The Lion in the wilderness

I've been in a season of wilderness for a while now.
It started when I was beginning my second year of Bible school, maybe even a bit before that. But it was during my second year that it really began to sink in. I ached, daily, with a hurt so deep I didn't know what to do with it. I yearned to hear the voice of God in this place that was seemingly so full of it, but I was met with silence. In fact I was met with more than silence, I was met with people telling me God wouldn't answer. That my way of coming before God didn't fit inside the neat box of Christianity. In this place that was where people came to meet God, I was felt like I was standing in a desert. And I wanted to leave that place. With everything in me I wanted to walk away from that institution and I almost did. A number of times I almost packed up and left because I was craving God in such a deep way and it seemed like He wasn't there. It seemed like His people weren't there. I was hurt, and I was lost in all the confusion and the chaos. And I was deep in the wilderness in a place that I was told, and a place that I thought, should be an oasis.
When I did leave, when school rolled around to a stop and I packed up my dorm room along with my hurts, I thought things would magically get better. I would walk out that door and into the outside world where God seemed to alive and vibrant and real to me, and I would get on my yoga mat and write and love and connect to God in the way that I did best and everything would be fine. If I could exit the physical location that had housed so much wilderness for me perhaps I could exit the wilderness itself.
But I came home, and I found myself still in the wilderness. I struggled to find a job. Suddenly I had no community whatsoever (Finding that forced connections made better noise than silence) and long distance was putting strain on my heart. Here I was, thinking I would now hear the voice of God, and I didn't. At least not in the way I was expecting to. It was only me, and the quiet, and the space.
And it was here God began to speak. In whispers at first. It was here that the things I believed about God that had been moving and shaking while I was at college began rumbling and shifting, and I discovered teachings and ideas and concepts that made everything click for me. I stopped pursuing Christianity and "a personal relationship with Jesus" the way I was told personal relationships with Jesus look, and instead entered into the flow. I redefined things for myself instead of trying to fit into someone else's version of Christianity. Frankly I don't know if I fit into Christianity at all anymore. But I do know that I fit into the flow more than I ever did before, fit into God and what He's doing in the world and what He's doing in hearts and that openness and connectedness makes more sense to me than years of pouring over the Bible and trying to fit into conservative evangelical Christianity ever did. (I'm not saying that any of this is wrong. I am grateful for the things I was taught growing up in the church. I'm just finding things that work for me where I am right now with the truth God is revealing to me.)
Still, in the midst of all this coming together, I ached for the things I didn't have. I ached for the stability a job would provide. I longed to be in the same city as the person I love most. I missed community. I remember clearly one morning as I spread out my yoga mat to practice speaking the words "This is a good road. My heart is good." over myself and weeping. Because this doesn't feel like a good road. My heart doesn't feel good. And it's taking so much work to believe it. I keep speaking the words over myself because I know they are true even if I don't feel it. Over and over I am proclaiming this as good.
I am making space for these stories inside me to exist, for these old wounds to be healed. And as I look back I can tell that all this time I was slowly leaving the wilderness. I couldn't leave bible college and immediately be thrust into this world of blessings because I wasn't ready for that. I don't know if I'm ready now. I had to learn how to listen to God's voice first, to be slowly led out of that place. I had to realize that nothing was chasing me out of the wilderness. I had to leave clean, to leave behind me all of the things that didn't serve me anymore. And I am in the process of doing that.
Honestly in the last couple of days I feel closer to that than I have in a long time. I am beginning to see the light as I stumble into it, knowing also that I have not fully left the darkness behind me. I am emerging into something good, and I am leaving behind something that was good in its own right.
And now, as I look back, it is only in retrospect that I see He was there all along. He was the lion. Even in those hours that I begged to see Him in a place that I thought to be so rich of Him, He was there I just hadn't realized.
Maybe this road doesn't make sense to you, and I am only beginning to realize how it all fits together for me. but I know one thing. This is a good road. my road is a good road. your road is a good road. This is holy and hard work, friends. If I can encourage you one thing, let it be this: He is the lion.
“I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mill so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”  

Christian Mysticism and where I fit in the sacred spirituality

I stumbled upon the term today "Christian mystic" and it felt like coming home.
When I think back on my life, I can think of many times where I bounced around within the church. After a particularly life shattering event, I leaned heavily into the religion aspect of Christianity. I was under the impression that God cared what color socks I wore that day. I thought that if I did everything right and went to church and went to youth group and got myself a discipler things would work out for me. I did all of those things, and my life didn't get better. No one told me that this isn't how it works. And so, when things didn't magically get better after I started the radical pursuit of the "good Christian" I thought God didn't care about me.
Early on in my teen years, something in my mind shifted from that "good Christian" mindset to a more agnostic way of thinking. I went to church because I had to, not because I wanted to, or more accurately because I had an image to maintain and something to get from God. The tone in my writing turned drastically away from scribbling out prayers. I had Bibles but I didn't open them for years. I lost myself in the world of love and infatuation, of addiction, of anything I could think of to fill this hole inside me because it was made clear to my adolescent self that God wasn't showing up.
The process of coming back to faith (in anything!) was a long one. I can't pinpoint an exact moment when I started showing up again. I started going to a new youth group, one I went to mainly because I wanted friends and I think secretly because I wanted some kind of answers. I wanted someone to prove me wrong, that all Christians weren't the same, that God was still out there for a person like me.
I think back on my late teen years (from about 15 or so on) and I remember it being a really mystical time for me. Nothing was really working right in my life, one messy situation followed the next. It was one of the biggest times of pain and grief that I've gone through. And yet it seemed so sacred and spiritual. Not because I was reading my Bible or praying regularly again but because I began submerging myself in a world with people who were real about how hard life is (this is how I fell in love with slam poetry). I read blog articles and listened to podcasts from people with different perspectives. Suddenly the things I was absorbing were less about theology and sermons and rules, and more about every day life. I found myself drawn to the Christians who weren't afraid to say the word "Shit" followed by a story about how they encountered Jesus at the car wash.
So for me, it was kind of a funny place to be when I ended up at Bible college. I was submerged in theology all day long. On my first campus visit I remember commenting to the admissions manager I was with that these people were praying all the time. It was so foreign to me, and maybe that's why I was intrigued by it. I made my decision to go to PRBI based on a comment from a guy (he scared me at first, and when I told him this we bonded and became friends) who said coming to Bible College would tear me down and make me miserable. I didn't really like the idea of being miserable but I needed something to shake me up.
My first year at PRBI was great. I learned so much, my care group was beautiful, and I met some amazing people who are still in my life today.
I decided to come back for a second year, but somewhere between the end of my first year and the beginning of my second year I felt resistance. I thought it was just nerves. I thought that because my first year had been so great, how could anything go wrong?
But within a few weeks of my second year having begun, I knew this wasn't what I wanted. Not because I think there's something wrong with being taught the Bible and being in that Christian environment. But for me it wasn't where I needed to be. The theology I was taught became another thing to get through, more studies and rules, and it took all my passion for spirituality. Because of the environment I was in and some of the rules set in place (obviously a community like that needs to have some guidelines in place) I felt like I wasn't free to discover God the way I did best. And the good old Christian bubble slowly sucked the life out of me until I found it a struggle not to be bitter and resentful. I almost quit on a number of occasions, but pushed myself to finish because I thought "How can there be anything wrong with being at Bible College? This must be what God wants for me."
I did have some good moments during my second year. I made connections and was able to build into others and be built into, and I value all of that. Please hear me, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Bible college. I'm saying at this season in my life, there's something wrong with Bible college for me. Instead of feeding my faith, it shriveled it. Instead of making me come alive I felt like I was dying on the inside.
But being at Bible College for a second year did give me a gift, which was the eyes to see that the ways of Christianity I'd always been taught weren't working for me. I could push and push and push but I don't know if I'll ever be able to encounter God in theology, in organized services, in a sheltered environment.
I want to be the kind of person who sees Jesus at the car wash. I encounter God when I'm on my yoga mat. I see Jesus in the eyes of the broken, the hurting, the every day people. I learn about God most through stories of others. And when I am open to regarding the people and things around me as teachers, I learn so much about myself and about who God is.
I was having a conversation a while ago with my boyfriend about the different ways we view spirituality. The moment I remember most clearly was when we were talking about the importance of Bible reading, and I was struggling to get my point across. Because I do believe reading the Bible is important. I don't have a set Bible reading schedule. I've tried working my way through a specific book and find it becomes just another thing to cross of my to-do list. Sometimes, though, I'll read a story and it will minister to me in a whole new way, and show me something about God and myself that I didn't know before. But when I think of Bible reading, I don't want reading the Bible to be the only way I encounter God. I don't want to read the Scriptures, but live them. I want them to become real and active in my life, and I'm finding for me that doesn't happen by reading them over and over but by going out into my daily life and letting myself be used by God.
My spiritual practice is just showing up.
Maybe everyone else thinks like this too but just isn't vocal about it. Maybe I still have this idea in my head of what Christianity is because of what I've seen and what I know and I think people fit into this boxed idea of Christianity. Or maybe it is as they say, and I am just a little bit of a mystic.
I don't know why I'm writing about this other than the fact that I think its important. Over the past little bit I feel like I've had to defend my view on things and how I do God and faith, so maybe this is part of that. Or maybe its just that I don't feel like being silent anymore about the things that matter.
Maybe this all makes me a mystic. So be it, I've always felt more comfortable out there with the mystics anyway. But if I'm being honest, I think we should all be a little bit mystic.
Jesus didn't come to create denominations and ethical systems, but rather invited them to enter into a life of love that transcends ethics, a life of liberty that dwells beyond religious laws (Rob Bell)
And I think maybe, just maybe, that's part of what Jesus meant when he said "I have come so that they may have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10)

how Bible School limited who I thought God was

Red silks, chanting around a fire, dancing with skirts spinning, sceneries so beautiful I cannot seem to capture their marvelousness on camera or with words, moments so sacred I cannot capture their holiness with a pen, and must instead resort to sitting in their beauty and letting the silence around me be my prayer.
These have been the images that have filled my head over the last few days.
The air is getting colder. The trees outside my window have lost their leaves. The regular fall itch has struck once again, and I find myself frantic in a space of trying to order, and reorder, and make sense of this world around me.
One of the big topics I seem to be grappling with in this season has been redefining God. I'm at Bible school, constantly saturated in teachings and Bible readings and prayer meetings. And yet I find myself growing more and more uncomfortable with this reality.
Being at Bible college has done the opposite of, what I imagine, it has intended to do. Instead of growing closer to God as I learn more, I become more and more frustrated.
I am so submerged in teachings and lectures and theology and hermeneutics that I lose the mystery. In being surrounded by Christians day in and day out, always expected to grow and learn and teach, I found it so easy to conform to what I thought Christianity was.
Read the Bible for half an hour each morning? Sure, I can do that.
Attend a prayer meeting? I have it covered.
Write entire papers on how meditation fits into prayer life? Consider it done.
But in reality, all of these things were killing me on the inside. Jesus wasn't this magical, supreme, mysterious being anymore but just another name to be thrown into my paper. God fit very neatly into a box.
God as male, God as judge, God as gracious and merciful and loving with an emphasis on discipleship and wanting you to attend church every Sunday and read your Bible and pray all the time.
I became angry with the God that fit into my box. I became angry with theology, with Bible study, with discipleship.
As part of my field ed. ministry I volunteer at the women's shelter and the stories I come across break my heart. And the God I see as so neatly fitting into theology and hermeneutics and discipleship doesn't fit.
Part of this is my own fault. Part of it is almost inevitable when you're surrounded by Christian teachings and relationships all the time. It's so easy to fit into a role.
The theology of it all frustrates me. I don't want to know more about God. I want to actively participate in His ministry. I want to feed off His mystery. I want to sit at the table with sinners and tax collectors and break bread and drink wine.
I don't want the rules about God. I don't want people's interpretations of who God is. I want God.
I want the Eucharist, the sacraments, the constant in an ever changing world. I want the grace and the love without other people's definitions of them, and what they are, and who can accept them.
I understand that there is a place for knowledge, and that it is beneficial. But I don't want who God is to get lost in the knowledge.
I don't have all the answers for how this is going to look yet. I only know that I want mystery over meticulous answers. I want to encounter God in other places and people and walks of life and cultures and views. I want to encounter the God that isn't limited to the Christian bubble, and theology and church attendance and daily Bible reading.
There are a lot of things I feel like I'm supposed to be during this school year. I'm a leader, in more aspects than one. And I felt the pressure of it. I felt the pressure of needing to be an example and have it all together, and I excluded myself from grace. But I'm realizing I don't want to be identified by all those things. Not that any of them are bad, or that I want to shed them off. But at the core of my being, I want to be someone who is sustained off the mystery. I want to bathe in the unknown as well as the known. I want to be ok with not having the answers for everything, but being able to have the answer of love.

“God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word ... it's that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn't about God creating humans and flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace - like saying, "Oh, it's OK, I'll be the good guy and forgive you." It's God saying, "I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.”

Butterfly Soup

"If you cut open a chrysalis you won't find a caterpillar growing wings. You won't find a caterpillar butterfly hybrid. You'll find butterfly soup. The caterpillar doesn't just change, it dissolves, it becomes completely broken down that it might become an entirely new creation"

There are times when my heart is full and I find it hard to write. I cry, I stare at the sky, I fit into small spaces and try to fit the large scale meaning of life into my finite human mind. But there are moments so big, so profound, so beautiful that they change you on a cellular level, and this past week felt like that for me.
It felt like butterfly soup, like the caterpillar dissolving and changing on an intricate level, making way for new birth, for butterfly wings.
Maybe I'm not there yet, but I like to think I'm a little bit closer to knowing what it's like to have butterfly wings.

I'm not a dancer. I'd like to be, but somehow my lack of coordination and clumsiness has made that a near impossible feat. I'm not fearless, or especially brave. I'm more like the cowardly lion, always looking for courage. I love deeply and wildly, so I know what it's like to live life as a reflection of one's heart. What I didn't know was what it was like to move as a reflection of one's heart in response to one's self. When the music plays, when the false selves are stripped away, when all that exists is the sound of a heartbeat and a group of people digging deep so you can root down and up, I learned a little something about loving myself. Not about being fearless but letting each breath and movement become a hallelujah fulfilled in and through me, letting it become the answer to every prayer I prayed when I didn't think I would make it, holding myself in a place of honour without judgement or shame. My body isn't that of a dancer, but I think my heart is. I think my heart knew how to dance all along, if only I'd give it the freedom to do so. I think when the skeleton of my old self was dissolved, all that boneless-ness gave my heart space to expand out and pulsate through every fiber and cell of my body. I think in that moment, I finally grew my butterfly wings.

Butterflies have beautiful lives. I heard that once. "You're like a butterfly," He told me, "Butterflies can't see their wings, they have no idea how beautiful they are."

It feels strange, moving with these new wings. It takes time to adjust, to learn how to adapt to life with these wings on your back. The big change, they say, is from caterpillar to butterfly and while I agree I also think that learning how to fly when you've spent your whole life crawling on the ground is a pretty big adjustment in and of itself. Sometimes I flap them around, just because I can. These beautiful gifts, this freedom, sometimes its hard to believe that it's all mine.

I got to experience the most beautiful thing the other day. I got to experience a room full of people believing in my wings. They knew I could fly before I did. They knew the chrysalis would eventually break open when I doubted it. They held me in the becoming, and rejoiced with me in the flying. It is the most incredible feeling knowing there are so many people rooting for your freedom, affirming that you are beautiful and deserving, worthy and smart and kind and lovely. And I am so blessed by their hands, their words, their love. I am so grateful.

There is a song I used to listen to way back in junior high I'd all but forgotten about until my tribe spoke these words of faith and love over me. I related to it then, and I think a part of me always has been getting ready for these wings.
Butterfly girl, don't you know you're beautiful by now? Too long in hiding. Free to shine girl, time to spread your wings and show your colours to the world.

I'm a lot of things in life. I'm a daughter, a sister, a friend, a girlfriend. I used to say I was never good enough, that I didn't deserve good things, that I was broken. I'm learning to replace those words with new words like beautiful, trusting, loving and free. I used to not understand the magic of butterflies. But as one floated across my front yard today, I couldn't help but pause and admire the beauty and strength it took this tiny creature to become. I didn't understand butterflies until I became one. Now? I think they're the most beautiful things in the world.

I wrote words yesterday that surprised even me. They weren't profoundly brilliant or beautiful, weren't dripping with poetic prose, but something about their honesty and truth shocked me, forcing me to put down my blue ink pen and pause over what I had just written.
This place, I wrote, is so full of Him.
...
A few days ago I heard a woman I know mention blogging as talking to a friend. She painted it as sitting across from a dear friend with a cup of coffee and catching up on life. She said when she wasn't blogging, she missed it.
My approach to blogging has always been slightly different, and has changed over the years. I did, and do, have a really hard time drawing the line between that talking-over-coffee-with-a-friend kind of blogging and the artistic endeavor of writing. I've written myself through many tough life situations, from death to finally coming clean about my story of past trauma, a faith crisis, family and friend struggles, bad relationships and (now) my beautiful relationship. But whenever I wrote, I always kept a slight distance. My personal writings are for that loud, cursing, messy kind of writing where I hash out every problem and thought. My blog is the place where I write about the storm after it has passed, when I feel as though I have some sort of offering or lesson to share. But I think I was mistaken when I thought I could have this blog and write about my life without ever really personally writing about my life.
...
I remember the first time I ever cried in church. February 10, 2013. I remember exactly what song was playing, who was singing, who I was sitting beside. It was exactly 5 months after receiving my Dysautonomia diagnosis, 5 months that had been plagued with exhaustion, grief, anger and brokenness.
This day started an epidemic, and now it is not uncommon to find me crying in church (or anywhere else for that matter).
This Sunday, my crying in church started with my crying on the yoga mat. Up until Friday, I was the kind of girl who didn't understand when people said they started crying during yoga. I would feel things, sure, but it was more so a way to give my mind some rest.
When I did this amazing practice led by Morgan Day Cecil her words spoke to my heart. I've always been hesitant to use the term "God spoke to me" because I am very much resistant about that stereotypical Christianity aspect to my relationship with God, but as I sat on my mat, I heard these words spoken over me and it was enough to make me begin to cry.
"The work you are doing is hard and holy"
I try so hard to resist the hard. I say things are good, because they are. My life is beautiful and full and I can never deserve all of these amazing blessings.
But it's also hard.
Moving houses means changes, and the shift from school life to summer working is a big one, and family always has a way of getting on every nerve and the boy is spending his summer at camp, meaning our time together is squished into small snippets of moments, and while I am so blessed to have a house, and the freedom to work like this this summer and my family and my amazing boyfriend, it doesn't mean its all butterflies and rose petals.
It is hard, and sometimes just acknowledging that and realizing that this too is a battle, and part of a bigger warfare in which I am a participant is enough.
And then, on top of realizing that this work of loving and creating is hard, I realized it is also so very holy.
It is hard, but it is so full of Him. He has promised the victory, that He will guard my heart, that love will triumph and that He will go before me. He cares about these seemingly small and unimportant pieces of my heart, and writes love over all of them.
Not comfort, not human love, not ease, but the kind of love that sweeps itself over all and covers and says "I have such big plans for you. I have such big love for you."
And this place I'm in, this in between summer, this work of loving, it's not an accident. It's not bad, or a mistake. It is holy work. It is enough.

"We're not here to fight tooth and nail, to white knuckle our way through our day. Life will come at us as we deal with things that cause so much pain and suffering. These things are real. Childhood abuse, miscarriages, divorce, disease, death, disappointments of all kinds, unfulfilled longings, mean people, debt, betrayal, addiction. But through it all, friends, you are someone with honor, with character, with integrity, with hope... You will be victorious. Love will win. All things will be restored and redeemed."
...
This place, this hard and holy place, is so full of Him.
Jesus in the waiting.
Jesus in the longing.
Jesus in the hoping.
Jesus in the loving.
Jesus in the grieving.
It's Jesus in my yoga.
Jesus in my relationship.
Jesus in my family.
Jesus in my writing.
Jesus in my conversations.
Jesus in my desire.
Jesus in my wilderness.

When the mountains speak love

If my life is measured by summers, it is most definitely measured in these long, hot days running wild in the mountains on our annual summer trip to Miette.
Every time we roll up that windy mountain road, it feels a little bit more like coming home. The days are long, the mountains tall, the coffee strong, the time spent together as a family valuable and by the time I collapse into bed at the end of the day I am thoroughly exhausted.
There's always time for one more quick swim, one more hike, one more conversation.
Perhaps that's what I love most about these trips. It feels like there is always more.
Out there, nothing is lacking. There is never not enough. Even as we drive, I can feel the layers of heaviness surrounding my heart just melt away until we pull up to our little mountain kingdom and I am eye to eye, toe to toe with my real, honest self.
There's something about the truth that doesn't hide from me here.
This year we packed up the van and drove to our little mountain town. And even just sitting in the passenger seat of the boyfriend's truck with my bags packed and anticipation swirling around in the air, my heart almost burst at the thought of being surrounded by all the people I love so dearly for a whole weekend.
Sometimes, I think, this qualifies as magic.
There were mornings where all of us crammed into a tiny cabin to eat breakfast, still pajama clad and sleepy eyed. There were afternoons spent wading in the river, wandering through Jasper, swatting mosquitoes and hiking up to the old pool (which I still think is one of my favourite places on earth, and feels to me so much like poetry). There was kissing, and staying up late, jumping into the cold pool until all limbs were numb only to retreat back to the warm pool and sigh over the tingling feeling in hands and feet, stories were told and many rounds of catch played and over and over again I fell in love the way you fall asleep, slowly and then all at once.
I cried, because sometimes you can't hide from the truth. I collapsed from exhaustion. I let the mountain air and the sunshine heal my soul once again, and let it all remind me who I am.
I am so incredibly grateful for my family, and the memories we make in this place. I'm grateful that this year family stretched to include more of the people I love so much. I'm grateful for the life lessons learned around the breakfast table and over coffee and while sitting around with my people.
When I got my tattoo (a mountain) it symbolized a lot of things.
It was in memory of my cousin, an avid snowmobiler. His favourite place was in the mountains, and it was on this little mountain near Jasper that I have some of the best memories of our family.
It's because I feel most at home in the mountains, and to me they represent freedom and strength.
And it's because of that verse in Matthew that talks about having faith to move mountains.
As I spent this weekend loving, and telling the truth and healing my soul, my faith was also restored in some small way. My faith, not only in God, but in goodness and love and family and people, in the world and in myself.
If I could bottle up some of that magic I feel during our family trips to that mountain, I would. I would put it on a necklace and carry it with me every day.
We arrived home today, and I have new dreams tangled in my hair, fresh ideas stirring in my head and a wild, radical love taking root in my heart once again. I am so grateful for all of this.

"God is in the mountains. Impassible, immovable, jagged giants, separating the celestial from the terrestrial with eternal, diagonal certainty. As if silently monitoring the beating heart of the Creator from the universe's perfect birth. Stood in the thin air and the awe, one inhales God, involuntarily acknowledging that we are but fragments of a whole, a higher thing. The mountains remind me of my place, as a servant to truth and wonder. Yes, God is in the mountains. Perhaps the pulpit too and even in the piety of an atheist's sigh.  I don't know, but I feel him in the mountains."

The Modesty Debate

It's going around on Facebook again: the modesty debate. Different friends post different articles about modesty, each with their own valid opinion. And I'm tired of hearing about it. Honestly, I think it doesn't matter. Maybe that's not the right attitude to have. But last time I checked no one's salvation was hanging off the fact she decided to wear a mini skirt.
I remember reading the dress code for PRBI and complaining. It was something often discussed between girls in the dorm, something I sighed in frustration about to my friends and boyfriend when all I wanted to do was wear yoga pants and be comfortable, and something I personally never came to terms with.
I don't agree with everything written about modesty in the PRBI handbook. I don't agree with everything written about modesty in every blog post, news article and essay I've read.
So, if I don't think modesty is one of those issues worth fighting over, why am I writing a blog post on it? Mostly because I'm frustrated, and because these thoughts have been stirring up in my mind for a while now.
I'm more than willing to admit right now that my opinions could be wrong. In my mind whether or not I was on the wrong side of the modesty debate way back in college will not effect my eternal salvation. I don't think Jesus cares all that much if I decided to wear yoga pants to class one day. I think He's more concerned with my heart, and how I loved people, and how I served and how I lived my life.
I understand modesty. Growing up I was often told we didn't wear outfits that revealed too much skin in our house. I know the lectures about the first thing the eye wanders to, and keeping others from falling into temptation.
But I think the whole issue of modesty in our churches especially is contributing to rape culture. I believe that teaching girls and young women to cover up to prevent boys from stumbling is teaching her that her body is dangerous. Because she is told to cover up, she is told that her body is something to keep hidden, which can be interpreted to mean that her body is shameful. I got the talks where my parents and youth leaders and other well meaning adults tried to tell me that this isn't the case but as a high school and now college aged girl that's what I'm hearing. Instead of teaching a woman that she is a person of value with a mind, heart, soul and body, she is confined to the idea that she is a stumbling block. I heard it said from a secular perspective that when we tell a girl in class to change because she is being a distraction, we are subtly telling her that someone not being able to control himself is more important than her education. I believe the things we say to rape victims like "Well, what were you wearing?" only further pushes the issue that men cannot control their actions, and women are expected to cover up and show less skin to prevent unwanted advances.
Growing up my parents, sister and I occasionally had the conversation about why someone would want to dress like that. At least for me personally the answer is what I wear has little effect on my body image, self esteem... I wear shorter dresses because I like them and I like how I feel in them, not because I want to show anything off. And in terms of modesty what the length of my hemline or the cut of my shirt doesn't have anything to do with my relationship with God. I'm not less of a Christian for wearing yoga pants to the grocery store. I'm not more of a Christian because I wear long skirts.
One of the biggest arguments I've heard is that lack of modesty (however that is defined) is more of a stumbling block. I've talked about this with guys and girls, and I understand the perspective. I understand that for some people it's a really big issue, and they will do whatever it takes to help the "weaker brother." But during my relentless discussions on this topic with friends (guys and girls) I've heard this: "I'm tired of hearing that I (guys) don't have self control."
I've heard stories of girls (and been the girl) who were called out on the street wearing a hoodie and jeans. I think lust and stumbling will happen regardless of what a woman is wearing, and our thoughts should be more on what can we do to help work against rape culture rather than constantly criticize and comment on what someone is wearing.
In all honesty, I think the modesty debate doesn't matter. The world won't change because every single girl decides to cover up, even if it's out of love and genuine concern for those around her. I think the world will change when we start honestly telling girls that they are beautiful: mind, body, and soul. I believe the world will change when lessons on self control and respect are just as prevalent as those telling young women about modesty.

(While it's not a post specifically on modesty, I love Sarah Bessey's post on why she loves being friends with people who wear bikinis. I agree with a lot of her statements. That post actually inspired some of what's in this post. It's well worth the read. And I'm glad that I'm friends with people who wear bikinis too)

Last night was acoustic night at SheBrews. It was a chaotic mess of trying to run the coffee maker between songs, getting everything ready so the moment the music ended and the applause started we could flip on all the machines.
It was almost like a dance, but the kind full of awkward, clumsy movements. I spilled the milk and dumped the coffee beans, and this one drink was remade three times.
The routine movements that usually bring me some degree of comfort that night felt frustrating and foreign.
But the moment when one of my talented fellow students would pick up a guitar or step behind the piano everything fell silent.
It was like the whole room was just holding its breath for this beautiful creation to be birthed into existence.
...
I was reading last night over some old blog posts. The large latte I'd made in an effort to make myself feel better was keeping me awake, and my mind was running restless.
I was reading something I wrote nearly a year ago, and somehow those words I wrote then, in an entirely different phase of my life, spoke to the person I am now.
I imagined myself like those musicians. I don't curve my spine over a guitar, moving my fingers over strings. But I do hunch over my paper with a pen and write the world into order.
I know it hurts to become, to create, to birth this dream.
I feel the weight of it in my hands and they shake.
...
After the coffee shop had cleared, the drinks had been made, she told me to go sit. I felt a bit like a child entering into a room marked with a no entrance sign as I pulled up a chair and sat down beside the remaining musicians: the boy with the guitar and the girls who sang.
He began to play and they began to sing and I hesitantly added my voice to the song, my heart echoing every word.
I feel like I'm not allowed to say life is hard.
Because it is so good, so sweet, so beautiful.
But it's hard. And my heart is hurting for reasons I don't fully understand and my hands shake so violently I am frequently wrapping them around his to remain steady and I'm poking at the people I care about just to ask them to notice me here and it's the little things that set me off.
Life, in all its sweetness, carries a flavor of bitterness I desperately wish wasn't there.
As I sat before the music that night, letting it unfold before me, I felt a small bit like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus.
I was here, sitting before that which was feeding my soul. Before friends and creativity and the sound of the guitar I was spread open.
...
I've been kind of a weakling recently.
My sweet friends keep telling me how strong I am, but I still have to squint to see it.
When I stand in front of the mirror my reflection is strange and uncomfortable because all this stretching, it's changed me.
I want romance and sunshine, laughter and a good night's sleep and an afternoon to spend cooking and dancing in the kitchen and writing.
Even more than that, I want Him.
I want Him to know I'm willing to be made weak.
I want this weakness, this delicate season of becoming, to bring me closer still to the God who calls me enough.
...
The song we sing, it's more of my heart's plea. In this crazy, unpredictable time when I'm not even sure if I can trust myself, I sing it and I feel every word.
I need you, oh I need you
Every hour I need you
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God how I need you

in Dark and Empty Spaces

I wrote the same story for 2 years.
I used different words, different metaphors, approached it from new angles but essentially it was the same story. I wrote it because I didn't know if I would survive if I didn't get it out of me. I wrote not because it would change what happened but because I thought it would change me. I wrote because I didn't know what else to do.
For 2 years I told the same story: the story of earth shattering loss and unthinkable horror and unimaginable brokenness and destruction.
Every step I take forward in my life is a loss of something in my life and I live the waiting: how and of what will I be emptied today?
The past week has been heavy. Looking back I knew it. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I could feel it. And then it happened.
On Thursday morning I found out a good friend from high school had lost her dad in an accident.
I was in care groups when I found out, and after we prayed together desperately I excused myself.
I barely made it out of the room before my legs gave out and I fell to the floor.
I know what it's like to lose your person. And while I am still lucky enough to have my own father with me I so easily could be in her position. My dad is still here but I do know what it's like to lose a person you love more than anything.
Hearing of her loss instantly transported me back to the day when I found out L had died. The first words that passed my lips were, "Why God?"
I want to take both fists and splinter that door with an ungrateful demanding for more. Why can't we be allowed days indefinitely? How can God ever expect us to say goodbye to the eyes, ears, hands of those we cherish more than our own?
 This is not the way I would have written this story.
 I say it over and over. I skip class and stay buried beneath a mountain of blankets and cry and write and listen to music and the whole time I feel as though this is not the way the story should go.
How is it possible to find true joy in a world filled with such brokenness? Is all we have been blessed with just some façade and this honest, gut wrenching, unthinkable pain all that really is?
My heart is broken by the lack of understanding, the inability to see the good. Death is not fair and the grief still bites me like the bitter cold and robs me of all my oxygen.
There are still moments when I whisper "I don't know how to keep living in a world where he doesn't."
I don't understand why my beautiful, brave friend is walking this journey. I would do anything to save her from the unspoken agony of bearing this story of loss inside of you.
What I would do if this wasn't the story we both have to tell.
And I won't shield God from my anguish by claiming He's not involved in the ache of this world and Satan prowls but he's a lion on a leash and the God who governs all can be shouted at when I bruise, and I can cry and I can howl and He embraces the David-hearts who pound hard on His heart with their grief and I can moan deep that He did this - and He did. I can feel Him hold me - a flailing child tired in my Father's arms. And I can hear him soothe soft, "Are your ways my ways, child? Can you eat my manna, sustain on my mystery? Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world, because my flame of love for you can never ever be quenched?
All day I feel like those I love are nudging me.
"Hey, are you alright?" They ask. "What do you need?"
And in this moment I feel lucky to have friends who understand my brokenness so well for a loss that isn't mine but still carries the sting of that fateful day nearly 2 years ago.
In a moment of raw honesty I cry out to God. I flail and weep and question, and my questioning almost feels wrong.
"How dare you?" I say to God in a moment of weakness. Not just for this loss that has shattered my friend's world but for my own.
I inwardly rage and say no to death, no to illness and injury.
How can this be from the hand of God? How can this be good?
How, when my heart is broken and people die too soon and injury and illness become my delirium, can I look at what is being extended from the hand of God and declare it a gift?
That is what a shadow is, an empty space, a hole in the light. Evil is that - a hole in the goodness of God. Evil is all that lacks the goodness of God, a willful choice to turn away from the full goodness of God to that empty of His goodness.
The last few weeks I feel as though I've been submerged in grace. God is good, I would say over and over, because I truly felt it. I felt and experienced God's goodness, and it became my song. My heart sang over and over "Let us praise the Lord for all the good things He has done."
And then I got the phone call. And then I felt the sting of all the losses and the injustice and I fought against God and I said over and over that this isn't right and how God and why and what about grace now?
Is grace still proclaimed when there is a horrible accident that causes a father not to return home to his wife and children? Is grace still proclaimed when a mysterious monster lies dormant inside my body waiting to pounce? Is grace still proclaimed when 18 year old cousin's die and relationships crumble and dad's lose their sight, the eye destroyed by a mere nail? In these moments of unthinkable trauma and horror is there anything good and gracious about the things that passed through God's hands?
What of God's grace then?
Can I ask that question?
What in the world, in a world of certain loss, is grace?
I wish I had answers.
As I hold my beautiful, brave friend as she collapses in my arms I wish I had words.
As I spend all afternoon wearing my memorial sweater and crying and fluctuating between needing to be held and needing to be alone I wish I knew.
What is grace when everything crumbles and life becomes just another bad dream you can't wake up from?
This past year at PRBI God has been teaching me to listen to His heartbeat. I've seemed to run head on into every major thing I've struggled with and in all of it I've felt God tenderly whispering to me, "Do you trust me? Do you see how much I love you?"
And since the New Year it's felt like His blessings have abounded and it almost feels bitter when in my relentless raging against God I hear a tiny reminder in the back of my mind:
"Sweet girl, do you trust me?"
Trust? Trust that God is still good even when the brokenness feels like it's all consuming? Trust in God's plan when everything around me is chaos? Trust in God's sovereign power when I have lost so much?
In the moment I say no. I say no God, I can't accept this, this isn't good.
But perhaps there's a bigger picture, one I can't see because I am clinging to the pain and brokenness that is real and consuming.
I don't to accept this reality, that maybe my discomfort and pain is for some greater purpose. I don't want to believe that God would allow pain in my life for some great plan.
"Is what I feel not enough?" I sob.
When I realize that it is not God who is in my debt but I who am in His great debt, then doesn't all become gift? for He might not have
It could have just as easily been my dad not coming home from work one day. Instead delicate surgery is being performed on his eye with the hopes of restored sight.
In these moments of darkness we are learning to see.
And when the sickness rages inside of my body and I scream at God through the longest nights that this seemingly unending pain and suffering has become too much, I see it could have just as easily been the other way around. I wasn't supposed to survive, but on the third day... there is God's providing hand stirring tiny miracles in the darkness
And when the cousin dies and the world feels empty and inside of me is an unspeakable story, it is here that I learned forgiveness, and the beauty of love that holds together and that story, my story, has made the way for me to reach out to others and to experience healing.
I used to say that I would trade all I'd learned for a chance to be well, to not have gone through this loss.
And maybe I still feel like that. What I wouldn't give for a tiny glimpse of heaven, of completeness and wholeness.
I don't understand, and I question still.
but maybe that's the point.
Maybe all these traumas strung together create in me a greater longing for the beauty and completeness of heaven. Because of that maybe I greater appreciate the tiny gifts I've been given here on earth And maybe it is through all these things that the Father is knitting me closer to His heart.
The suffering nourishes grace and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart - and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty
In naming the things that so called manifest the goodness of God, I have separated life into two camps. There is good, the blessings, and there is bad, the ugly.
I praise God for one and rage against Him for the other.
And God, in His bigness and might, lets me in my humanness fight against Him. He knows that when I'm done running, done fighting against that which I declare not good, I will become still.
He will remove His hand from the rock and there will be glimmers of light in the darkness and when I look I will see His back.
And so in my grieving, in my no, God, I begin to name these ugly beautiful blessings.
The beauty of vulnerability and friendship that becomes sacred in the split open moments and friends who call me just to check in and hold me up when I am weak and moments of rest and people who understand and little encouragement notes and the beautiful sound of laughter
I'm not always quick to see it, but this time I was. Last time it took me over a year and this time it took me an hour but I can see God in this place.
I had a thought a few months ago, when I was standing over His grave.
"What will you name this place?" I thought. We had been studying the Old Testament in class, most recently the study of Abraham and Isaac.
I barely had a chance to think before the words left my lips: "I will call this place 'God will provide'"
God is always good and I am always loved. Everything is eucharisteo

All quotes in italics from 1000 gifts by Ann Voskamp

What I learned in January (all is grace)

The first month of 2015 has slipped by, quickly and quietly.
January was gentle, and soft this year. It was full of firsts, full of magic and moments that stole my breath away and full of grace.
I was thinking last night about how the month began curled up listening to Noah Gunderson and wishing for this year to be full of bigger and better things, and it ended playing Uno and holding his hand and all the moments in the middle felt as though they were whispering grace.

When you simply get up every day and live life raw - you murmur the question soundlessly. No one hears. Can there be a good God? A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies empty through long nights and bugs burrow through coffins? Where is God, really? How can He be good when babies die and marriages implode and dreams blow away, dust in the wind? Where is grace bestowed when cancer gnaws and loneliness aches and nameless places in us soundlessly die, break off without reason, erode away. Where hides this joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I live fully when life is full of hurt? How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?

I remember the moment when I thought life would never be ok again. It was the day after he died, and I fell on my knees in the horse pasture and inwardly screamed, feeling the breaking taking place inside of my chest violently. In that moment, it felt like God turned His face away. In all of the black moments that have swept over my life none felt as bereft of His presence as this one.
That year was a silent "No, God." It was burning with white hot anger and the dull ache of emptiness.
I say that year broke me, made me question all I'd ever believed. But looking back now I can see how that year of hell on earth was also the year I began to hear His voice.

His intent, since He bent low and breathed His life into the dust of our lungs, since He kissed us into being, has never been to slyly orchestrate our ruin. And yet I have found it: He does have surprising, secret purposes. I open a Bible and His plans, startling, lie there barefaced. it's hard to believe it, when I read it, and I have to come back to it many times, feel long across those words, make sure they are real. His love letter forever silences any doubts: "His secret purpose framed from the very beginning is to bring us to our full glory" (1 Corinthians 2:7). He means to rename us - to return us to our true names, our truest selves. He means to heal our soul holes

I spent a really long time being the one who wrestles with God. Even now I'm the girl who'd rather wrestle it out, live from the honest core. In this past little while I feel as though I was broken at the strongest part of myself. I was brought to the wilderness time and time again. But it's not like I once thought. It's not because in my ugly brokenness God is hiding Himself from me. It is so I could learn to listen to His voice. It is so that through my soul holes I could experience the fullness of Him. Once you've been broken down, the gospel isn't just the good news, but the life news. His death and resurrection sits not only as a story about life and more life but of radical redemption.
I stood face to face with the darkest parts of myself, desperate to change my story, to have more to offer.
Until He reminded me that I did. Until He spoke into my black and made it the holy night. Where the black was His hand over the rock, because He was near.

And maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds

There are days I still wish I could change my story. I'm grappling with accepting the bad, and the good, and calling both enough. If I was writing this story... I inwardly rage.
Then what?
It was the dark night that made me brim with full gratitude for this goodness, to see it all as grace.
Once upon a time I never imagined I would experience this depth of grace. I never imagined He would remove His hand, and I'd see His back.
All of this - these strings of grace days - are more than I ever knew to ask for. They are beautiful, and I'm savoring each one and as we drive down the back road I say to myself "Are you really going to say this isn't how the story should go?"
The emptiness made the fullness that much better. I don't understand, but I have been given the promise that even this is not the end.
There is always more, and looking back on all of it He says "Do you see in all of it how I provided? How you lived off the mystery, the manna?"

That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave

I am overwhelmed by His grace, sustained by His manna, savoring His sweetness. There is so much I don't yet understand. I am learning to live with an open hand, from a place of honest truth, and be grateful

All italics quotes from 1000 gifts by Ann Voskamp

Reaching for Beautiful

The past few days my heart has been raw. Not bad, just different, expanding and changing and pressing up against my ribcage, stretching and shifting.
I've never been one to adjust easily, and I feel like more often than not these days I find myself reaching for things to wrap my fingers around.
I feel like God's been nudging me. Not harshly, but in a way that says, "Hey, little daughter, do you trust me? It's time to take that step."
I'm the girl who's afraid to step out of the boat.
I'm the girl who's spent so long wandering around in the wilderness, learning what it means to listen to His voice, to see His hand in the darkness.
Now I feel like He's saying, "Come on, sweet one, you can't stay in the wilderness forever."
Existing in the light is scary. It means trusting and taking risks and being open.

But I am not a woman who ever lives the full knowing. I am a wandering Israelite who sees the flame in the sky above, the pillar, the smoke from the mountain, the earth open up and give way and still I forget. I am beset by chronic soul amnesia. I empty of truth and need refilling. I need come again every day - bend, clutch and remember - for who can gather manna but once, hoarding and store away sustenance in the mind for all of the living?

I'm living off His promises. I am ravenous, constantly reaching for the manna, the blessings. I count, I cry, I pray, I savor. I am realizing in these precious days how much I need the constant connection, the manna.

I have run because I long for beauty like a mania, a woman leaving dinner, running in apron for the cast of the moon. When I can't find it - is that why my soul goes a bit wild, morose, crazed? Strange - I hadn't even noticed that I'd been hungry for Beauty until I ran for the moon

Today, in the midst of all my mind's circles, I sat cross legged on the floor with my beautiful friend and discipler. We were talking about relationships, about the ever present root of my own brokenness. She read me the story of the woman by the well. I've heard the story so many times, but it's still one of my favorites.
As she was reading, something in my brain clicked.
Jesus asked this woman for water. We think of her as the lowest of the low, a woman caught in sin, a shameful individual. But Jesus asked her for a drink. He knew her story, knew her past, but still He thought she had something to offer.

How? How could I have forgotten how badly I wanted this? To bow down and rightly worship

Long truck rides driving to no where and town dates with the girl next door and holding hands and being held and gathering around the table and sharing the struggles and the joys, laughter and rest and the feeling of fullness as I walk away from the room with my Bible and journal spread open on my bed knowing that this is how I get full, all of it seems to be a whisper from God saying, "Do you see? Do you see now, my girl? Do you see how much I love you? Do you see that I will complete the works I have began? Do you see that in all of this I had a plan? Do you see that I will not leave you in the wilderness nor will I let you starve? I have called you to bigger things."

I am filthy rags. Is sight even possible? I've only got one pure thing to wear and it's got Made By Jesus on the tag and the purity of Jesus lies over a heart and His transparency burns the cataracts off the soul The only way to see God manifested in the world around is with the eyes of Jesus within.

I am captivated. I am reaching for the beautiful and pulling it close. I am finding sustenance from His manna. His voice says, "Trust me."
Even though it's hard and new and scary, and I've become accustomed to the darkness.
Even when the stretching and growing threaten to steal all my air
Even when I feel like the woman at the well with nothing to offer
He says, "I see you. I love you. I chose you. Trust me, daughter, and come partake in the feast of Manna that abounds. After all, didn't I say you would never starve?"

In the burn of the ache, there is this unexpected sensation of immense moon slowly shrinking and God expanding, widening and deepening my inner spaces. Is that why joy hurts - God stretching us open to receive more of Himself?

All italics quotes from 1000 gifts by Ann Voskamp

When He says 'Trust me'

I didn't want to go to church this morning
I know it is on these days when I don't want to go that I need to go most. As I got up, got dressed and glanced over my notes for leading Sunday School one more time, I was inwardly grumbling. Last night I'd gone to bed after a great day only to be attacked by fear and shame and the idea of not being good enough. I woke up this morning feeling sick.  I complained and said a few bad words and stomped around.
The funny thing is I don't think God is put off by my not being delighted to go to church. Of course He wants me to be excited to go, but I don't think that just because I'm grumpy He decides I need a time out and He's not going to speak to me for a while.
I think it's quite the opposite. At least for this morning it was when I was grumpy and my head was filled with worries and doubts and confusion that He reached out and touched me.
In Sunday School I was greeted with bright eyes and smiling faces and little arms reaching out for me. As the kids said their verses, I was struck by how happy and proud they were.
The singing part of church is most often my favorite. One way I experience love is through music. I love the way that music makes me feel connected, feel heard and seen, like I'm witnessing something beautiful.
This morning I just listened to the words, to the piano chords and the strumming of the guitar. And I listened to the people around me sing. And I had this mental picture of crowd surfing. Not like at a rock concert where everything is loud and chaotic, but the peaceful image of being held up by hundreds of hands.
I felt like I was being held.
I felt like God was whispering to me, "Right here. I want you to look right here."
I felt like Peter, stumbling around on the waves. Life is real and the confusion I feel right now is real and the doubts are real and all of this is real. But it's when I focus on the reality of my fears instead of focusing on the reality of my God that I begin to sink.
I don't know a lot right now, and that's scary, but I was reminded this morning that I wasn't given a spirit of fear. And when my eyes are locked on the one who walks on water, I am secure.
It's easy to say but not as easy to believe. It's not easy to believe when these very real questions are staring me in the face or when it's Tuesday and I'm caught up in the middle of this hectic life.
Right now it feels like things are hanging in the balance, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go wrong. And it's like God is saying, "Trust me."
The other shoe might drop. Things might not go like I planned. The storm may rage. But that doesn't change the call: to trust Him, to look into His eyes and step out of the boat.

“Grace isn’t about having a second chance; grace is having so many chances that you could use them through all eternity and never come up empty. It’s when you finally realize that the other shoe isn’t going to drop, ever.”  

The Salty and the Sweet

I've been sitting here for the past half hour, trying to figure out something to write when I realized there isn't anything to write that I haven't written before.
I'm grateful...
It's not a secret, but I whisper it like it is. I whisper my joy like a small child, eyes twinkling.
The past few days have been a series of grace days, days where it's easy to feel joyful. They are days when everything in life feels like a gift, when I want to capture it all and save it somewhere special, just in case. I become a hoarder of this grace, clutching it all to my chest, waiting for the moment when it will run out.
I was reminded the other day of baking cookies. I walked into the dorm and the sweet smell of baking cookies met me, and I couldn't help but smile. I was reminded that, when baking cookies, you need both the sugar and the salt. Deprived of just one and the cookies won't turn out.
In the same way, it is the salty and the sweet that make a life.
I've been learning recently how to fully embrace each moment. I wrote a note and stuck it beside my bed, a reminder that each moment is a gift waiting to be noticed.
The joy moments are a gift, brimming with happiness and waiting to be celebrated.
But the salty moments are a gift too, a different kind of gift. The kind that sometimes takes longer to appreciate, the kind that promises that growth won't be easy but productive none the less.
I've been collecting moments, both salty and sweet, and storing them, pondering each separately, then together. Each one I hold in my hands before releasing it into the mixing bowl that is life and I'm learning to say thank you, even though at times I wrestle against the small words as they stay lodged in the back of my throat.
Sometimes I'm not thankful, but I'm trying to be.
Because eucharisteo always precedes the miracle
In care groups this week we're writing down 5 things a day that we're grateful for. As I wrote down my 5 things, I realized that gratitude transforms the mundane into the marvelous.
The everyday waking, sleeping, eating, breathing life becomes a sacred experience.
Meal times become fellowship time and sleep becomes serenity and every breath is a blessing. And I'm not always good at noticing these acts but when I do I want to document it. I want to stop and say "If this isn't beautiful I don't know what is."
I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.
I was talking the other day about the ugly beautiful blessings, the kind that appear in the darkness. In the moment even acknowledging the ugly beautiful feels like a crime. I've been living a lot of my life this way. Because in the moment the pain is so real and consuming and the need to feel it fully is real. I need to run it over in my hands, document each inch, then I can move on to the next emotion.
But I was reminded of Jacob, the story where He refuses to let go until God blesses him. He is broken down at the strongest place in his body, and the pain is real, but he refuses to let go until he is blessed.
I want to be like that. I want to cling tightly and wait for the blessings, and the grace days, and the beauty that has been promised me. I may not understand everything that happened in my life but I want to be the Jacob warrior, want to shout out through my exhaustion and confusion "I won't let go until you bless me."
I won't give up, won't walk away, won't let go until the blessings come.

Jesus never fails (Joy)

As I sat down to write this Monday morning, I felt as though I was emerging from some sort of fog. I've spent the last four months in school, busy with budding relationships and homework and self discovery. I realized today as I sat in a still house that in all of this rushing around, the good busyness that has been filling my life, I've forgotten to just sit with myself.
When I sat down to begin analyzing my thoughts on joy, the only thing I could think was that I didn't feel joyful. If anything, I feel quite the opposite. I feel exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I got to this point, as I began to learn to once again exist without the constant buzz of activity, where I had to ask myself what I'm doing.
For the past week I've felt some form of discontentment. My plan was just to power through it, to get through the exams and get to break and then everything would be ok. All I needed was a few good nights sleep, some serious Netflix binging, some free time and I would be fine.
But as I pushed through, I watched my relationships with others and myself begin to suffer.
I watched as I began to put my identity in others, only to be disappointed and wounded when they didn't react the way I wanted them to. I began to get irritated with small things, and the bitterness began to grow. I felt underappreciated, and suffered from a sense of inadequacy. The gratitude list I've been keeping for a few months now suddenly ceased being added to. I turned to myself to try and fill the gap I felt, but only ended up more disappointed and feeling like a failure than I had before. And joy, joy had somehow vanished when I wasn't looking, too busy pressing on.
I'm not saying the things I was using to fill my time were bad. But I am saying that when the homework, the relationships and the internal and external noise begin to take the place of that internal balance and connection I have with God, something's wrong.
I also am speaking about this all in past tense, but I haven't crossed that goal line. I haven't figured it all out. I'm still learning how to deal with this, and I think it's a constant battle, something you always have to learn.
Because the pressures of life sometimes get too big, and the noise gets too loud, and it's easy to miss the joy when you're not looking for it.
If you don't stop to count all the gifts He gives, are you not also rushing right past the opportunity to fully participate in joyful living?
As I sat this morning in the big chair in the living room, all wrapped up in a blanket and sitting in my discontentment wondering what went wrong, I slowly began to trace back to the moment where I felt the shift, where I seemingly lost my balance.
It was there, there when I assigned my value to another person and was let down. There, which reminded me of all the times before when I was disappointed. There, where I came to the conclusion that I must not be good enough, that this which I have been given must not be good enough.
But when I take all that God has given and call it not good, I am closing myself off to the possibility of joy.
I am stubbornly holding on to all I have, claiming it for my own, and in the process snuffing out my joy candle.
My Philippians teacher used to sing this song which I find myself singing more and more often these days which says "(your friends, family, truck...) might let you down, but Jesus never fails."
Jesus, because that is the answer. Because that is the Ultimate gift. Because that takes what I have and turns it into enough.
And every moment in which I am thankful for these gifts, for His grace, I am discovering my joy. My joy is being made complete.
"I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be made complete" John 15:11
Every moment I take what I have and call it not enough, I am closing myself off. I am hiding myself away, stubbornly holding on to all I have and all I am and saying that what God has given is not good enough. Who God is and what He has promised is not good enough.
But when I open myself up and with an open, humble hand receive ALL that He will give, my joy can be made complete.
Because my friends might let me down, and my physical body might let me down, and my ambitions might let me down but Jesus never fails

Shalom (Peace like Manna)

You could barely see the stars through the clouds, but every once in a while you would catch a glimpse of a constellation. We lay there in the snow, the weight of our bodies making imprints in the fluffy white powder. Her head was next to mine but our limbs were flung out in different angles, making snow angels on the ground.
"Lying here is so peaceful," I told her, "It's like nothing else matters. The world just stops."
The exam stress, the worries of family, when she says words that sting and he doesn't answer the one question that matters and peace is as illusive as the stars above. Every once in a while you would catch a glimpse, but never long enough to curl your fingers around it, never long enough to claim it.
In studying for my final exam, I've been reading of how the Israelites wandered in the desert, how they questioned and grumbled and searched, how God provided manna.
Manna, He provided, but they learned only enough for today. When they tried to store up, to create a safety net for themselves, there wasn't enough.
And maybe it's like this with my illusive peace, that when I try to hoard it crumbles apart in my hands but when I wait He will provide me with all I need for this day.
I am learning that God will not let His people go without that which they need. His manna, His mercies, are new every morning.
Peace, in the middle of the busyness of exams and in light of disappointments and when your arms are wrapped around her sobbing shoulders, in the face of unknowns when he won't answer your questions and in the presence of stinging words, and exhaustion
Shalom: Meaning peace but also to restore, to provide what is needed in order to make something complete. Completeness, wholeness, health, safety, tranquility, prosperity, rest, absence of agitation
Peace, Shalom, not because of my own faltering heart that is too tired to be kind, too hurt to be forgiving, too weak to be of comfort. Peace, because in the resounding echo of my heartbeat is the strong, sturdy echo of God's son.
And didn't He promise to always provide what we need?
He promised pain, but He also promised rescue
He promised hardship, but He also promised relief
He promised discord, but He also promised harmony
He promised night, but He also promised morning
My heart limps under the weight of all this non-peace, this agitation and frustration that surrounds this season. It's easier to fight against this which I cannot control, easier to stay angry and unforgiving and harsh instead of gently searching my heart to find this root of bitterness and pull it out with my bare hands. It is easier to stand in the way of my own peace, then rant to God about my lack of it. I've always been more of a fighter, more willing to pick up arms than lay them down.
But when I choose un-forgiveness, choose to remain frustrated and stressed, nothing gets done. It is when I lay down my own heart, allowing His heartbeat to pulsate through my body, that I find the peace that is promised me.
My own selfish heart can't find peace in this hectic pace, can't forgive when I've been hurt, can't offer love when all I feel is exhaustion. But His heart beating in me forgives, and loves, and surrounds me with peace.
In the middle, in the heaviness, when the stars are hidden behind their cloudy veil, He has promised peace. Peace, like Manna, what I need for today and no more and no less. Peace, because it is His heart working that allows my body to breathe out life and love and forgiveness, gentleness and rest. Peace, because when I first find my rest in Him then all else lines up, the weapons are laid down, and there is shalom.

Stretching Wide (A look back at how far I've come)

The first semester of college is almost over. The final assignments before Christmas are being handed in, the year end exams are almost underway, and the advice to "finish well" is ringing fresh in the mind of students.
This morning one of my professors asked the question of, if we were to reflect over our first semester on PRBI, how far we would say we had come.
As I was walking to my dorm after chapel later in the morning, I sighed and realized it was a sigh of contentment.
Contentment, that's what being at PRBI has taught me this semester. As Paul would say, I have learned the secret of being content in all circumstances.
Yes, I'm learning to be content, setting my mind on things above instead of on earthly things because to focus on the carnal is death but to focus on the eternal is life and peace (Thanks to my Philippians teacher for teaching me this wonderful nugget of truth, and reminding me of it every chance he got)
But I'm also learning grace. I'm learning that God did not abandon me, but instead brought me to a place where I would run out of myself, and discover more of Him.
I am being broken down at the strongest point of myself.
I have moments when I look at myself and wonder how I got here
I was reflecting on this question with my friend this morning, and I told her it feels like I've been running around in circles this semester, going back over the same old thing.
And I have. When I look back over the semester, there are a few moments that stand out as being significant, and mostly they are the moments when something broke me, hit a nerve and the walls I've put up for so long began to crumble.
And I'm the same in so many ways but there are so many ways in which I've changed, and grown.
I'm a different person now than I was in September.
The relationships I've built, the memories made, the laughter and the tears, they all line the road of my last few months.
It's been a journey, a process, and I'm (thankfully) still learning and growing, and while this semester is over this year, this journey, this lifetime is not. And I press on, because every moment I have breath is another moment that there is still work to be done.
And this journey I'm on, it's not about becoming better and progressing like climbing a ladder, but it's stretched out wide.
I said to my friend that I don't want to end this semester feeling like I haven't accomplished or gained anything, haven't arrived, but I think you don't ever fully arrive. It's not a ladder, not stretching up but stretching wide.
This first semester at PRBI, I have learned grace. I have held onto friends and learned love, let go of relationships and learned grace, cried and learned honesty and laughed and learned joy. I have come so far not by reaching one of these goals, but by existing in each precious moment I have been given, and calling it enough.
His promises, His manna, was enough for one day, no more and no less, and I have learned this.

"I am not saying this because I am in need, because I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:11-13

In the Wilderness (He showed up)

I've been quieter than usual lately. People have noticed.
I'm not sad or upset or stressed, just quiet.
I've been writing some, a personal little project about coffee cups and love and relationships, about getting your heart broken and the people who fix it.
I was talking with a friend tonight about this space, and how it kind of feels like I'm in the wilderness. I'm a little disoriented, stumbling around. There's nothing solid to hold on to.
I'm just out here, standing, waiting.
It gets tiring sometimes, waiting for something you can't even name. Waiting to feel loved, to feel joyful and content, to feel as though you've reached this goal. Waiting to stop feeling like the weak one, the one who can never quite get it right, the needy one who isn't sure what she wants.
And all of it, all this waiting, it's necessary and a space I need to be in for a while, but it's tiring. It's making me a little quieter, taking a little more time for personal reflection.
I was talking tonight to my friend about when God shows up.
God's been teaching me some pretty crazy stuff lately. He's been asking me to trust Him in my relationships (as some of the ones I thought as stable begin to crumble), with my family (as I'm asked to reflect on the relationships I have with those I love the most), to love His people even when I feel weak. Most recently, He's been asking me to trust that when He says He'll show up, He will.
I told H. how I've been going to the church on Fridays, to pray. And how I've been going even when it's cold, and I'm upset, and I'd much rather stay inside and get homework done. And how every time I go, God's met me there.
Who am I that the God of the Universe meets me in such a place?
I go to pray for relationships, for community, for my little town and the people I love.
And it is I who walks away changed
I told her that I've been reading through a Psalm a day as part of a homework assignment, and it is in this regular practice that God has met me.
He's showed up
He has whispered my name in this wilderness and called me Beloved
He holds out His hand and asks for my heart
He calls me blessed, chosen, His
Who am I that the living God of Israel looks on me with love and calls me His?
It doesn't always feel like a gift
This wilderness, where my heart is being gently attuned to the sound of God's voice, it isn't easy.
Relationships fall apart, addictions stay, nothing makes sense and in all of it I have asked "God, where are you?"
His response is the same, "Right here."
Right here, in the wilderness. Right here, beside me. Right here, offering me parts of Himself if only I'll look, and listen, and wait.

"Therefore I will allure her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her." Hosea 2:14

Today Means Amen

Dear you, whoever you are, however you got here, this is exactly where you are supposed to be

There are the days that empty, and the days that fill. There are days when it feels like my heart is going to explode, when I take in and absorb and receive so much I feel nothing but nourished and fed, taken care of and held.

This moment has waited it's whole life for you. This moment is the lover and you are the solider, Come home, baby, it's over. You don't need to suffer anymore

Today is the day when I sat cross legged in the middle of the room in my 8am class and felt like a little kid again.
Today is the day when I took a walk with people I barely know and listened to them talk about their days and why they are here and all the little things in life
Today is the day when an amazing friend comes in, takes my hand, listens to my story, prays over me some of the most beautiful words I've ever heard, and then we have coffee
Today is the day where I ate lunch with some incredible people, sharing stories and laughter and making memories
Today is the day when I laid on the floor of my dorm room in a patch of sunshine and listened to spoken word poetry
Today is the day when I played a board game for 2 hours, then watched a movie and smiled until my face hurt

The word today means amen in every language. Today we made it, today I'm going to love you, today

Today I can only sit back and look at these people, this life I never thought I wanted, all the experiences that brought me to this place and feel thankful. The healing is hard, but it's the beginning of something beautiful.

Dear you, and I have always meant you, nothing would be the same if you did not exist
This moment is a Hallelujah, this moment is your permission slip to finally open the love letter you've been hiding from yourself
You made it. You made it
Here

Quotes taken from Today Means Amen by Sierra Demulder

Manifesto: You were made for something more

Hand holding, elbows brushing, hips swaying, feet stomping.

The world has come alive, awakening from it's winter, and I am awakening with it.

I can feel the revival stirring inside of my body, feel the rhythm as my heart beats in time, resounding against my ribcage

I want to be free

I don't know anyone but no one feels like a stranger

There is music, and laughter, and dancing, and the world feels like it has been lit on fire, and I want to be on fire too

I want to glow, emit the light that has been cooped up inside of me for so long

I want to shine like the sun as it peeks through the clouds, warming my shoulders, reminding me of miracles

The hot lemonade is warm on my tongue, but comfortably so. It tastes like honey, like promise and sweetness and hope. It is warmth and comfort.

We watch as people move like they were born solely to exist in this moment, like nothing else matters besides this awakening, and I can feel my heart awakening too

I am coming out of a long, cold winter

My bones are still rusty and don't quite remember how to dance but the echo of my heartbeat (sounds like a symphony) is a persistent partner, always inviting me to dance no matter how many times I step on his feet

She says my confidence is coming back, he says the light is returning to my eyes, and I feel it all as I am shedding extra layers

I want to experience what it means to be alive

I play a game of feeling everything, letting it be absorbed into my skin like it is medicine, letting it wash over me like the promise of hope

It makes me giddy

Reminding me what it's like to have a voice, to break free from the shackles of darkness, to grow my own set of wings

It reminds me of being seven, when I still fiercely held on to my light, when the whole world made me insanely happy

Ten years have passed, and I have become more jaded, hardened by the world, and yet I still feel that same awakening inside of me

the same hope and potential and possibility

this could be the start of something beautiful

And I want to fall in love with this moment, and these people, and myself and the birds and the trees and the hills and the sky and everything that seems to call my name, begging me, for this one moment, to be alive

I am poetess, story teller, belonging to the universe and the One who created it all, created to marvel and wonder and be fully alive in every moment while my heart is still beating like a drum inside of me

I was made to feel something more than the weight of the darkness as it wraps itself around my shoulders and calls itself warmth

I remember a few years ago sitting at a kitchen table in a house that didn't belong to me, writing on the back of a grocery list that I want to be enough for myself

I didn't know then that those words would become my cry as I wandered through these next few years of my life

I was, and am, searching for ways to be enough for myself

I am realizing now I don't have to do anything

I just have to exist

in wonder

in grace

in love

there is nothing I can do or not to do make myself enough, I just need to accept that I am

I was

And I always will be

I'm still learning what that means

I'm coming back to that place where I live in honesty, not belonging to another human being but myself, marveling at the world

Sometimes it's easy to write from this place

It's not so easy when you are lacking connection, when the pieces don't quite fit, when you spill your coffee and spend the afternoon in bed and stub your toe on your way out the door

I am learning this too is it's own kind of beautiful

If this is crazy than I want to be that. I want to fall in love with every moment of my one wild and beautiful life, I want to see heaven and God and the divine nature of it all in everything, I want to finally learn what it means to embrace my enough-ness and be free

I want to use these wings to fly