Railroads and Church Bells

This past week I sat in a breakroom at work and watched portions of a Hallmark movie with other ladies.  We sat there narrating and predicting the next scene with exaggerations, because who doesn’t like a good Hallmark?  As the sweet, unpolished, super-model farmer/veterinarian/carpenter man comes into the story to sweep the new-to-town city girl off her feet…..well, we all know the end of the story.  We can all see what is going to happen next except for them.  All she has to do is notice him rather than the city slicker guy who is not the right one.  All he has to do is actually ask her out. Then boom, we have the next best movie and just need a title.  Maybe something like, “The Unexpected Surprise Holiday Choice.” How can a room full of ladies see the obvious choice and outcome while the leading characters struggle with the “right” decisions?   


No matter how many Hallmark movies I see, it always seems the characters have to figure out or experience things for themselves.  I sometimes want to grab the lead character, shake her by the shoulders and yell, “Just make the decision already won’t you?”  I’m confident that my intervention would be helpful to her.  


This Hallmark season has me thinking on my own life quite a bit.  I have joked with friends constantly about relationships throughout life, but generally just to hide some of my own painful and unrealized expectations.  I know I don’t fool anyone.  I have no doubt they sometimes want to shake me by the shoulders until I get it.  Sometimes, depending on the friend, they even try.  

Most times I feel as though I play the role of the best friend in the movies.  You know the role; the perpetually single, quirky girl who probably needs to be rescued from herself at some point in the movie.  The one thrown in on the side for a little comic relief.  The one who things just happen to.  The one who is always the best friend and girl-next-door but not the one who ends someone’s search.

As much as I joke and tease with others about these Hallmark movies and moments, deep down, I want it for myself.  I wouldn’t mind being the lead character and meeting a man who I could know is mine.  A man I could get past dating and wouldn’t have to wonder all the time if he’s interested or not.  The one you know to put the effort in with and that the effort won’t be wasted.  The one who looks at you and thinks, “well….THAT’S my wife..” in the embarrassing life moments but also looks at you with pride and thinks, “that’s MY wife…” in the accomplishments and good times in life.

For many years, I’ve had expectations of what a perfect life would look like.  Not an easy or pain free life, but a full one.  It always involves a husband and kids.  One with family hikes, ballet recitals, baseball games, breakfasts together in pajamas, records playing in the background, rushed Christmas pageants where the youngest falls off the choir risers and shared life lessons, failures and joys.  None of these things are bad things to want.  Since they aren’t bad things, the rational side of me will dwell too much on the, “why don’t I get that in life?”  “Why don’t I get the Hallmark movie instead of the sidekick role?”

God knows I need one; or maybe God knows I don’t……or at least not yet.

I had a pretty rough 2017.  In 2017, I was confronted with some realities of where I tried to box God into life and what areas I held fast to instead of Him.  I was confronted with the reality of my own mess and the messiness of others as God worked with them.  By the end of that year there were days I had to capture good things in life just to remind me that there were still things to be grateful for in life.  I logged ridiculously small things that brought any type of happiness to remind me that there were still gifts from God in this time.  Eventually I came to believe that the time itself was a gift from God in the pain of giving some things over to him.  Then 2018 hit.  It was worse.

In 2019, as God’s grace continued to abound and overflow for me I was granted some needed rest from myself and others with the loss of some life expectations, and some gained encouragement from a healthy church community and friend group.

As the lives of those around me sped forward and after contemplating and wrestling through life choices for a year, I could tell it was time to crack open the next life chapter.  In what most probably thought was an unexpected move, this involved relocating to Iowa.

I had known deep down I would be doing something different in life but all my original scenarios mostly still involved the northwest and keeping my job.

With the changing seasons here in Iowa I can’t help but think of the changing life seasons.  I came across a classic passage in my Bible readings recently and grasped some of the language in it more than I have in the past.

              Ecclesiastes 3:2-8

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

² a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

There are such emotions in this familiar passage. Times of planting, healing, breaking down, building up, weeping, embracing, seeking, keeping, casting away and gathering are many of the ones that personally jumped out at me.

Moving across the country was not an easy and unthought through decision.  I gave up a lot that I was not required to give up.  I could’ve stayed.  


I recently learned that here in Iowa we have prairies.  The root system of a prairie digs down and is 10-20 feet deep.  Every few years they will have controlled burning of the prairies to kill off things growing in the prairie that will harm it.  The deep roots of the prairie survive as the burning is done to ultimately revitalize the prairie and not destroy it.  


These past years have felt like prairie burning years mixed with God’s grace and people in my life to help with the controlled burning.  


Perhaps the problem has been my narrow view and expectations of my life role.  We believe our own narrative more than anyone else’s.  As I have longed for that Hallmark title in my life and my own version of that full story; I miss out on my own very real full story and where God has me.  I miss out on viewing these life phases and different roles as a gift when I view them as placeholders.

I entered into a small town two months ago.  Sometimes I feel like I am in the midst of a Hallmark movie with the atmosphere and community out here.  There are moments when I pause and think, “is this real life?”  and love what God has given me in the current phase.  A time of building up.

In just two short months my life has involved early morning coffee conversations with God, working in a small courthouse and bantering with local attorneys, cooking dinners and making my house a cozy and welcoming place, attending autumn festivals, vineyards and wine tastings, breaking the local bowling alley on Friday nights with my amazing bowling skills,  cookie baking with kids, wandering corn mazes and doing scavenger hunts with youth in town, hiking through prairies and labyrinths, Cubs games with rooftop dinners, living life with my church family and friends……and most recently, line dancing.  Even as I write this, I sit amongst a new group of friends in a writing guild out in the middle of a retreat center. My life is so uniquely blessed with these moments I could never have anticipated.  From the outside, my life probably does look like a Hallmark movie in many ways (minus the man). 

Since arriving in town, I haven’t been more than a few hours without hearing railroads or church bells.  Railroads because they are near my work and the outside of my town; church bells because I live next to the catholic church in town.

That would be my Hallmark movie title, “Railroads and Church Bells”

The church bells ring out next to my house and across the town to gather people.  Every time I hear them, I can’t help but smile at this unanticipated season in life.  This season of togetherness in this small, loving, active community that has so willingly called me theirs as I have called them mine.  The bells remind me of this season of rest, encouragement and building.  They remind me of my faith community and physical community where I can embrace people and live life daily with them.  They remind me of God’s gift of community in this season and a place in life where there are still church bells.

As I hear the trains roaring through town, I think of life speeding along; unless, of course you’re stuck behind the slow train.  Most days I just get stuck at the train crossing and have to wait for it to move by.  Generally, it only happens when I’m in a hurry.  The train roars by and is constantly on the move to the next destination, to the next season.  But for those at the train crossing it’s a forced wait, with a confident peace that eventually you can keep going on.

Recently, I have been personally challenged to focus on the full life I do have instead of focusing on the life expectations of what I “could” have.  This full life of church bell moments of community and railroad moments of life moving forward no matter the pace. 

As I’ve been blinded by my longing for a full life….God has been filling it even when I don’t want to recognize it as such and want to focus on MY version of "full."  

Hebrews 13: 9 says in part; “Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace…….”

As this heart of mine has been scorched in the prairies; God continues to revitalize it as it is strengthened by His grace.  

I don’t know what life will bring and what my role will be in others’ lives or how my own story will play out, none of us really do.  I don’t know what details I’ll forget and remember in years to come as my life speeds along or waits at the crossings.  I don’t know how full and painful of a life I will have as God continually strengthens my heart by His Grace.  But, for at least two months, I’ve had railroads and church bells.