The Little Pearl that led me to the Sea...

Gearhart, Oregon

Young Life Breakaway Lodge

7/14/17 - 7/20/17
Part 1

It’s a rare, clear morning by the sea.  No one is stirring at the Lodge yet. I was going to get up before sunrise and walk down to the ocean and pick up sand dollars, but sleep held on a little too long for that to be a reality. Instead, I sit here on the deck of Breakaway Lodge as the sun peaks over the Oregon trees and it’s exactly what I needed on this last day of camp.

God has done so much.  And by so much, I mean SO MUCH.  I’m going to try to do some justice and share a fun part of the back story of how I got here for you...

Let me take you back to the beginning of this particular leg of the adventure.  It really started with hearing the Holy Spirit clearly say “Don’t forget about the music” at the beginning of November, but that’s a very cool God story for a different post...Suffice it to say I know more than ever that music is to be as much of a focus as the cracker business or anything else in this next season, so with that, let’s fast forward to this past April 1, 2017.

It was a normal Friday and I was at my shop, Hummingbird Cracker Co. in East Nashville doing a little sweeping to get the shop in tip-top shape for opening that morning.  I was not really paying much attention to the dust I was sweeping until I noticed something that was definitely not dust under one of the tables.  I bent down and upon closer inspection, I saw it was a little pearl.  It was the kind that looked as though it had come off of an earring.

Not being a pearl wearer myself, I figured “No one is coming back for this”, so I put little miss pearl back down on the floor and promptly swept her round little self right out the front door and into the parking lot with all of the cracker dust.  Here’s where it gets weird.  The exact moment I swept her out, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Go get that.  You’re going to need it”.  Thanks, Holy Spirit.  You could have mentioned I needed it while I was holding it, but, okay.  It was definitely a strange enough scenario for me to stand there frozen for a moment considering what I’d just heard and wondering if this was really God.

Now, let me take a little detour for a moment as I realize that some of you may take issue with me saying I heard God say this or that.  Or you might believe that I do hear God’s voice, but you wonder “Exactly HOW do you hear God?”  The truth is, I don’t know! It’s a bit of a cool, mysterious thing, but at the same time, it’s not mysterious at all.  So here’s my recommendation for hearing God’s voice: Just start asking!  Start talking to God and asking to hear God talk back to your heart, which is the deepest part of who you are, much deeper than the external things that we often talk to other people about.  This is how you start any relationship! Ask questions! Even if you don't believe in God, or Jesus or Holy Spirit, take a risk and start a conversation. You might be surprised. God will talk to you about the heart matters, but it will be in a way that you understand, even if it doesn’t all make sense in the moment. The best way I can describe what God’s voice sounds like to me is to say that it is one step below audible.  It’s audible, but only on the inside, but it’s still so clear that it’s undeniable.  It’s all a journey because walking with God is a relationship that ebbs and flows...So, yes,  there’s that massive topic in a little bitty nutshell.  Anyhoo, now back to Parking Lot Pearl.

I paused, pondered and then proceeded to pace the parking lot looking for Pearl, the lost pearl.  Also, at this point, I began feeling like a ridiculous modern day mash-up parable of some form.  The Pearl of Great Price meets the The Lost Coin...You get the idea. Eventually, I found Pearl and took her back into the shop, dusted her off and set her down on the counter and then began to wonder why I needed her.  As I did the dishes I thought “Maybe I should read that parable about the pearl of great price...then I thought, “Hmmmm...Pearl”...  That would be such a pretty middle name for a girl”...yes, I generally think like a poetic squirrel...(Re-read that last sentence out loud slowly from “Hmmmmm...Pearl” and think Andre the Giant in the Princess Bride.  You’re welcome.)

Well, all was calm and bright and my good buddy Shannon stopped by the shop a tad bit later.  We caught up on life and then I went to ring up some crackers for her.  It was then that I realized that Pearl had rolled right beside the register and she caught my eye again.  I picked her up and said, “There you are! Thank you Jesus for this pearl!” (Because this is how I roll: I talk to Jesus.  And now pearls, apparently.)   At the moment I picked up Pearl and started talking to her, Shannon exclaimed, “That reminds me!  There’s this event next weekend-a women’s conference called “The Pearl Event”.  I was going to go, but now I can’t make it.  Maybe you would want to use my ticket and go?”

You would think I would be like, KA-ZOWEE! YES! Angels ascending and descending with unicorns and daisies...The PEARL Event!  Of course! Now it all makes perfect sense!!! But no.  I was like, “Oh, sounds neat, but I have to have the shop open on Saturday, so that’s not gonna work.  Bummer”.

So, after being bummed together for a little minute, I bid Shannon adieu and she went on her merry way. When I came back into my shop, I went directly to my computer to check emails...and lo and behold, the top email in my inbox that had just come in said in all bold caps in the subject line... (can you guess?  What did it say, people???)....That’s right!  The email said,

“THE PEARL EVENT”....Now you can enter the angels playing trumpets and riding on singing unicorns and such...And I’m like, “Alrighty then, there’s thaaaat. Meyyyyyybeeee God is trying to tell me something here?"  Three “Pearl” things in three hours?  I’m listening.

This particular email came from my friend Brittany who is friends with Sibi, the woman who started the Pearl Event. Sibi wanted Brittany to extend an invite to her friends to attend the event for free. In the process of reading the email, I also saw that they were going to have some vendor booths there as well, so I called Brittany and told her about my weird life and whirlwind relationship with Pearl and she got SUPER excited, gave Sibi a holler and told her all about the pearls and me and crackers and Hummingbirds who love Jesus, etc.  Sibi, in turn got super pumped, called me up and told me that I definitely needed to come and sell my crackers at the Pearl Event and that they’ll have a table all ready to go for me on Saturday...just like that. And while I’m at it, she says I should invite some more friends.  Done. I’m all in and now guess what?  I am PUMPED.

I LOVE PEARLS! AH HAHAHA! YES. I. DO.

Sorry, I have to backtrack again.  It’s important, I promise.  Meet my friend Crystal Mulloy. She’s a gem.  Literally, figuratively and every way you look at her.  For goodness sake, her name is Crystal.

Well, here’s where we backtrack to 2004. Crystal and I became roommates and insta-friends in Alliance, Nebraska.  Long story short, among her many gifts, Crystal paints prophetically.  She asks the Holy Spirit to guide her, and then through scripture or worship, she begins to paint and really, I mean REALLY cool things happen.  So, late Spring of 2016, we were both pretty shipwrecked, burned out, washed up. Depressed.  We were depressed. Both of us. And so, during one of our epic catch ups, she asked me to pray and ask the Lord if there was anything specific to say to her.  That next morning, I woke up with two specific scripture references in my mind I didn’t know what either of them said. However, when she looked them up, they were EXACTLY what she needed.  So that was amazing. (Holy Spirit knows the Bible!)  I asked Crystal if she might pray and ask the Lord what she could paint for me....and a few days later, she sent me this beauty:

 “Beauty from Ashes: Isaiah 61”...Just take a moment to take it in...What she didn’t know was that Isaiah 61 was the scripture passage that I wrote in the very first page of my journal for 2016 and that was what the Lord has been taking me back to time and time again as a theme for the year.  SO COOL. I was so moved by her artwork that I asked her to get them reproduced on canvas and on smaller prints so I could sell them at my shop. These were special paintings and I knew it!  I had been storing them in a closet waiting for her to send the descriptions before I offered them for sale.  That is until the Pearl Event came along. That day, I felt compelled to bring the canvas and prints with me to the event and what happened from there was staggering.

It was like the women were drawn into the painting.  Over and over, they would come to the table and instead of talking about crackers they would say “Who painted this???”  It was unmistakable that there was something special happening.  I even texted Crystal mid-day and said, “You aren’t going to believe what is happening!”  For example, one woman who was leaving soon for a trip to Cambodia to help human trafficking victims bought 5 prints and was practically in tears telling me how excited she was to take these with her and give them to the women.  WOW.

So that’s when I started pressuring Crystal, (like any good friend would), to 1) KEEP PAINTING, and 2) Come to Nashville and visit me ASAP.  I think she took me seriously because a month later I picked her up from the airport.  Suffice it to say, her visit was like water to my soul and wind in my sails.  There is nothing so sweet as a long time heart friend.  Even on the very last day, she finally began to paint something and this is what she painted in about 20 minutes before almost missing her plane (leave it to us!)

(Kinda almost looks like two friends in Oregon, doesn't it? One painting and dancing and one playing guitar! When I told you she paints prophetically, I meant it!)

Okay, so are you still with me?  I find a pearl, I throw it away. Jesus says “go get that, you’re going to need it”, I go to the Pearl Event because of the pearl.  I sell Crystal’s paintings like hotcakes at the event, that leads me to insist that Crystal come to Nashville and visit, which she does and it’s epic...That’s where we are so far....just making sure you’re not bored to ever loving tears.  

No?  Good! I’ll carry on...

So after her epic Nashville adventure fresh in our minds, I get a text from Crystal less than a week later telling me this:

As you can see, when I got her text I kind of freaked out because unbeknownst to Crystal, back in the Spring, I felt the Lord say to go to the West Coast this Summer.  He didn’t say where, just “West Coast”, so I had been thinking of everything from LA to Bethel in Redding to Portland and had already started having conversations with Portland friends about it, but since I didn’t know what exactly the Lord was saying, I hadn't made plans. When she said they needed a musician for a camp on the Oregon coast?  Let’s just say it seemed like this might be more than just a fun getaway.  

So, I started praying and wondering if this is what God meant, then really wondered HOW in the world was I going to leave my shop for over two weeks.  It didn’t seem wise or feasible, but everything else said “GO!”

On June 12, I laid it out before God in journal form: He reminded me that he’d already told me that the West Coast was in the plans and that music was to be a very important part of this season, but I said “HOW?”  And he said “Step out and you’ll see.”  Funny how much that sounds like Jesus, right?!  So in my heart I gave my yes.  I feel that this is an important thing to highlight.  You don’t have to know the “How” to give your “Yes”.  Yes is always first!

That same night after I journaled, I got a message from a graduate of Mercy named Katie.  Katie is a rockstar.  Katie loves Jesus and Hummingbird Crackers.  Katie asked if she could come by the shop the next day.  Of course!  During that visit, she informed me that she’d just been laid off of her job due to job cuts and if I knew any place hiring for the summer, to let her know.  Well, in that moment, God delivered the “HOW”.  I offered Katie a job of running the shop for two weeks and then revisiting the rest of the summer once I returned.  It was a beautiful thing to behold as she then gave her “Yes”.  In one fell swoop, God fulfilled another step in the purpose of Hummingbird Cracker Co. (to offer employment and empowerment to graduates), but through that, he allowed me to say yes to the call to music as well.  I stood there in awe of this orchestration.  It was a moment of total joy to say “God, you did it.  YOU DID IT!”  So thus began the preparation for the West Coast.  Specifically to Gearhart, Oregon the home of the Young Life Breakaway Lodge to a camp of all 6th graders.

I couldn’t book my ticket any earlier than July 2 due to my niece being in town to visit, but it seemed to work perfectly and ended up being the last day of the second week of camp.  I touched down at the Portland airport and immediately met Lee Greenwood, got a selfie and gave him and his band some crackers.

So when you meet the man who recorded the most  iconic Patriotic song of our era during the 4th of July holiday ("God Bless the USA" for you young whippersnappers and anyone else completely out of touch with the 1980's), you feel like things are starting out on the right foot! I’m not saying that meeting Lee Greenwood was necessarily a God thing, I'm just saying it was cool. Top Gun, baby.

Next, I get a text from Jeff, the camp director telling me that he’d be picking up both me and Manuel, so I should keep an eye out for Manuel.  Only problem was, I didn’t know Manuel existed, much less was coming to camp!  Turned out that Manuel was another camp staffer from Tennessee coming to help out at Breakaway at the exact time that I arrived...So I immediately got to bond with a Tennessee buddy.

As we made our way from Portland to the coast, we grilled Jeff about all things Breakaway.  He then told us part of the history of the Lodge, saying that Breakaway was built in 1924 as a retreat center for nuns.  Of course, that got my ears perked.  Later on, after we arrived, I got settled and heard Jeff mention it again, so I thought, “I really need to read up on this.”  It just felt important.  I googled Breakaway Lodge and it took me to Young Life’s Website where it gave a more detailed history :

Originally known as The Convent of St. Margaret's by the Sea, it was built in 1924 by the Society of Sisters of Holy Names. Each summer, the sisters traveled by train from Portland to Gearhart to stay at the retreat for a period of about ten days throughout the summer. The convent closed down each winter.

Gosh!  How cool is that!  That meant that these walls and halls and grounds and rooms were soaked in prayer from the very start!  And how cool that the prayers would continue on after they were gone! I imagined a sweet sister in prayer years ago in my wonderful little room above the laundry room
and wondered what she might have been talking to God about.

As I pondered this, the thing that really stood out to me in a highlighted way was the original name of the lodge: “St. Margaret’s by the Sea”. And it was built by the Sisters of the Holy Names.  There is something significant and powerful about names and why things are named what they are. I wondered what might be significant about the name Margaret and so I felt prompted to look up what the name Margaret meant, and when I did, I just about fell over in shock, laughter and awe...

The name Margaret means PEARL.

And this, my friends, this was just the beginning...

Matthew 13:45-48

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it."

(As a final note, as I was writing this blog, I looked up more about St. Margaret and realized that while much of her true story is unknown, her day of martyrdom for Christ is today, July 20. Even if you're not much into celebrating saints, it's a powerful and important thing to remember all those who have gone before to carry the true light of Christ into the world. For that, I am very thankful. Let us be the light TODAY!)