t look at me, because you don’t know me either. And I see her so perfect and smiling at your side and I can’t help but be glad for her happiness. Why shouldn’t she be there at his side? 

But somehow, completely factoring you out of my life, all the people moving around me are just bodies and names. My soul feels only the existence of your soul. Even without you in the picture, there is no picture but you. Am I crazy??

Your star,

Rigel

Memory Care Wing

Dear Levi,

I want to tell you about my nursing home ministry. I am so happy to be there. The old people are so incredibly precious! And as much as I love the regulars and those “bee bopping” around in their wheelchairs, my heart has been longing for the visitation I used to do in Valporaiso. I miss knocking on Ms. Carol’s door and letter her fuss about the way her furniture is arranged, the birds in the feeder out the window, the television channel. I miss tiptoeing up to Jack’s bed and putting a soft kiss on his cold, wrinkly forehead, reaching around the oxygen machine that smothered his voice. He cried when he saw me, big, silent tears making silent trails down his ashed grey cheeks. I knew he was dying… the cancer was killing him faster and faster each week. I sang to him until he drifted back into unconsciousness, and then it was my turn to cry. I was there before the day he died, screaming wordless garbles around the trach tube, not a soul in the world knowing he was there in those walls, caring for his pitiful struggles for that lost breath.

It is such a comfort to know that God sees each seemingly insignificant existence. He sees me, too. And I want to be some small measure of love ot these silver headed lives fading into dust beyond the halls of sterile death.

I spoke to Bro. Don after services and he said that they do not do anything for the bedridden wing. I was so sad and asked if I could come early and visit them in their rooms? Maybe read to them a psalm, sing them a hymn, pray with them? And he said, “If you want to head up your own ministry in that wing, by all means, go forward, girl!” He and his wife went with me to talk to the administration, and ten minutes later I walked out with the codes to both the bedridden and memory care wings and over 100 precious old souls at my door. I couldn’t help but tremble in joy at the opportunity. What a responsibility… I am so humbled God would allow me to even be here. It’s overwhelming. I spoke to a couple of the Heartland girls about coming early to visit with me, and urged them to be praying about it.

I can’t believe it, I have my own ministry to people so far unreached. Wow!! I know Satan will try to hinder me, and I’m praying really hard. This means so much to me. Thank you for encouraging me to start back up this ministry, thank you, thank you, Levi.

Your star,

Rigel