oneyellowbird.

2012-02-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

Defenseless under the night

Our world in a stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light,

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair

Show an affirming flame.

W.H. Auden

Waiting.

2012-02-13T06:53:00.000-08:00

I do not wait well, God. I do not want to wait.

I want now and hurry and immediacy.

I want rush and right this moment.

No, I do not wait well.

But there's something about Your way of coming in these impatient moments. Something about Your stillness and silence as I throw my little fits. As I rant about holiness now and growth for today I notice You sitting close

quiet

unmoved

… waiting.

Your patient way of calm listening hushes my frantic speech.

That way You sit there, unintruding, uninsisting, unfrazzled by my distressed discourse slows my thoughts, provokes curiosity and makes me wonder…

What?

What is it You want? What is it You'll say? What is it You're thinking?

I'm done, Lord, and ready for You to have Your turn.

I can wait

but only if

You

grant me the

grace

to wait well.

Dreamy.

2012-02-10T07:19:00.000-08:00

There is something holy about dreaming.

Dreaming is a hopeful thing. A thing fit with desire. A thing that bridges the now with the future.

I've been a little dreamy lately. Often times, I'll notice within myself a craving to shop (which is oh-so-sad on a grad school budget). Most of the time it's a result of discontentment and blah blah blah I just know I have to resist. But sometimes, it's because something in me is craving change, growth, newness. And today is one of those days.

I want to decorate something. I want to craft a new outfit. I want to take a picture.

I even want to learn to cook something.

I’ve been mesmerized recently by blogs full of pictures so vivid I feel as if I know their scent. I know my little blog will never be a place like theirs, and that’s okay because … well, it’s just not me. But sometimes, just sometimes … it is.

Especially when I’m dreamy.

Oh, C.S. Lewis, you couldn’t have been more right: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

Especially when I’m dreamy.

Today I’m dreamy for a day I’ll be a big girl with my very own big girl apartment I can decorate and redecorate and rearrange with my girlfriends as many times as I want. I want to fill a space with different textures – wood, wool, brick, steel, copper – and the rich tones they carry as their own. I want to match a scent with the space and slowly allow it to be the smell that conveys “home”. I want to serve pretty foods on pretty place settings that make my ladies feel pretty, too.

I’m dreamy for a new pair of shoes. And I want to make a skirt that matches them perfectly. It would be a mustard yellow skirt (in case you were wondering) and it would go perfectly with my navy tights.

I’m dreamy to make a piece of art. Or maybe just to find a new favorite … I want something that can simply hang on my wall, something I can pass by every day, something that can stare at me from the sidelines of life and yet catch my gaze in a startling way. And when it does, I want there to be a mutual reading between the two of us, in an unexpected tear-jerking way.

I dreamy to craft a palette for life - one that gives rhythm and poise and richness to the spaces and places of everydayness. I want to take delight in dishes and bars of soap and the little stitches that make patters particularly warm. I want to live in a place that mirrors my best thoughts and recites the last verses of the poems I haven't yet finished writing.

I'm dreamy to go somewhere new, unexpected, unexplored. I want to pack my bags and then take half the clothes, twice the cash, and jump on a plane to adventure. I want to hear a language I do not speak and eat foods that set my tongue ablaze. I want to not know when I'm coming back.

Sigh. Dreamy.

The wonderful thing about dreamy days is that eventually you wake up. Please don’t pull me aside and remind me these ideals are unrealistic. I know. And that’s kinda the point.

Because in waking up, I remember reality: I live in an old, aged house with white trim with three of the most fantastically wonderful girls I have ever, ever met. I can’t cook to save my life and have little desire to learn and so I get to eat lots of hummus and hot dogs and easy mac (and I know you’re jealous). I don’t own a single dish that matches and all my clothes are from thrift stores.

This “waking up” makes me laugh and shake my head. Though these pictures are ideal, they are also faint, lofty and distant and I’m so grateful the girls next door aren’t. I’m thrilled to decorate and redecorate this little room with all my thrift-store, garage sale finds. I’ll curl up on the couch with my ladies and watch Gilmore Girls.

And I’ll lay down again tonight and give a grateful sigh.

I’ll recall the holy way of creativity and desire and how our God is the source and fulfillment of both.

And I’ll feel His strong embrace and notice His way of union with me…

Especially when I’m dreamy.

all photos via Pinterest, of course

2012-02-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

“It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are -are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Familiar Names.

2012-02-09T18:52:00.000-08:00

God of the world of unknown mysteries…

God of the realm tucked deeply behind that horizon...

God of the land yet untread on this journey...

God of our home still seen,

We seem not to know you well.

We call you by familiar names,

names of dominance and triumph and victory,

but we know little of Your fighting Self.

We call you Creator, Potter, Molder,

but we can name little of Your fashioning way within the corridors of our beings.

We have called on Your name,

and the words have grown stale on our tongues.

Our lips used to quiver to approach You,

but we find You rather familiar,

customary

old, even.

And buried beneath our self-protective layers of isolation

we may name yet another.

Desire.

We remember desire. We recall the days marked by its presence.

We find it is not pressing, it is not growing. No, it is small and weak, withered from long misuse and neglect.

It’s small and unimpressive. It’s languid and just a bit ugly…

But it’s Yours if you’ll have it.

Please have it. Please.

till our lips quake again…

2012-02-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

"We must meet the

uncertainties

of this world

with the

certainty

of the

world

come."

A.W. Tozer

PS - Artwork from some super awesome gents. Everyone should follow this blog. Ev. Er. Y. One.

2012-02-07T19:05:00.001-08:00

"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness."

Martin Luther

A Relentless Piece of Plastic.

2012-02-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

She had blonde hair and a pink dress made of tulle. She was the most composed companion a seven year old could ask for, and for a season of my childhood the two of us were inseparable.

I took her to the library and read her Where the Wild Things Are, and she listened in placid silence. We ventured to the park and I built her a sand castle fit for a beauty like hers. She intrigued me, with her ideal lines and frozen features. She wore high heels and, for that, I though she could do anything. We were nothing alike, I was well aware. And it never bothered me.

Until the day it did.

I remember the particular excursion on that Tuesday afternoon. It was winter and snow enfolded the ground like a disheveled down quilt. Tucked beneath mounds of winter wear, I hustled up the backyard hill. My mom had tied my scarf extra tight around my mouth and tucked my gloves beneath my sleeves so the snow wouldn’t intrude. Pulling my red plastic sled by the yellow rope, out of breath, and warmer for the hilltop hike, I reached my goal. I plopped myself onto the sled and made my lap her chariot. Wriggling the nose of the sled from side to side, I found the perfect position, told her to hold on, and gave a heel-thrust push. It soon became a cycle: up the hill and down again, all with her in hand. When the sled capsized, I hurriedly gathered her and brushed the snow from her face and hair. And when she had enough, we went inside for hot chocolate.

Walking in the front door was my favorite part of sledding. Face flushed from the winter fight, my cheeks quickly thawed as the heat of home kissed them. I can still remember the smell: part clean laundry and part homemade bread composed everything I knew of familiar and belonging and the word “home”.

With snow still melting on my hat, I began to shed my layers. I placed her on the counter, facing me, and told her I’d brush her hair when I was done undressing. I kicked at my boots until they fell with a thud. I shook off my coat and began pulling at my snowpants. I pushed them to my ankles and marched in place until my feet were free. I sat down to work on my wool socks and I noticed something. My legs. All curled up on the floor, my legs were not what I expected. They were short and plump and pale from the cold.

I stared at them for a long moment, half in judgment, half in disbelief. They were something I didn’t expect, though I couldn’t say what I did. They were strange and foreign and mine. Slumped in silence on that hardwood floor, I pulled my knees to my chest and let my palms warm my shins.

Looking up, I remembered her. Her, in all her regal ways. Her, the object of my tenderness. Her, unmoved and unmovable.

Her unblinking blue eyes were fixated on me. On me and on my flaws. Her stare penetrated every layer of winter threads. She was cold, like the whipping winter wind that caused my little heart to shiver; yet she blazed at me, concentrated and relentless, rapidly surfacing my insecurities like the water boiling for hot chocolate. And I decided I no longer wanted hot chocolate.

That was the day it bothered me. It bothered me that we were different. It bothered me that I was not her. But most of all, it bothered me that for all my affection, for my doting and worship, for all my hair brushing and dressing and redressing, regardless of my efforts to make her like me or the mirror-saturated moments of trying to make my hair like hers, the discrepancy between us would not reconcile.

I grew up a bit that day. In the years that followed, that newfound insecurity in my legs traveled through my body like disease – to my round belly, flat chest, big feet, and forming hips. As the infection spread, she mutely looked on from her place on the counter. And it would be years before I could tell her, before I could tell myself…

You lied to me, Barbie.

I didn’t know it at the snowpant episode or the summer bikinis became cool; I didn’t know it at any homecoming dance or when my first boyfriend held my hand. But lie to me you did.

I know you cannot speak, and I know you never did. But words are not the measure of your potent presence. Though your eyes are wide in insisted innocence and your red lips purse in seemingly benign silence, every curve of your body and all your painted perfection told me …

That the measure of a woman is the length of her legs.

That beauty is objective and standardized and uniform.

That women must have little waists and big hair.

That the lovely get the love.

And that the rest of us are left in longing.

You’re a liar, Barbie. You’re a liar.

And oh … How many shelves you sit on. How many young eyes meet yours.

You’re a relentless little piece of plastic. Your voice reverberates through the years, through the changes, and even through this coffee shop. Even now, at age twenty-two, I don’t quite know how to quit you. Recognizing the lies is different from knowing the truth; knowing your power is different than finding my own. But perhaps it is where I will start.

I thought you could do anything, but I was wrong. I have found something you cannot do:

Your frozen lips cannot tell little girls that they are smart and cherished.

Your icy eyes cannot meet women's with any ounce of compassionate knowing.

Your fixed tongue cannot tell the marked mother that she earned her stripes.

Your plastic arms cannot wrap a girl in love or teach her how to silly dance.

And your solid ears cannot receive the words of truth.

True, your lofty limbs may never change or grow, but your heart is fit to match.

You cannot change. You cannot grow.

But I can. And I will.

2012-02-03T03:36:00.000-08:00

I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
Emily Dickinson

Growing Up [Guest Post]

2012-02-02T04:47:00.000-08:00

Today the sky is as wet and gray as it could be. The summer does not want to end, but it must. The sun is hidden, but the world is not black. The trees outside of my room are like hazy blotches of paint. And I…I am watching my hands, and wondering if they are really mine. I glance down, and see how long my legs have become. I remember that I was born twenty years ago, twenty whole years ago. I used to be a child, who was a babe, who was a dream. But my skin is stretching, and my eyes are widening. I am constant, and changing. I am growing so long that directly in the middle of me I am about to break. All these new things that are somehow so old spill out, and scatter in the dirt until suddenly they take root, and stretch their arms and legs towards this gray, gray sky. I am not what I was, but still I am all that I know. I have passed through other days, and those days stick to me, yet they are gone while always being present.

I want to know what it means to grow and to grow and to grow until growth is like breath, heavy breath making my lungs quake and my heart start beating wildly. I want to know what it means to grow and grow until I can go no further, and my head has struck the ceiling of sky, and the sky breaks, and heaven falls through the cracks, and I more than a woman. I am new, and so old all at once.

This is so strange. I look in my mirror framed in dried roses, and wonder where the chubby eleven-year-old went. That careless child who couldn’t match her clothes, and rarely combed her hair. That child who knew the sweetness of autumn air. Where did she go? I look again into that mirror and realize, with shock and indifference,that she never left. Nowhere, she didn’t go anywhere. She only stretched, and wrestled with the wind, and cried, and opened new doors in a young heart that is so old.

It is exciting, and so subtle, very subtle. I am a woman, and I am a child. I am rags being sewn together. I am new, so old. Falling apart, and coming together.

I am being washed with the night, and clothed in the light. I am being drowned by his tears, and raised with his sorrow. I am spinning and spinning seeing different curves at different angles. A new girl at one angle, the old at another. What does it mean to be new and to be old? I have stared out this window before, sometime before in the beginning. The window did not leave, but it is different, constant and changing.

The fairy tree in my backyard remains, but the fairies have changed. They have stretched and dwarfed. Their faces bare more crevices. They are crying and laughing. What has happened to us all? I ask them for a name, and often they will not tell. Are names a secret now or is it too painful for them to tell me? Must they learn to trust me all over again? So I put my head in the branches and tell them sincerely,

“It is me, truly. Do you remember? I am old, but I am new. I am caught in the middle of me, but soon I will break. I am growing up, yes. But is it really as frightening and seamless as that? Do not forget that it is I who was a child, who was a babe, who was a dream.”

It is shocking to be sure, and all must experience it. I am frightened, yes, but I know that eventually I will grow out of my breath, and be all that I should be, knots untied and chasms bridged. At that moment, the first of many mysteries will be revealed. My hidden God who remains with me will collapse the barrier between faith and knowing.

I am a girl looking in a mirror dimly. I am new, so old, and one day I will see him face to face, with my back towards the mirror, and my eyes towards the light. I will be more than I know and all that I should be. More than a woman, more than a girl, more than a babe, more than a dream.

[Noelle Beck is a twenty year old, junior at Moody Bible Institute. Her major is theology. She has lived in the state of Maine since she was ten years old. Before that she lived many places, too many to list here. She thinks that she might want to be a missionary; she knows that she wants to be a writer. She has been writing since she was eight years old. Her goal in life is to understand the Gospel better, and to love people more. The wind is her favorite thing, among other things.]

Blog Elder.

2012-02-01T06:17:00.000-08:00

Recently, my girls and I have come to "name our elders". It began one day when we liked a girlfriend's hair and asked her how she did it. She sweetly gave a mini tutorial (yes, in the cafeteria), and we affectionately named her our “Hair Elder”. Since, we’ve appointed our Fashion Elder, Bachelor Elder, Library Elder, and Cooking Elder. I assure you, there are more to come.

This week I've come to realize that the blog world can be an inconspicuous beast. Let's get real, it's overwhelming, no? Everyone can have their own site, style, posts, and "voice". This tiny-itsy-bitsy, little-read blog of mine is only one among millions.

And I want a Blog Elder.

You know, someone who will weed through all the posts - good, bad, and ugly - and tell me what is worth reading. Someone who will pull up awesome anonymous bloggers that I can't seem to get my hands on and the ones I didn't know to be looking for.

And so…

I thought I would share some of the best ones I know. Give a little blogger love over here, peeps…

These two have to be some of the cutest newlyweds in the history of ever and ever.

This little lady is not only downright precious, but authentically expresses the real stuff of life. She won’t fake it and tell you every moment of married life is blissful, but when a bliss-filled moment comes along you can’t get her to pipe down; she decorates on a budget but writes about resisting materialism and craving contentment. Also, she has some stellar give-aways.

This guy is a favorite gentleman of mine. He’s just awesome. He writes poetry and prose and the occasional rant. You’ll like him, I promise.

This little lass is made of simply good taste. Need I say more?

Justin Taylor on Reformational Theology as it intersects with culture … swoon.

I have an adorable friend who makes everything look unexpectedly cute. She creates pretty things, takes pretty pictures, and loves Jesus hard. Don’t forget to check out her engagement story – simply darling.

Singing is not something I do other than in the shower, the car, my room, or … anyway, it’s not something I do well. But Tim, on the other hand, can belt it out with the best of em. He’s a performer with a Jesus-tender heart. And he is such a superduperawesome writer.

Sigh. If I can't shoot like this, I want to at least be able to afford this magnificent photography duo some day.

Mama Sarah is a dear friend of mine. She loves her babies well and talks openly about the hardships and delights of adoptions and multi-cultural family life.

These girls are some good thinkers. They love Jesus with all their minds in a strikingly beautiful way. Imagine my written rants coming at you in lady-like form and that’s what you get here… can’t imagine it? Well then, you had better take a looksie over here.

I know, I know… for the rest of your day you will be procrastinating your work as you skip from blog to blog … you're welcome.

2012-02-01T06:11:00.001-08:00

2012-01-31T16:11:00.001-08:00

“For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe… They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all…”

(The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, ca., 2nd century AD, trans., Roberts-Donaldson)

"Secret Things" in Yellow Crayon.

2012-01-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

I have known big days. Days I fill with maps and ambitions, dreams and goals. These days, like the cedar chest in my childhood basement, are where I pack my most audacious of aspirations – the book I wrote when I was seven, the gold medal I won at the state gymnastics meet, and the poem that won the school contest. I folded each neatly and tucked them away inside that trunk and wrote “special things” on the side in yellow crayon.

When I was eight years old, someone found my special things, temporarily unpacked them and dusted the inside of the trunk. I remember pretending to be mad. But if I was honest, I was proud of the spilled contents and, in some way, glad for them to be exposed. They were everything I wanted to articulate about my young self, without the strain of vocabulary and poise that works it’s way into adulthood.

When people would ask me about the things in the box, I would smile and tell them they couldn’t see. I told them it was because the things were my special secrets. And then I would leave the lid unlocked.

I was pleased with my stash of cherished items. They were ambitious and dreamy and quite ideal.

And then there was my jewelry box. It was a cheap, petite box made of black plastic and lined with fake velvet. It probably wasn’t bigger than a bottle of perfume and didn’t cost more than $3.95. But it was sacred. While my commanding cedar chest held all my lovely dreams, this little box held everything only I could see and hold and understand. Nothing was impressive; just little bits of paper, a particular paper doll, and a ring I found one time. But, regardless of the item itself, each tiny trinket told a story of hushed desires and unforgotten dreams, whispering, Don’t forget. Don’t be deceived by those dreams in the chest. This is who you really are. This is what you really want.

I hid that box under my mattress for years, and only found it when my family moved from that little grey house on Westview Drive. I remember snatching it up hungry, reminded, and protective. Remember how in grade school teachers would always ask what one thing you would save from your house in case of a fire? I would answer something cliché, I’m sure. But in the back of my mind I would rehearse the fire drill, planning the route to and from my little black box. At the end of the day, that box held everything I needed. Everything I really was.

I don’t know what ever happened to that cedar chest in the basement. That book I wrote, the doll I sewed clothes for, and the teddy bear I had as a babe are long since gone, and I felt no pain at their going. But the little black box is a different story.

I’ve been living in some big days. I’ve made plans. I’ve spoken dreams. I’ve even sounded vulnerable. But … want to know the truth? At the end of the day, at the end of myself, are little scraps of paper. On them, are words I cannot yet speak or articulate. They are desires I cannot face and hopes I dare not anticipate. They are nightmares I cannot shake and memories I will not forget. They are wounds and scars and delights and desires – but only those from the sacred territory of my heart. They are not the shiny ones made of glitter, but the ones too dingy to be inquired upon. They may not peak much interest or spike much curiosity, even if the lid was left unlocked. But they are mine. And in some strange way, they are more me than I know how to be sometimes.

I have known some big days lately. You know, the ones like my cedar chest. They’re ambitious and exciting and shout of anticipation.

But tonight isn’t one of them.

Tonight is little. Like a jewelry box.

There’s not much noise in this room, no one laughing or crying, no one speaking or teaching or listening. There are no words passing through this space about what should or could or will be done. No, tonight is small and silent. Like looking up at a star speckled sky all alone on a clear night. With your head thrust back and the horizon no longer in view, the dark mass quickly spins farther and farther away. Leaving you smaller than you could have imagined.

Yes, tonight is like that. Tonight I have no big words, no big plans. I have no false vulnerability to offer and no impressive secrets.

Just some scraps of paper whispering

don’t forget.

2012-01-28T05:57:00.000-08:00

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only

love can do that.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength To Love, 1963

Morning Meetings.

2012-01-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

in the silence between whispered pleas

in the space between my fears

in the longing between here and there

in the breath between this turning page

meet with me.

2012-01-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

W.B. Yeats

Oil painting by Mike Murach

2012-01-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

In snow thou comest --

Thou shalt go with the resuming ground,

The sweet derision of the crow,

And Glee's advancing sound.

In fear thou comest --

Thou shalt go at such a gait of joy

That man anew embark to live

Upon the depth of thee.

Emily Dickinson

Morning.

2012-01-21T06:02:00.000-08:00

This morning is fragile and still

and my heart is fit to match.

I dare not speak into the silence

but I welcome You come.

Come and sit with me and tell me of Your dreams -

of how You cared for me while I slept

and how You woke me up;

of how You watch the one ones I love

and how You look at me with divine imagination.

Come and be still with me.

I may doze off once or twice…

2012-01-16T04:50:00.000-08:00

"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"

Martin Luther King Jr. is celebrated today, Jan. 17, 2012, just two days after he would have turned 83 years old.

We are the Church.

2012-01-15T20:08:00.001-08:00

It was going to be a silly Sunday night. After community group, I was going bowling with an awesomesauce group of fabulously funny people. For the long weekend, we had made plans to party every day … pa-pa-pa-party every day.

And then community group went late. We talked forever about the closing words of Nehemiah. We split into group and confessed sin long undisturbed. We laid hands on one another. We prayed long, slow prayers. We pleaded on one another's behalf. We talked without rushing. We held hands. And we got done far too late for bowling.

And I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

Tonight, I'm home and my girls are still out. And my soul is so fed. Tonight was life-giving and nourishing. I am overwhelmed by what it means to be the Church and what an honor it is to have siblings through Jesus. I am stunned by how quickly we became family and by the miraculous way we are present to one another and sacrificing for one another.

We are the Church. And it's miraculous. And I almost missed it.

2012-01-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation."

- C.S. Lewis

2012-01-12T19:02:00.001-08:00

For my Ladies.

2012-01-11T13:41:00.000-08:00

"I wasn't made to be her."

I had to say it out loud last night as I walked out of the Bennet Center last night. It had been just a tad too long since my last work out and, well, the size two on the bike next to me was just a bit too much. The holidays - oh, how I love you - were a refreshing break from exercise and health conscious eating. And, seriously, I don't regret it in the least. We need breaks. We need holidays. We should eat the sugar cookies for breakfast with our best friends and get giddy over candy covered houses with the little ones we love. Not everyday. Not normatively. But every once in a while, a little indulgence does the heart good, I think.

And then we come back to reality – back to routine, back to discipline, back to the every-day choices that simply have to be made because not every day can be a holiday. We put our running clothes back on and lace up our shoes. We go back to the gym and we hit the "start" button the treadmill. Just staying on, just putting one foot in front of the other again and again and again is half the battle.

And the other half is walking out the door.

There's something about the gym, isn't there, ladies? Something mesmerizing and enchanting. Something that tells us how big we are and how small we need to be. Something enticing about those mirror-lined walls and knowing that the girl on the machine next to you has been going for 32 minutes already. That "something" makes our thighs feel heavier and fit our hearts to match.

I mean, what did we expect? We see that skinny lady on every channel, every billboard, every magazine cover in every check-out line. Her skinny little legs and thin arms resting on narrow hips entice our curiosity - how does she do it? what does she eat? what is her workout routine? She is powerful, isn't she? Or at least so she seems. And we want to be her. We want her appeal and her authority and manipulative manner. We flip the pages and find just the tutorial we seek. But soon enough we know, we lost the power in those how-to pages because the manipulation they taught was the manipulation of self. We learned to feed ourselves less, to convince ourselves to do more, to treat ourselves with distain in a self-perpetuated effort toward flat tummies.

I’d like to imagine there was a day when the message was subtle and subdued, like a whisperer behind our ears saying, “Perhaps if you lost 10 pounds…” But our culture has long since traded subliminal messages for outright demands: nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, feel sore or feel sorry, ten exercises for the body he can’t resist. Women’s bodies sell, well, everything. Women’s bodies sell furniture and hair cuts. Women’s bodies sell allergy medicine and hamburgers. Women’s bodies sell sports jerseys and dental floss and tires.

Hmmm, I suppose here we have reached the bottom line. Women’s bodies sell. We live in an economy where the bartering chips are slender torsos and toned backs; where the slim are praised the rest of us regular folk have learned to think if we could just tighten that up there or just loose a couple of inches here…

For me, this lie [yep, ladies, let’s call it what it is…] is never more present than when I’m trying to do just that. When I’m in the weight room looking up at the subtitled TV I can’t help but notice how “things” are so much different on my side of the screen. Things here in my world are softer and rounder and, yeah, they jiggle a bit more than that model’s. I sweat and work hard and put one foot in front of the other…

And then I walk out the door.

If I let myself, it is easy to be sucked into the world of self-manipulative perfecting. To say, just one more lap around the track or I’ll just skip lunch today is easier that you would think. It is astounding to me that after so many years, so many counseling courses taken, so many sermons spoken from these lips how quickly I can be caught up in the mess of the media-woman. In an instant, I can trade lessons and learning for trying to get some space between my thighs.

It’s easy to sell out for a body that sells, isn’t it.

But our Creator didn’t create me to be a size two. He didn’t make me with long legs and a flat stomach. No, He made me to be silly and creative and bold and to put my foot in my mouth a remarkable number of times each day. He made me to think and debate and to learn and read. He gave me legs to run and arms that lift and sweat to sweat and feet to walk out at the end. He gave me an identity that is hidden in the cavities of His being so that I don’t have to go to the gym to find it.

And I’m not alone. You’re with me in it all, friend. You, too, have been crafted and created in a specific way for a specific purpose. You have value and worth encoded on your DNA because of the hands that formed you – so don’t sell out! Don’t trade your particular imprint of the Creator for a generic Barbie figure. Don’t buy into the economy of beauty and body, because that asking rate is that you surrender your unique self. And that is far too high a price to pay to be like everyone else.

I know it’s hard, girl. I know. The voices are loud and the pictures are everywhere. But I have this itsy bit of hope tonight – hope in remembering how our God has fashioned each of us with tender fingers of delight. He has given us potent lips that speak truth, strong bodies that work hard, and discerning minds to know where the two meet. And it is this same God that will give us the peace to live at home in our skin, the faith to believe His creating pronouncement of “good”, and the courage to walk out the door.

Forebearance

2012-01-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk;
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse;
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust;
And loved so well a high behavior
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?—
O be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

-Emerson

While the World is Waking.

2012-01-10T04:36:00.000-08:00

When the sun is rising

and the day is still

While the world is waking

and before a word has pressed off my lips

You come.

In Your lowly way of humility

and mysterious way of peace

You come.

In Your waiting way

and initiating way

and proclaiming way

and Your way of making all things new.

Come.

And let me be Eastered with You.

Sleepy Gratitude.

2012-01-06T11:59:00.001-08:00

I am so sleepy this overcast Friday afternoon. I’m cozied up in one of my favorite little tea shops with a coffee by my side. I haven’t slept much, and when I have I haven’t slept well. The days keep rolling by, and when I peak at the next few, I’m reminded they won’t stop. There will be more reading and more meetings and more exams and the more I try to forget their existence the quicker they seem to come.

And, shoot man … I’m tired.

But then I remember You. I remember how You met me in unexpected intimacy this morning. Before the sun had gotten up, before my roommates stirred, You found me there on that big brown couch. You came to me in that way You always do – subtle and suddenly, quietly and quickly. You melted the hardness in my heart and unstopped my stored up tears.

It was as if You came to tell me, once again, that it’s really all true – all the mysterious and wonderful and confounding realities that are ours as the Church. The way You sat with me, the way You waited on me, the way You way You didn’t insist on speaking or on silence.

You let me take my time.

You let me speak my mind and rail about offenses. You let me whisper and tell You of my wounds. You let me sing when I noticed Your faithful way of goodness toward me, even though I had my scratchy morning voice. And when my lips quivered and my voice would no be found, well, You heard that, too.

Right now, even thought my eyes are puffy from sleeplessness and my lids are heavy and want to close, the corners of my mouth can’t help but turn as I think on how near You are. Even now. In this little shop. On this dreary afternoon. Here in this heart, You have chosen to come near.

And I am grateful.

2012-01-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

"To believe is to consent to be loved while unworthy."

J.W. Sanderson

To the Girl With the Make-Up Face.

2012-01-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

To the Girl with the Make-Up Face,

Okay. Even though class will come bright and early and there’s reading to do tonight, my mind is stuck on you. Quite honestly, I can’t get you out of my head. You with black-lined eyes, pink cheeks, and glossy red lips. I know what you’re thinking in the brain behind the beauty.

It’s confusing sometimes, I know. Complicated for sure.

Tint here.

Pinch there.

Suck in.

Stand up.

Pull that.

Push here.

Bronze there.

Whiten these.

Tighter skin.

Looser hair.

Big eyes.

Thin brows.

Cover that.

Polish those.

The possibilities are endless, aren’t they? To keep up is run the treadmill of self-sequestering – always trying but never arriving. It’s a battle of unrealistic proportions, but to be female is to fight and to cover your wounds with another layer of foundation.

You stand just feet from me, but really you’re miles away. Your smile seems welcoming but I know you – you won’t let me in, you won’t let me see your heart. I mean, you won’t even let me see your face.

And here’s the thing I’m stuck on tonight: we don’t believe that.

We, Jesus followers, don’t believe that lips should be red and the ones that aren’t have nothing to say. We don’t believe that women with age on their faces should be ashamed. We don’t believe in championing size zero jeans. We don’t believe in devaluing the girl in her glasses, the one with the scars, or the laugh lines who show on the elderly face. We who know Jesus don’t believe in hiding and covering and pretending and distance.

We don’t!

Right … ?

So, what are we doing? What is all this obsessive talk about loosing weight and Sephora and the newest technology in hair removal? What are we doing with our money, our time, our thoughts? Why are we so preoccupied with covering ourselves?

Dare I say it’s because there’s something else we don’t believe?

We don’t believe He’s done it.

I want to suggest tonight that the reason we are fixated on covering ourselves is because we fail to believe that He has done the covering work for us. Jesus Christ, the God-Man, came to earth, took on this flesh, walked this turf, died our death, and rose to life so that He could cover all our ugliness. Somewhere along the line, we stopped looking to Him and started looking in the mirror. We forgot what is really ugly (sin) and, therefore, have forgotten what is really beautiful (Christ). We’re no longer trying to be like Him, but more like ourselves, perpetuating the same kind of façade over and over in hopes that some day we’ll be acceptable because we no longer believe He has made us so.

Sigh. This letter isn’t mean to be a rant, I promise. It’s just that I want you to know that you don’t have to do all that all the time. The hair and the face and the body and the clothes, I mean. You don’t have to spin your wheels and wear yourself out in pursuit of the mirage of self-production. I guess this letter is just to tell you that it’s okay. You’re okay.

At the end of it all, I feel as if I have nothing to say. Because I am you. And this letter best fits in my own mailbox. Perhaps that is the point of all the questions and maybe it’s best to fold this letter in three and tuck it away to find it in three years time. Maybe then I’ll need to remember. Maybe then I’ll need to preach the covering gospel to myself again. Maybe then, if I’ve forgotten, I’ll believe the words pushed from my own pen.

Maybe.

Or, maybe, I’ll quietly set it beside the bathroom mirror.

And in the morning,

when I am sure to have already forgotten,

I’ll choose to believe

again.

Pictures property of inthemakeup.wordpress.com and coisasaleatoriasdaju.tumblr.com via Pinterest.

Twenty Twelve.

2012-01-02T13:11:00.000-08:00

A new year is here! Can you believe it? Well, by now you probably can. I mean, it’s day two into the new year already. Still … I’m excited.

There’s something about a new year. It’s like a new journal and January first is like putting pen to the first blank page; it’s like an empty canvas and a fresh set of brushes. And this year in particular, the last calendar page turned with some oomph. 2011 was full – full of good and hard and weight and waiting and change and growth and goodbyes and hellos. I’m glad to see it go because I’m hoping the whirlwind is coming to an end. But I’m so glad it was mine for the 365 days it lasted.

So.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

The year rang in with some much needed Jesus time in which I was pretty mad at God and, in time, He reminded me He’s a healing God.

February came with Founder’s Week and the humbling reality that is preaching. There, in that pulpit, I found myself to be fully myself and I began to take delight in Him once again as I started thinking hard on the thing we call preaching.

In March I first stepped foot on Gordon-Conwell turf and fell in love. I wanted nothing more than to get there as fast as I could, but I still heard the Lord saying “wait” which raised many questions about what the year would hold.

April brought busy days and that little blasted tumor. In time it brought new rest, new relief, and new hope in our sweet Jesus.

May was a series of goodbyes – goodbye Moody, goodbye nine north, goodbye dear professor-friends, goodbye days passed as a student. Hello scary independence, hello little Chicago apartment, hello nanny job that simply didn’t fit, hello growing up.

In June I learned to wait on Jesus and cooked my first real meal. Yes, seriously.

July was more nannying and discovering that I should never bear children and the disappointment with life of a Jr. High girl who didn’t get asked to the dance.

And then in August everything changed. Everything. God reminded me that He is good and sent me on a little East Coast adventure. Goodbye Chicago, hello Gordon Conwell.

September was full of firsts. Wonderful firsts. Sweet firsts. And so began the infatuation stage of my relationship with Gordon Conwell.

I grew up some more in October and lived in the bliss of this delightful calling that is seminary.

In November my mama and sista came and I made one killer bucket list.

And December came and went far too quickly. I saw some lovely people, enjoyed the Christmas cheer and was my silly self with my nutty siblings.

And here we are in 2012! There’s so much to be grateful for and so much to anticipate. I’m not the New Year’s resolution type, but I do make space to be intentional with the fresh start.

This year, my word is “expectant”. I’m choosing to be expectant of the Lord. That in every dark or happy or hard or blissful moment that He will be there. I’m choosing to expect Him.

In everything. Everywhere. All the time.

Expectant.

2012-01-02T10:36:00.001-08:00

“Humanity is so utterly selfish and so far astray that nothing would suffice for its salvation but that the Son of God should be plucked from the bosom of the Father and be crucified in sacrifice. The indescribable horror of Golgotha is the most terrible and searching judgment on man that could possibly be made: mankind is so bad that that it rose up and, spat in the very face of God and slew him on a tree. None of us can dissociate ourselves from that … to do that would involve us, if possible, in even greater sin by sheer hypocrisy. If Christ came today we would still crucify him, only no doubt with a greater refinement of cruelty than even the Romans were able to think of. We cannot evade the fact that the cross is the most devastating judgment on man and woman, on all of us, that could possibly be imagined. The gulf between God and man is abysmal that Christ had to cry ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ That is the midnight hour, as Kierkegaard said, when we are all unmasked. What then does the cross have to say about the meaning of sin? Sin is revealed in its own act to be attack upon God, and to be something from which God turns away his

face in judgment.”

T.F. Torrence

With Many Homes.

2011-12-29T11:29:00.000-08:00

It’s strange to be heading home already. I mean, I’m leaving my Iowa home and heading back to my New England. I guess the funny thing about these periods of traveling is that the word “home” becomes more nuanced with each mile of highway. Yes, Iowa is home. It’s where my sweet, crazy, funny, complicated, loud , messy, cherished family is. Iowa is the place I find that white house with green shuters that is so familiar that smells like my childhood. It’s the place I’ve taken every Christmas card picture and the place I find the remnants of each growing year. Iowa is proof I’ve grown up and a reminder that I have much growing left to do. It’s the clothes that are too small and the bike passed down to Gracie.

And this bus I’m on will take me back to Chicagoland. Four wonderful years there and, yes, in its own way, it’s home, too. Chicago is where I grew into myself and filled out my personality with character. It’s the place I spent a lot of money, tears, and time. Chicago is where I learned to love photography and writing and studying and friends rightly. It’s the place that holds some of the most wonderful people I’ve crossed yet. From lakeshore drive to Old Town to Streeterville, this crazy, chaotic city became home.

From Chicago I’ll head back to little South Hamilton and to the little aged building that has a room with my “Home Sweet Home” sign on the door. It’s the place I’m becoming more myself and more like Jesus. It’s the place of having girlfriends and lots of reading to do and discovering how much fun living my life can be. It’s a place of expectation to contentment. It’s the place I hope to keep growing. It’s the place when I drop my many bags on the floor I’ll sigh, “I’m home.”

Yeah. “Home” is a weird word. It’s loaded and bloated with years and change and at the same time it is the consistency of belonging and adventure. I’m going home and I’m going to miss it. And that’s okay. Because pretty soon I’ll be back around again.

Self-Given Gifts.

2011-12-29T05:35:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of Gilbaughs. That kinda goes without saying until you get to Christmas Day. See, in most families, everyone buys a gift for everyone. Makes sense, right? Right … until you have eleven people to buy for and you know you'll go bankrupt. Christmas is just less fun bankrupt. So round here, we draw names. This year, Grace drew my name. And gave me the greatest gift I could have asked for….

The little gift-giver herself...

She made me a recipe collection! She made the box with Mod Podge and tissue paper, and she wrote out 50 of my mom's best recipes. Isn't she a stunner? She knew I wanted to start a recipe collection, and she knew that I probably wouldn't do it myself. So this magnificent 10 year old gave me the most appropriate, affectionate, self-giving Christmas gift I could ask for. Can you imagine how long it must have taken her to make the box and pick out the recipes (mama G's got a lot of good ones) and write them out and organize them? Man o man, Gracie Lou. You've just given me #86.

You Take the Graham…

2011-12-28T18:56:00.000-08:00

We have a little post-Christmas tradition in the Gilbaugh household. It involves grahams, a little architecture, and lots and lots of sugar. This year, in typical fashion, Samuel tried to reinvent the gingerbread house, Grace ended up with nothing more than a mound of candy, and Emma's design beat us all by a long shot. We make quite the mess, but it's a tasty one.

Magic is about to happen, I tell you...

This is the official face of the Sugar High

This is Grace's house…filled to the brim with candy. What a smartie pants.

Oh. Emm. Gee. Don't you just want to eat him up?

Samuel and his annual out-of-the-box brilliant idea and its epic fail.

Oh, wait. What's this cutie-petutie smiling about? That's my house, you little hijacker.

Yep! We're messy and unpredictable and pretty sweet, if you ask me.

I can't believe I'm leaving in the morning. Sigh. It seems as if I just got here [well, because I did]. I'm going to miss this crazy mess of a place.

A Dream Achieved.

2011-12-28T09:25:00.000-08:00

It was a morning just like any other …

I walked into the exercise room in the Gilbaugh basement to say good morning to the mama as she peddled away on her stationary bike. We chatted about the morning and the doctor's appointments it would hold and the driving schedule and dinner menu … and then I saw it.

It was unfamiliar. It was new. It was a pull up bar.

I've not been able to do a pull up for a good while. Sigh. I used to be able to do two sets of 50 as a gymnast, and now, well, there's just a bit more to pull up than when I was thirteen. But in a moment of confidence, I reached for the bar and told Mama G that today was the day. I was going to do a pull up.

And…

dun dun dun DUN! I DID!

I actually did TWO! Okay, so more like one and three-fourths.

But still. I did it. Number 58.

Dream achieved.

I Like Us.

2011-12-25T17:01:00.000-08:00

We may be quirky and silly and just a bit awkward, but I like us.

I like the way we can't get through a game without yelling and the way we always spill a cup of tea on the cards.

I like the way we quote favorite movies and requote and requote until we couldn't possibly laugh any more.

I like the way we're all so stinking different and yet we look just enough alike.

I like the way David has become family - so suddenly, so naturally, so perfectly.

I like the way we have our traditions of non-traditions, and enjoy the moments of silly non-conventional Christmas cheer.

I like the way every Christmas we say we should go caroling and the way we never do.

I like Samuel's silly hair and the way my mom rags constantly on him about it.

I like the sound of Daddy's voice as he reads the same Christmas stories every year and the way we all fall asleep in the living room.

I like that nicknames in this gang are the first letter of your name.

I like the way we're all still sitting in the living room, rehashing the same old stories, retelling the same inside jokes, and yes…quoting the same fully movies.

I like our drama and our sass.

Flaws and all. Uglies and all. Oddness and all.

I like us.

Lots.

Retold: Your Christmas Act.

2011-12-25T07:35:00.001-08:00

King Jesus,

It's a stunning and shutting thought, the reality of Your birth. We cannot conceive that You would come as an infant, lowly and childish, immature and undeveloped.

So when You said You confined Your sovereign Self to an infant boy, we made You cute, white, and cliche.

Your deity wrapped in flesh, we could not imagine. So we formed You with plastic instead, making You easy to display and pack away.

See Your manger? It's as clean as we could hope. And that stable? It's tidy and smells like cloves. We cleaned it all up, You see. Because we cannot bear the reality of cold winds and dirty barnyard floors for the Messiah we forgot we were waiting for. We've recreated Your birth. Because the way You did it was too radical, too scandalous, too riveting for our comfortable traditions.

We bustle around and make conversation and sing about silent nights because we could not tolerate Yours; the silent and the night enduring forty years.

Your presumed absence, we filled. We stopped waiting for Your voice. Stopped listening. Stopped watching the skies for a hint of Your affection, presence, movement, vernacular.

And then You came. Not as we expected. Not as we had hoped.

Silent, but wailing because You were hungry and needed the nursing of the young teenage Mary. Beautiful, but only in ways we could not see. Serene, but only because Your Father's sees the days for which "The End" were inscribed.

With these words we are aware, again, that the end is drawing nearer.

And You have promised to come.

And we forgot we were waiting.

Rebirth us this Christmas day. Do Your Christmas act in us once again. Be Emmanuel now, and in Your doing so, birth in us the ache for Your final Emmanuel day.

As we lay our heads down to sleep this Christmas night, would You stoke our weariness again. Because we are wanderers, Lord. We grow faint, even as we fight to ignore our fatigue. And we need You. In Your Incarnated glory. You.

We pray in the name of the Christmas One. Even Jesus.

Amen

Christmas. Finally.

2011-12-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

Christmas mornings are a little atypical in the Gilbaugh household. Like many things, I suppose. For starters, we don't do Christmas early. Nope, no rushing, no waking, no early morning anticipation. We do slow mornings around here. Mom is finishing her work out. Samuel, Andrew, and Alissa are still sleeping quite soundly. The little boys are cuddled up with a book on the couch or wrestling on the living room carpet (not so slow, I guess). But for the most part, morning are quite round these parts. And I'm thinking this morning that that's appropriate. The house is still and quiet, except for a few of my favorite things…

Charlie Brown Christmas album playing in the background. Vince Gauraldi, you know how to do it.

Christmas cookies are on the island in the kitchen and if Sam and I have anything to do with it, there won't be any left by noon.

Our tree is quirky and just a bit silly, I think. But I love it. I love every bear ornament (yes…we only have ornaments that have bears on them on our tree…) because each one tells a story of a Christmas past or a vacation spent or a day of my parents early years with no money and lots of bliss.

I've played countless board games this morning and have yet to win a single one.

Emma is trying to sneak gifts into our stockings, but sneaking anything in a house of eleven is quite a feat.

Christmas books from my childhood are scattered all over this house. Their covers are worn and tattered, and the pages are as well loved as the characters they hold.

B and D will be here soon. And they make the family complete.

All these things are proof to me that Christmas is really here. I was telling my mom last night that I was a bit disappointed in Christmas this year because I'm just not really feeling it - "there's no magic" I told her. She just laughed at me. I think it's that there's no snow. Seriously, sky? Give us just a pinch! But despite the green grass outside, this little list of Christmas ideals remind me that it's here. That He's here. That the day we waited for brings to us the One we waited for. That finally, somewhere in the darkness of midnight, God brought to us Light. When we were cold and alone, we were Emmanuel-ed, and God brought Himself near.

God with us. God in us. God for us.

Merry Christmas.

So Close to Christmas.

2011-12-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

I don't really do videos. Those of you who really know me know it's hard for me to even sit still for a picture (and you've probably heard my classic excuse that photographers are behind the camera for a reason…we are.) BUT ever since I walked through that front door Caleb has been wanting to do nothing but make videos on my computer. It's hilarious! I didn't even know he know it was a possibility! But it's sweet, too. I know soon enough he'll be big and won't sit on my lap or wrestle with me and I'm grateful to have a few memories recorded.

Anyways…

Merry Christmas Eve from Caleb and Co.

home.

2011-12-23T17:12:00.000-08:00

Back with the ones I love….

finally.

2011-12-22T07:39:00.000-08:00

Home.

2011-12-22T06:49:00.000-08:00

Home is the horizon I am chasing,

the Wind that will take me there.

It's the sunrise in the distance

and the rhythm of it's setting.

Home is the space between longing and happiness

and the place the two make peace.

It's is where you are

and where the monsters are gone.

It's the land we call Emmanuel,

it's already and not yet.

K&M.

2011-12-22T05:46:00.000-08:00

There are two people here in this windy city that I simply cannot get enough of. They live on the north side in a little apartment that has come to look like them. They've been married only a few months but live with eternity in mind.

I'm waking up this morning in their living room. Both of them have rushed off to early morning shifts at Starbucks and in the quietness afforded by empty mornings, I'm reminded how grateful I am for them.

Katelynn will always read my face, my voice, my silence before my words. She knows me well and will call me out, build me up, hear me out any time.

Mat knows photography a zillion times better than I do, will always encourage me as a photographer, even when my work is consistently sub-par.

Katelynn eats cookies and pancakes with me for breakfast.

Mat sings about eating cookies and cakes for breakfast while we do.

Katelynn asks good questions.

Mat loves his wife, and therefore he loves me. Mat cares for me well because he knows Katelynn cares for me.

Katelynn always reads my blog [and this post will make her giddy and embarrassed]

I love these two. Really, I do. Last night we went to a new favorite bar of theirs, Gutheries. We played board games and ate pizza and laughed a lot. Kate and I reminisced about how much we disliked each other freshmen year and how that all changed so suddenly. With these people, my heart sighs a little bit. And I love em.

An Old Year.

2011-12-20T09:13:00.001-08:00

It hurts to remember the heels and the skirts and the eyes covered up with thick black lines and too little sleep and hanging on their every word for good or ill.

Santa Clause brought me home for Christmas but didn’t stay awake to meet me at the door. Growing pains snuck up on me like the cold weather and I wasn’t ready.

I woke up to find the necklace I gave you laying at my feet and Charlie Brown paying over and over on the TV and I wanted to walk out into the snow to get some space and remember my dreams.

I keep thinking about the kitchen I cleaned and the paintings I hung and the leaves I pressed and the silence of night and the cold of the day and that little apartment keeps playing through my head like Jingle Bells on the radio.

There are days I wonder if you were real, if you ever really existed. But then I look down and see how you have marked me. Yes, you were real and your tasted lingers on my tongue as I scrape the residue of your passing from the fringes of my heart.

The story I wanted to hear you refused to tell.

The more I think about you the more I remember. You are so far away. You are so far gone. And I am better for having known you and better for having left.

And I want to say goodbye to you, long little season. Because Christmas has come again and there is joy to even my world this time around. Goodbye to all the unfed hunger. Goodbye to all the tears you provoked. Goodbye to paying tribute to you with pieces of self. Goodbye to asking questions into the silence.

I’m going to go now. I will not think of you often, not intentionally at least. But sometimes, in the silence, I am certain you will surface again and I will remember how

a new year

has

come.

And I will be grateful again.

A Month without Make-Up.

2011-12-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

It has been a month. One whole month! Can you believe it? Friday morning, I woke up, looked in the mirror, sighed because I looked like I had been punched in the face by my five-hour night, and then realized … it was the last day of my one-month-make-up-free challenge. Life had been moving fast, to be honest. Finals week has finally come and gone [and it was a week that wouldn’t have warranted much make up, to be honest]..

Here’s the thing. I want to have something to say today. I was hoping that today, as I met my goal and took a victory lap around my little room, that some profound truth would wiggle its way to the surface of my heart and form itself into a sentence for all to hear.

But I don’t. Honestly? I don’t have anything new to say today. I’ve been a month without makeup and this morning I looked in the mirror and couldn’t wait to put it on. It was one of the first things on my mind when I woke and I realized I haven’t come as far as I would have liked. I painted up my face and walked out the door without so much as a thought to the original intentions of the process.

About halfway through the day I caught my reflection in a mirror. And I didn’t recognize myself. Ha, I thought, I’ve said that before. I have. It was at the beginning of the this make-up-less-ness. I would see my face and think, Wow. Seriously. Someone please tell me that is not my face. While looking in the mirror I paused to remember that. And my eyes got just a tad wet. It makes me sad, the ugly in my heart. It makes me sad that so many days of a painted face and I no longer knew what was underneath. What makes me more sad is that after a month of getting reacquainted with my face and growing more comfortable in my own skin that I couldn’t wait to cover it up again; so much so that I didn’t even recognize myself.

I guess there are a couple of things I can say. I’ve learned some little things, and I’ll share them with you if you promise not to laugh.

I have a gazillion freckles. They are everywhere! I’m like a Dalmatian puppy, for crying out loud!

I have really soft eye lashes – nothing beats being able to rub your eyes because you’re not wearing make-up.

When I laugh, I generally cry. I try not to laugh too hard when I have on mascara because it will run. But this last month has held a lot of laughing tears.

When I’m not wearing lip color, I chew my lower lip when I’m thinking and I smack my lips before I speak.

How funny is that? I never noticed these things…But I think I like them.

You know, I’ve been noticing make-up a lot more. I notice how girls have lined their eyes and lips and tinted their cheeks. [I probably noticed because I was insecure about my naked face] And here’s what I’m going to take away from all of this: there’s a face under that. For every girl with a painted face, there’s a face underneath it all. For every made-up woman and every covered blemish, there’s a girl beneath it all with uglies of her own. We each carry a world of woundedness and we do our best to fake it through the day. But sometimes, we just need to be able to take it all off and be accepted and loved and celebrated for what’s underneath – uglies and all. So I’m wondering what that could look like. I’m wondering what it could mean to remember and to act on the knowledge that there is more that what meets the eye. I don’t really know, to be honest. But I think it starts right here. Right inside this heart of mine. It starts with remembering that this one-month challenge is a lifestyle choice, by remembering that even when I wear make-up that I am not allowed to wear a mask. By remembering that there is not alternative to honesty and vulnerability. By remembering that we, as Jesus people, don’t count value in the same way others do. By choosing to let the uglies surface. And by remembering, when that flawless face walks past, that there’s a face underneath that, too.

T.S. Eliot

2011-12-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

"And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness."

An Introvert Day.

2011-12-18T19:32:00.000-08:00

It’s over and I made it.

Finals week has come to an end and I feel as if I’m coming back to myself. Don’t get me wrong, I love school as much as the next girl and actually probably just an itsty bitsy bit more. School brings out pieces of my best self, but finals week? Now that’s a different matter entirely. It’s been over two weeks of long library hours and short sleepy nights. Each morning, I could feel the tension as I walked through the library doors. No, I was not alone in my stress and the silence of that looming room told me so.

But. Now it’s over. I finished my last paper, wrote my last reading report, and turned in my last exam, walking out of the room like a champ. [I actually considered doing a victory lap around the library, but the girl growling in the corner dissuaded me]

Yesterday I woke up slowly and immediately decided that it was Saturday and it was Introvert Day. I laid in bed just a few extra moments because there was no rush. I got up and made me a little Starbucks Christmas Blend french press and sipped it with some Peppermint Mocha creamer. I ate dark Chocolate for breakfast; you know, the 90% cocoa kind that makes for a yummy start to the day.

I read old journals and wrote a new entry. I read some of A.W. Tozer’s The Persuit of God. Oh my soul has been longing for that. I gave some attention to my long-neglected friend, Emily Dickinson, and read each poem out loud with savoring cadence.

I did some crafty little things with some bottle caps I brought back from Haiti. And I finally learned how to make paper cranes.

I did a little Christmas shopping – “little” because I have a microscopic budget and one really cool sibling to buy for – and was reminded how much I dislike it. I wandered around several stores for several hours [okay, only two] and all the price tags and sale signs and people telling me what I needed made my sick. No, seriously. I literally got nauseous and left the mall with many listed items un bought. But, before the queasiness set in, I made two purchases that are pretty super stellar, if I do say so myself. First, I got my selected sibling an awesome gift, just right for them, that they will love. Big whooping yesssss. Second, I bought myself a killer pair of heels. Now, I’m not a heels wearer on a day-to-day basis. But every once in a while, I like to slip a pair on and rock it like it’s 1999. And these, my friends, are instant favorites. Why? Because they’re nude and will go with everything and because they were originally $49.99 and I got them for $29.99. Word.

Won't my strippidy feet look super cute in these pups? Can't wait to try them out.

After my minor vomiting incident [well, I didn’t really blow chunks at the mall. I just got a little overwhelmed and overheated and overshopped. Nothing a little Chic-fil-a couldn’t fix.] I walked around my favorite little sea port town, Gloucester. Oh my, how I love that place. I dream of living there someday. It's probably one of the most festive towns around, and, full of town personality, they have a crab cage Christmas tree. How excellent.

Tearing myself away from Gloucester, I went home and cuddled on my couch and watched Five Hundred Days of Summer. Sigh. I have a love-hate relationship with that movie, you guys. I love that they tell you it’s not a love story at the very beginning, that by the middle of the movie I’m hoping it will be a love story, and that at the end I’m disappointed, once again, that it was, indeed, not a love story. I love the timeline and the sound track. I love Summer’s clothes. But I hate how Summer has no personality, how she is completely selfish and apathetic, how she says she’s aimless but is really just self-obsessed, and how she reminds me of myself every single time. Sigh. Yes.

My night ended with a group of lovely, silly people playing goofy games in a boy’s dirty dorm room. And I just keep thinking how much I love it here. I love this life of mine. I’m genuinely happy for one of the first times in my life [Wow. Okay, Summer. Simmer down there…but really…] I’m so content here. I take so much delight in these people and these places that are all becoming so familiar. I’m full and excited and giddy…

And it’s not even Christmas yet.

Magical.

2011-12-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

it's the week for finals.

everyone is cramming, writing furiously, reading slash skimming slash falling asleep at their desks.

it's dark outside, but you wouldn't know it from the cancer lights and constant humm of typing fingers.

the library is tense and irritable

but

i'm giddy over so many things.

like how we have a

Christmas tree

made of

books.

like how there are papers to proof
reading to record
and Greek verbs to memorize

but

i just grabbed some besties
and went to dairy queen
for a little nine o'clock study break.

like how we giggled a lot

and stopped to look at the

christmas lights on the way back.

like how i'm listening to dean martin, "my kind of christmas"
and reading the psalms
and calling it studying because it is

like how i can't stop thinking how wonderful this all is.

that i live here.

with these people.

and i love it.

it's magical, really.

Robert Frost.

2011-12-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

"A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."

"Little Toy Gun" by honeyhoney.

2011-12-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

A new favorite group, honeyhoney. And this is pretty much how I feel about finals week. :)

Saying I'm Sorry.

2011-12-10T05:41:00.001-08:00

I won't soon underestimate the words "I'm sorry". They're potent and powerful. They change things.

Yesterday I had the privilege of apologizing to a childhood friend for some long-time hurt. I thought if I apologized she would win, she would be right, she would have the upper hand. But bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. There were wounds between us, some spoken, some unspoken, that were only festering with time, festering with years and weeping with harsh words spoken carelessly. We played the part of childhood friends well, I would say. Seeing each other at holidays and hastening through coffee dates while pressing words from sardonic, toothy smiles.

And it was all my fault. How do these things happen? How can one little heart be so immensely wicked? How can someone studying for ministry have such malicious intentions? How can lies become truth so quickly and willingly? How did she stick with me? Why didn't she write me off long ago? How can we still be the Body even after so much destruction and vindictive maligning?

Because…

I won't soon underestimate the words "You're forgiven". They're potent and powerful. They change things.

Wishing for Less Love.

2011-12-09T08:27:00.000-08:00

“Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life – the work which he loves, through in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child – he will take endless trouble – and would, doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and recommended for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.”

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, page 34-35

We are Homeward.

2011-12-09T05:28:00.000-08:00

now we are homeward

and when we arrive there,

it will be as morning.

all things will be new.

we, Your glad people,

surging with peace and justice,

with You and like You.

call us to the sky,

make us new and we will be

in easter joy,

unafraid,

and

unweary.

until then

we’ll carry among us the marks of death

and the resurrection life of Jesus

in whose name we pray.

amen.

reflections on "Prayers for a Privileged People" by Walter Brueggemann in anticipation of Jesus.

Little Town.

2011-12-07T09:02:00.000-08:00

O little town of Bethlehem, you look so tiny on that hill. The way you’ve tucked yourself round with grassy hills reminds me that you are the young one among these little towns. With small stars and still air, all is silent this night. Each baby tucked in bed, every parent resting their heads; every eye closed, every shepherd dozed off. Even the sheep are asleep.

But while you’re lying there in the dark, there’s a star that stands among the rest!

While you’re lying there in peace, the black expanse is ripping open like a piece of cloth. There, against the night sky, light-filled figures bellow, “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid!”

But you’re not.

You’re not afraid.

You’re not even awake.

They say, “He’s here! He’s here! He’s finally here! The King of heaven has come to earth and He has picked you, O little town! He’s sleeping in your manger tonight; right there, right over that hill, right beneath your starts! You don’t have to wait anymore!”

But you’re not.

You’re not waiting.

You’re not even awake.

O little town, you’re missing it! God wrapped Himself in the flesh of your kind and stepped down onto your turf tonight. Little one, wake up! There’s another Little One here among you tonight and He is the One you’re heard of, the One the stories are about, the One who will be your Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace!

O little town, you missed it.

You missed it.

The honor of host was yours, and you couldn’t stay awake. It was once written of you, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” (Micah 5:2) But the pen must now continue: “there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7)

You missed it…

Tonight is a silent night.

The sky is black and speckled with little starts. The air is cool and still. The hills are covered in frost and each blade of grass stands motionless in the winter air. I’ve tucked myself in once again. Knees pulled to my chest and blankets wrapped around, I can’t help but think on your night of slumber. In my tiny room, in this little town, this silent night is much like yours. These eyelids of mine are heavy, too, and I lower my pointing finger.

Because I’ve heard stories as well; stories of a night when He will come again and sweep His Bride away to be with Him. I’ve heard the sky will slash, the King will come, and His will join Him! These tired pages in my lap on which host your narrative remind me

to be ready, to be waiting, to be awake.

And I am.

Everything in me cries out for my Love to come! To rend the heavens, to come down! To burst through the sky with authority and promise and pull me toward the sky to His side. My heart aches, my eye squint, my mind longs
in
waiting.

Silent night after silent night.

And from the dark stillness

of this midnight hour

comes the hopeful whisper

“perhaps tonight is the night.”

"Bethlehem at Night", property of http://tools.afsc.org/slideshow/twc.html

Silent in Night.

2011-12-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

The sun has set on our day. Our best ambitions are now to be put to rest. All is silent in night.

No sun to reveal. No warmth to calm. No rays to brighten.

Nighttime is proof that we are human – alarms are set, doors are locked, covers are pulled over our heads. Questions mark these dark hours: who’s there? what’s that? did you hear? We turn on the fluorescent lights, the music, the TV, but none can be the sun to us.

We remember we are fragile

feeble

frail.

The shadows outside our windows are all too familiar. They house the unknown, the uncertain, the unpredictable. Their dark shapes linger around our well-protected lives and cross our thresholds dismissingly. We find them crouched under our beds and as monsters in our closets. When we lay down to sleep, we find the worst of them have waited for us there. And so begins the long night within.

We remember we are temporary,

tired

terrified.

When will the sun rise again? When will all be brought into the light? We strain to keep our eyes open, fixed on that horizon. We wait for just a hint of a single ray. And we know You’ll come! And in that confidence we curl up our legs and pull our knees tight against our chests. We will wrap ourselves in these covers and wait. We will watch. We will hope that soon dawn will be ours.

You will be ours.

The Son will be revealed. All will be calm. All will be bright.

We wait

as all is

silent

in

night.

Day Nineteen.

2011-12-05T09:12:00.000-08:00

It’s Day 19 in this make-up-free process. Day 19.

To say that today is better than Day 1 is an understatement of disproportionate quantity. I’ve had a lot of questions about my last post on the topic. A mixed response, to be honest.

Several people have said what I shared about insecurity seemed personal, intimate, or private. I think that interpretation is interesting. I mean, yeah, it was a little personal, but only ever so slightly. I think it’s simply female.

Some have reminded me that make up isn’t evil. And I’ve reminded them I know it isn’t.

A couple girls say they don’t know if they could do it. A couple have asked to join me. One girl actually has.

I’m so grateful for the conversation this has produced. Seriously, I didn’t think many people would read it, and so the response has been such a fantastic surprise. And, you know, I think conversation is the point. I think the best we could hope for is to talk about it – to talk about our insecurities, our fears, our faces, our Jesus, our uglies, our sin, our hiding. Because unless we’re talking about it, we’re living in isolation. Why not chat about make up? Why not talk about how painful the unmasking can be? Why not chat about the hidden parts our lives? Why not? Well, because it’s freaking terrifying, that’s why. But I’m slowly finding that it’s so, so worth it.

Anywayssss.

By today, Day 19, I’ve gotten used to my face. Ha, I know that sounds silly. But seriously, about three days ago I started recognizing my face in the mirror. I couldn’t have named the process that way at the time, but once I did it saddened my heart. How far I’ve come from being comfortable in my own skin. Though this make up-free process is just surface level, it’s striking to me how unfamiliar I am with myself. Just as I didn’t know the face beneath the make up, I didn’t know these insecurities where here underneath. And they, too, are becoming more familiar. It is certainly more commonplace now for me to talk to Jesus about my insecurities.

I didn’t before.
Because I didn’t have to.
Because I fixed each one myself.
Or at least covered it up.

But if there’s one thing I’m seeing more clearly through this process, short as it has been, is that make up is just once facet of the numerous ways we hide ourselves. I’m not as far from Eden as I would have liked to think. There are insecurities and wounds that are much deeper than the skin and bigger than fig leaves or foundation can fix. There are places in my heart that still believe lies from billboards and magazines and pretty little snakes who flatter with their slithering, sly selves. I would have like to say I was beyond that, more mature spiritually than that.

But. Well. I’m not.

I’d like to say that by now I have an answer for the lies. Or at least some will power to speak against them. But the thing is, the serpent rarely comes to us gnashing his fangs and rattling his tail. No, he comes much more nicely, more covertly, much prettier and usually airbrushed. Not threatening or terrifying, just questioning and spinning sultry stories in which we are the main character. No, he never calls it pride, just self-esteem; not self-centeredness, just self-improvement. His words are pretty, and, well, that’s all we’ve wanted to be.

Thank God the story doesn’t end there.

Before that Genesis three narrative ends, we’re given a promise, a promise that is for us on this side of Eden today as well.

Us, in our fig leaves.
Us, with out naked faces.
Us, with our inner uglies.

It’s a promise of salvation and a promise that keeps on saving us today. And I think it can save us from even this. I mean, I think He can. And I think He will.

A Waiting People.

2011-12-03T05:35:00.000-08:00

We are a world of waiting people.

Waiting for the bus.

Waiting for the next available teller.

Waiting for them to find a cure.

Waiting for the light to turn green.

And we are not a patient people.

We tap our feet

fumble with our keys

and roll our eyes

to hurry you along

because on the other side of this wait

is more waiting to be had.

There is another line

another appointment

another train to catch.

And in this quiet morning moment

we know

we have had

enough.

Enough!

Enough days unsatisfied

undefined

unfulfilled.

Enough with the waiting for the next better

bigger

grander.

Our longings are of a different breed

and

we wait because we do not know what else to do.

We’re waiting for You.

And no amount of foot tapping

key fumbling

or eye rolling

will quicken Your steps.

We’re just waiting.

Longing.

Hoping.

Watching.

Would You please come soon?

We’re waiting.

"Morning Poem" by Mary Oliver.

2011-12-02T05:54:00.001-08:00

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Marked.

2011-12-01T05:30:00.000-08:00

A strange thing has happened over the last 70 plus hours. Maybe that’s not quite fair to say because the strangeness about the last few days is that nothing has happened. I mean, nothing has happened. Everything has been perfectly usual in my daily routine: I’ve gotten up, done my quiet time, gone to the library, eaten lunch with friends, gone back to the library, gone to class, eaten dinner with friends, gone back to the library, and gone to bed to do it all again the next day. It’s all very normal.

And that’s what is a bit bizarre. Because, you see, last week wasn’t normal. Nothing about my time in Haiti was usual or ordinary, but here I am, back in the common routine. And last week feels either non-existent or months away.

My heart is sad and bit scared by this. I’m sad because what transpired between me and my Haitian friends and our God was sweet and intimate. I’m sad because it would be a shame to forget and it feels like that is what’s happening. Life is going on as usual and that doesn’t seem to do the experience justice. There aren’t people here who can relive those memories with me or practice my Creole or crave some beans and rice. And that’s okay, I suppose. Just rather unfortunate.
This morning I was feeling particularly dispirited about all this. Lying on my couch in my baggy sweats and massive amount messy hair as the sun crept into my room, I told God I feel a little lonely in it all. I told Him I feel like no one can relive the memories, and, what’s worse, I feel myself forgetting them. I talked to Him about how last week feels like a dream and today feels like waking up. I can’t remember the details, my mental pictures are vague, and it feels easy to shake off like the sleepiness of a long night’s sleep. There’s nothing from that world I can bring into this one. It feels quite fanciful and “other-world” and, in some mysterious way, it is. I laid my head down on the couch and propped my feet up on its arm. Lying on my back, I stared at the ceiling and talked to the God beyond it. I told Him all about it – where my heart’s at, what I’m afraid of, and how I don’t know what to do about it.

And He showed me my feet.

Yes, my feet.

As they lay crossed at my ankles, raised up on the arm of the couch, I notice fresh lines on them.

Yes, my friends. I have some stellar Chaco tan lines.

[Haahaa….It is completely evident that I have broken every toe I have. Seriously. Every. Single. Toe.]

It seems so silly now, and I’m even a bit embarrassed that this is what it took for God to speak into my little heart. But when I saw them I thought, “That! That is what I took from Haiti! Haiti did mark me. Something did cross the border line.” Now I’m not saying the only thing I took away from Haiti is a tan (though I certainly wasn’t ungrateful for a little sunshine smooch), but the lines are evidence that the trip was real, that it happened, that it made its mark on me.

Okay. I know it’s a bit silly and maybe seems ridiculous, but I’m grateful that even when people stop asking how it was, even when all the stories are told, even when all the laundry is done and the pictures tucked away somewhere deep in the abyss that is my closet, there will be quiet mornings lying on my couch with Jesus when my eyes fall on my feet

and I remember
again.

Me and My Uglies.

2011-11-30T09:22:00.000-08:00

Okay okay okay. Ladies, listen up. This one’s for you.

First of all, wouldn’t that into have been better if I was a DJ? I’ve always wanted to be a DJ…

Second of all, I’m doing something new and I think you should know about it. There’s probably only like three of you reading this, and that’s okay. Maybe even good. I want to share it, nonetheless. Remember this I made, with all the 101 things I want to do in 1001 days (HOLLA #47)? Well, I’m currently making my way through #27: go one month make-up free.
I first felt the push to do this when my pastor (That’s right, my pastor. I think I may have maybe possibly finally landed at a church home! What-WHAT?!?) preached on the Proverbs 31 Woman. When he announced his Text for that Sunday’s sermon, I thought, Oh, I’m sorry…did I just roll my eyes out loud? It’s just that…arg…. I’ve heard “that sermon” so many times. I’ve heard about the ideal woman and how great she is and how she’s beautiful and strong and always employee of the month and makes cute homemade clothes for all her kids and cooks skillfully for the masses and I’ve always walked away thinking, yeah, I’d like to be Super Woman, too. But seriously? If my lamp doesn’t go out at night (v18) and I’m up before sunrise (v15), even in my typically over-caffeinated state, you had better run.

But. He didn’t talk about her that way. Instead, he asked a fabulous question:

What would a culture look like if it championed this kind of woman? What would a community look like if, instead of pointing to the models and celebrities on the covers of magazines, we pointed to this kind of woman as an example for our little girls?

It’s a great question, and one I don’t know that we’ll ever have an answer to. I don’t know that it’s possible for us to answer because I don’t know that we’ll ever see a community or culture do it, unfortunately. So, out of a desire to hope for the impossible, starting in my own heart, I decided to begin by giving less value to that which is exterior in anticipation of growing greater value for that which is interior. Make-up just seemed a practical place to start.

Today is day 13, and I have a few thoughts on the journey.

The first day was rough, if I’m honest. I’m not usually honest, especially about insecurities. But here I think it’s important. The day was hard because, throughout the day, I kept catching glimpses of my reflection and felt like I looked like a zombie.

Haahaa.

Several times throughout the day I regretted putting it on my list and jokingly (but totally not…) wondered if I could change it without getting “caught”. I kept thinking my face looked naked. Ha, I suppose it was.

But something surfaced in my heart that I didn’t know was on the interior: I felt devalued. I didn’t feel value-less. I didn’t feel worth-less. But I felt as if I had a little less of each.

Now, we hear this from others out there in the big, bad culture often. I’ve talked to high school girls about placing their value in Christ and not in their hair or nails or clothes or … make-up. I’ve thought it silly when a girl couldn’t go a day without it and maybe even (in my typical arrogance) thought I was just a tad holier because I could. I’ve even preached entire conferences on the issue, for crying out loud! But the last thirteen days have revealed that when it comes to this issue, on the inside I’m still a fifteen-year-old little girl.

I’ve been embarrassed when talking to guys, thinking they were staring at my un-mascara-ed eyes.

I’ve avoided large groups twice (Day 4 and Day 9) because I felt ugly.

I’ve gotten to the end of the day and found I’m carrying a load of accusations of inadequacy from the Accuser.

And all this from 13 days in my face.

Did you hear that? In my face. This is my face. This the me! Only thirteen days into being honest on the surface level, and this load of ugliness has risen to the surface.

And I’m so grateful! Because if make-up can cover-up these things in my heart, I need to get rid of it so that I can finally see the ugliness that is within. I need to see my insecurities so that I can take them to the cross. I need to see the blemishes in my character that trust in appearance so that I can run to Jesus with them and say, “Here! Help! These hurt!”

I don’t want just a little foundation, blush or mascara rob me of it.

And so …

I’m wondering…

Could it be possible? Is it possible to answer my pastor’s question, I mean. Could we see a picture of what a culture that champions character over cosmetics could look like by being that community of radical values? You. Me. Together, could we figure out what it looks like to prize this kind of woman, to point to her as an example for our little girls and even the little girls in the mirrors? I don’t have answers yet. I’m still sitting with some internal uglies that are alive and well. They haven’t gone away, but the thing is I’m sitting with them at Jesus’ feet. I know this process doesn’t necessitate going make-up free. I’m curious, though, if we could start there. It seems like it could be worth it. I know there’s room for you and your uglies here, too.

Advent Longing.

2011-11-29T04:03:00.000-08:00

This world of our is pretty and predictable, and we like it that way, God.

We wake when we want, we eat what we want, we wear what we want, we do what we want. We have our way without thought or care and call it the "American Dream". We've built this kingdom, and isn't she a beauty?

It took years to form her - decades of work, miles of land, and just a little spilt blood. And we said it was "good". We are self-proclaimed, self-secure, self-reliant.

And we've forgotten…

That just outside our windows, just outside the door, just across the street, just across the pond

Lingers the residue of that which brought us here.

The stranger spurned, the outsider rejected, the poor taken advantage of, the foreigner killed just in case.

We are a creating people, and what we have made with our soiled hands is certainly, certainly not good. We've made a mess of things, haven't we.

And we need saving.

We've heard some stories, old ones, dear ones. Ones that makes us wonder…

Could You come? We've heard some call You a re-creating Creator. We've heard of One born to make things like us into things like You.

Even our little, grimy hearts have hope.

O come, oh would You please come, Emmanuel.

Haiti.

2011-11-28T14:01:00.001-08:00

Sigh.

There is so much to say and today I feel the weight of how insufficient words can be, especially when not spoken face to face.

To report on my last week seems a daunting task, to say the least. I use “report” quite intentionally, because it seems it is all I am able to do. It seems silly to even try to relate my time in Haiti and all that God has done and is continuing to do in my tiny, tender heart. Laughable is the thought that I could do it justice here on a little-known blog in type. And that makes my heart a little sad, if I’m honest. I have so many stories and just a few pictures, and, I suppose, those are things I can share with you.

But really…

I want to feed you some beans and rice and teach you how to make Haitian coffee in a gregg. I want you to shake hands with Biken, my long time little Haitian boyfriend (I have to stop saying that, he’s sixteen now) and I want you to kiss his mama, Madam Gerrison, on the cheek. I want to sit quietly with you as we listen to the choir sing and wonder what the beauty could mean. I want you to hear the roosters crow at 4 am and wake you again just in time to see a Haitian sunrise. I want you to smell the tent villages that house thousands of Haitians still. I want you to take a shower in a bucket and pee with the tarantulas.

But I just can’t. And that’s the reality that makes this task disheartening. So I’ll do what I can. I’ll give it words. I’ll tell the stories. In time, I’ll post the pictures. I just want to say, I do it a little hesitantly and a little bitterly. Hesitant because I don’t want to make light of the experience the way too many words and stories with happy endings can. Bitterly because, well, I want to be having coffee with you instead.

So here it goes.

When our flight landed in Port-au-Prince I felt the first charge of anticipation. The long to-do list that led up to that moments robbed me of the excitement I should have, would have otherwise felt. But as the landing gear lowered and the wheels hit the runway, I couldn’t wait to practice my Creole or smell the burning sugar cane. We got through customs without a single issue – God is so good! We brought suitcase after suitcase of medical supplies, knowing if they were found they’d be confiscated. They weren’t even unzipped. Only our God, friends. Only our God. After the four hour Haitian taxi to HAFF (Haitian American Friendship Foundation, the missions agency we work with) on the northern plateau, we ate some yummy beans and rice and slept hard.

The morning came early, as it always does in Haiti. The sun gets up, we get up. The trick I’ve found is to get up just before the sunrise (around 5am) to catch the sky in her waking beauty. I can’t tell you how many moments I’ve spent on the edge of HAFF property talking with Jesus as the sun sneaks onto the horizon. Those are some sweet times, my friends. Then I’d tiptoe back to the dorm and wake my sissies for the day. One of my favorite things about this trip was teaching my younger sibs the little things – like how to purify the water every morning and the best way to scare away the tarantulas and cockroaches out of the outhouse and to get excited about beans and rice twice a day.

Once the day was going, we’d head to the school, teach some all-school devotions then assist with some English classes (“Assist” is a loose word. We sat in and let them make fun of us in English, chalking it up to good practice for them. So fun.) and other odd jobs around the campus. All this is pretty typical short-term stuff and I think they’re good things

But.

The greatest part was that several times while the team was doing this, I got to steal away to visit old friends. Magatie, my old Creole tutor, was in the hospital. Oh, sweet lil thing. She has both Denge and Malaria and from the fever lost her first baby. Oh, how my heart hurts for her and with her. so I took a morning to go sit with her in the hospital and held her hand and prayed over her and sang with her and introduced her to my sisters. I hugged her mama, who was my Madame (sort of like a “second mother” or “nanny” while I was there five years ago). I told them how I missed them and care for them and even for all my words, I couldn’t change a single thing. I don’t think I spent much of than day with dry eyes.

Monday was the milk program. Mama’s bring their babes to be weighed and checked for worms and malnourishment and receive a weeks worth of milk and a chiah plant (this is a miracle plant, really. You can cut a stalk and stick in the ground and it multiplies like bunnies – gross comparison, huh? But seriously, it’s full of fiber and other vitamins and really filling. The babies can chew on it and suck on it and if they’re too little it can be cooked down into a mush. God is a crazy cool creator.) we set up stations – two to weigh, one to record, one to measure out the milk, and one to hand out baby blankets (holla, Grace Community Church! Thanks so much for giving more than we could have hoped for!) and chiah plants. We actually had one too many people for the stations. And so I set up my own. Before each woman and baby left, I got to lay hands on them, pray for them, read Scripture to them, and kiss their pretty little cheeks. What an honor.

On Tuesday was the Bon Famn Tout Bon meeting. All day, this “godly women” class studied the word of God and made projects to sell at the market. (The goal of this group is equip women with the Word and to give them a skill to provide for their families. Many walk for hours to come.) Every time I’ve visited I’ve had the privilege of joining them and preaching the main sessions each week. This time, I preached on Genesis 16, the main idea being that when we run ahead of God, and to our ruin, El Roi can restore us. I hope they were blessed and built. I know every time I’m with them, I am.

Wednesday I co-taught the Jenn Lide Yo Pou Bondie (young leaders for God). This was really a special thing because the topic of their discussion was on mentoring and I had the privilege to teach it with my daddy. How appropriate, right? I love my daddy. The rest of the day was spent doing odd jobs and visiting the sick in the local church, praying with them and sharing Scripture and singing with them. We’re totally the Church, you know? I can’t get over that. We’re united in an intimate and mysterious way even though we had never met before and probably won’t meet again till Home. There is so much to celebrate there.

Thursday I preached at the church in Hinche (a neighboring town) at a women’s conference of sorts. I think there were maybe 50 women there? This time, I preached on the woman at the well from John four. Man, our God has been good to us, hasn’t He? I mean, though we repeatedly fill ourselves from our own stagnant sources, He offers us the living water of Himself. For the spiritually thirsty, Jesus offers Himself. To the woman who wonders, he says, “It’s Me, it’s Me. You want to worship? Worship Me. You want a temple? Come Me. You want water? Drink of me. This water source I speak of isn’t something abstract, but as real to you as the Man sitting before you. It’s not far away and it does not necessitate a long journey, but is as near to you as I have stayed despite social constructs. It does not require a water pot or a bucket, but only that you leave the shallow springs of familiarity and drink of receive Living Water and I who am speaking to you am He. I offer you the Living Water of myself.” Do you sense the stunning nature of this statement? Jesus Christ, the God-Man, offers Himself in salvation to this woman. Do you sense the radical nature of this interaction? Think of all the cities full of moral men Jesus may have passed on the way to Samaria. Did He choose to reveal Himself to them? No. Did He show His deity to the learned leaders of the synagogues? No. But to this woman who has exposed herself to many and has been exposed to much ridicule, He exposes His divinity. This is the way of the Gospel, my friends! Oh, friends, this is my story. Your story. This is our God’s way with people like us.

Friday was a quiet day. A day of beginning to say goodbye again to those brothers and sisters I’ve grown to love. We finished some odd projects, built some chalk boards for local schools, painted the old tap tap (a Haitian taxi type, like a truck where you stand in the bed and hold onto some bars). and we prepared to leave. Saturday was a long day of travel. Really long. The kind that makes me feel like puking. But finally, at last, I was home.

Here are some things I’m taking away from the trip. Big things.

Preaching is a huge part of who I am. As I push to the finish of this semester, preaching in Haiti has reminded me that isn’t not just about getting the work done. There is so much purpose in this studying. Preaching reminded me a bit of who I am and where I fit in creation. Being just another student in the library has caused me to forget, I think, that I have a specific calling. Preaching is, in a big way, all the best pieces of who I am. And I think I needed to do it again.

Secondly, the Church is alive and really, really big. Wow, that sounds so trite, but I mean it with everything I am. We, the Church, are a mysterious creature with unknown limits. United in a profound way and moving, growing, living in the grand way of the Gospel.

I was also reminded that God is good. So so good. I was reminded that we don’t wait on God. We are like a toddler with a bottle of glue and a jar of glitter. We cannot help but make a mess of ourselves. If only soap and water could deal with our mess. And we wonder, why do we make such a mess of things? Because we don’t believe. Why do we stop eating and manipulate our bodies? Because we don’t really believe God loves us. Why do we spread rumors and divide the church? Because we don’t really believe God made us one body. Why do we work so hard for the church to the despair of our own spirits? Because we don’t really believe God has united us with His Son. Why do we keep secrets and tell lies? Because we don’t believe God has removed our shame. Why do we stay awake in the middle of the night, worry gripping our minds? Because we don’t really believe God is for us and not against us. Why do we over eat, over sleep, over spend, and over indulge? Because we don’t really believe God is our Daily Bread. Why do we live in spiritual apathy and physical abundance? Because we don’t really believe God is coming back.
We don’t believe. We say we do. We speak in lots of words that sound similar to faith. I would even say many of us want to believe, try to believe, hope to believe. But so much of faith is waiting. And we have never been a patient people.

So.

That’s what I have to say. It doesn’t do the trip justice. It doesn’t cover it all. But I’m sure over the next few weeks stories will eek out. I certainly don’t expect many people to read this whole post. Heck, I’m not even going to proof it it’s so long. But, if you’ve read this far, you have my thanks and a little glimpse into the corridors of my heart these days. And it’s my hope that in doing so you remember that these stories are your stories because you’re a part of the Church. You’re with me in this task, and since we’re one Body this is now a part of our history.

And I’m grateful we’re in this together.

Haiti.

2011-11-18T05:13:00.001-08:00

I'm off.

This morning some of my family members and I are making the trek to Haiti. We'll be visiting a fantastic missionary unit on the northern plateau, running a dental clinic and encouraging the missionaries in any way we can.

We're not off to change the world.

We're not off to save Haiti.

We're just going in order to say to those who are full-time, "What you're doing is of God" and ask "How can we help?"

Prayers, please? I promise to post pics and such when I get back.

Okay bye.

E.E. Cummings.

2011-11-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."

Do Not Leave Us.

2011-11-16T06:12:00.001-08:00

"Though our iniquities testify against us, 
act, O LORD, for your name’s sake; 
for our backslidings are many; 
we have sinned against you.
O you hope of Israel, 
its savior in time of trouble, 
why should you be like a stranger in the land, 
like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night? 
Why should you be like a man confused, 
like a mighty warrior who cannot save? 
Yet you, O LORD, are in the midst of us, 
and we are called by your name; 
do not leave us."

Jeremiah 14:7-9

The Great Physician.

2011-11-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

Our Good God,

You are the God we know by many names:
Redeemer
Creator
Savior

And we find ourselves aching for these names to be our reality because

On our beds we remember the invader.

As we go about our day we’re bombarded with reminders of the abuser.

When we talk, walk, eat, and study

There are moments

when our minds

become occupied

territory.

The enemy is on our every side and we have no escape.

Our defenses are shoddy and our resilience waves like a tattered white flag.

We find ourselves asking

Is there a balm for these wounds?

Is there a cure?

We’ve heard that some call You by another name.

On thin, aging pages we read of distance lands long ago

and how some call You

the Great Physician.

And we’re wondering….

Could it be true?

If so, might is be so with us?

If there is a way, Yahweh, would You add to our knowing of You this Self

Press this new name off our lips in waking anticipation.

And, in doing so, would You be Your Self with us again
Redeeming
Creating
Saving

We’re waiting.

Won’t You heal us.

101 in 1001.

2011-11-14T13:41:00.001-08:00

So. I have this list. This Bucket List. And I know you do to. On it, is everything I want to do before I die. And you know what? I’d have to live until I’m a thousand to accomplish the first page. Sigh … Overly Ambitious has always been my friend.

But.

I’ve found a fabulous alternative. I’m making a list of 101 things I want to do in 1001 days (just over two and a half years). Much more doable. Much more fun.

So.

I’m going to share my list with you. So that you can watch them getting crossed off and yell at me if they’re not (or just comment so very nicely with a gentle little reminder).

1001 days from now is August 11, 2014.

And so the adventure begins…

101 things in 1001 days-

1. Read Calvin's Institutes.
2. Start a sermon illustration file/collection.
3. Read my poetry in a public forum.
4. Try a daring haircut or color.
5. Write an inspirational note and leave it in a library book for someone to find.
6. Go to one new country.
7. Sew an entire outfit.
8. Pay for a stranger's coffee.
9. Write letters of reflective gratitude to my parents.
10. Successfully match-make one couple.
11. Learn basic sign language.
12. Barter with an antique vendor.
13. Read Dickinson's "the Belle of Amherst" at Emily's childhood home in Amherst, MA.
14. Preach a first person monologue.
15. Participate in a protest.
16. Surprise my family for a weekend at home.
17. Run a half marathon.
18. Learn to play the ukulele.
19. Give away 40 pieces of clothing.
20. Take a photography journalistic day trip to a new place by myself.
21. Plan a day for just Jesus and me.
22. Swim in the ocean.
23. Follow college football for one season.
24. Give only homemade Christmas gifts.
25. Find a favorite beer.
26. Take an East Coast friend to Jay's Dogs in Chicago.
27. Go one month makeup-free.
28. Complete five pinterest projects.
29. Get Kate to come to New England.
30. Live in Gloucester.
31. Learn to drive a stick shift.
32. Read 3 books off of Dr. deRossett's book list.
33. Publish an article in a magazine.
34. Become a member of a church.
35. Become an aunt.
36. Visit an artist colony.
37. Use all ten punches in my membership card at the rock climbing gym.
38. Learn to play poker.
39. Take a photography class.
40. Skinny dip.
41. Make and elderly friend.
42. Become a regular at a coffee shop.
43. Drink more water.
44. Read the news every morning.
45. Make friends with a kid.
46. Send flowers to my sisters at their high school.
47. Learn how to link past blog posts in current ones.
48. Take Hemingway (my bike) on a Bostonian adventure.
49. Buy a killer pair of heels.
50. Learn to bake. Something. Anything.
51. Defend a stranger against a rude one.
52. Learn geography of Europe.
53. Volunteer at a homeless shelter.
54. Learn to knit that winter hat I dreamed up.
55. Take a day off. Just because.
56. Never say "I love you" unless I intentionally mean it.
57. Write a letter to myself to open in 5 years.
58. Do a pull up.
59. Get a tattoo.
60. Spend more time talking to Jesus.
61. Take a spontaneous road trip.
62. Have a reunion weekend with college friends.
63. Don't take food so seriously.
64. Be a better listener.
65. Shop less.
66. Go to a fall festival.
67. Do a newborn photo shoot.
68. Make s'mores over a bonfire by the ocean.
69. Learn to make origami cranes.
70. Write more notes.
71. Kayak (is that a verb? or is it "go kayaking"? hmmm.)
72. Finish the Psyche seasons.
73. Find out my blood type.
74. Blog every day for a month.
75. Compliment 10 strangers.
76. Go for a quiet nighttime walk while it’s snowing.
77. Take one week off all social networking sites.
78. Believe that Jesus answers prayers.
79. Send a care package to an unexpenctant freshman.
80. Write a memorial piece to Tonya Nicholson.
81. Upgrade to a Cannon 7d.
82. Tell more knock knock jokes.
83. Anticipate Jesus coming back.
84. Grow a plant from seed.
85. Read T.F. Torrance on the Incarnation.
86. Make a recipe collection.
87. Ask grandma Gilbaugh about her childhood.
88. Do a photo shoot fundraiser.
89. Find a mentor.
90. Learn to make hammered jewelry.
91. Re-learn how to snow ski.
92. Memorize the book of James.
93. Make a quilt.
94. Listen to others' opinion without giving mine.
95. Meet with each professor once each semester.
96. Go to a drive-in movie.
97. Make more non-seminary friends.
98. Read poetry aloud before bed.
99. Pray for the persecuted Church every day.
100. Buy and use two pieces of camping equipment.
101. Inspire one other person to do a 101 in 1001.

The Sad Shepherd.

2011-11-13T12:46:00.000-08:00

There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming
And humming Sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story.!
The sea Swept on and cried her old cry still,
Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill.
He fled the persecution of her glory
And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,
Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening.
But naught they heard, for they are always listening,
The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,
And thought, I will my heavy story tell
Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send
Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;
And my own talc again for me shall sing,
And my own whispering words be comforting,
And lo! my ancient burden may depart.
Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;
But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone
Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan
Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.

The Sad Shepherd, W.B Yeats

[A new fav from one of books I found at the used bookshop. It makes my mouth smile and my eyes water. It's sweet and thoughtful. ]

Tea, Tourists, and Two Words Apart.

2011-11-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

My mom and Alissa just left this morning. Right now they're probably meandering through Chicago O'Hare, looking for some tea. And here I am, on my couch, tucked in this quilt, with my tea. We're far apart again, and it makes me a little achey. Even so. It's right.

Mom and Lou got in late Thursday night and the three of us were quite the riot during the drive to my little place on campus. Well, at least we thought we were funny. We laughed about nothing and everything and mostly at Alissa's funny saying and questions and tired fits. Once we were all sleepily in bed, I let out a little squeak of giddiness and kicked my feet in the sheets that way I do when I'm excited about the morning. I said, "I can't believe you're here. And tomorrow, we'll go to Boston." Mom replied, "That sounds great," and was soon asleep.

We did. We went to Boston. We did a little walking, a little trolly tour, and then got dinner on the way home. It was fine … but just fine. The tour was fun. The city was beautiful. And conversation, as always passed among us three, was hysterical. But the thing is, Boston isn't really my city. It's a city I live close to. It's a city I really like. But it isn't my city. When the day was done, we sat around my room with teacups in hand and talked about life and I asked my mom some of the questions I've never thought to. Like, how did Daddy ask her out? Did they go on any funny dates? When did you know you wanted to marry him? What was it like going from working woman to stay at home mommy? How was it putting your mother in a nursing home? What's it like getting older? So many questions, and she answered them all. But even now, i still have more.

Saturday was the day I was anticipating. I took mom and Lou to my two favorite little towns on the North Shore, Gloucester and Manchester. We ate at my current favorite breakfast place, Sugar Magnoia's, and walked around the quaint little coastal town. We went to the beaches and walked the autumnal paths and picked up rocks and sea shells they took home to the little ones. Mom made Alissa taste the sea water and made me lay in the wet sand for a picture. We walked into every cute little shop and mom made friends with the owner of each.

They met my friends.

They saw my "home".

They ate my food.

They slept in my bed.

The entire weekend, I was very aware that I was sharing my life with them. That can be a scary thing, you know? Each time I introduced them or opened a closet door or explained a piece of my life I knew it was being analyzed and asked about. All with love, I assure you. But it's a vulnerable place nonetheless. But it's a good place, too. Don't doubt that.

This morning was a whirlwind. We left early and quickly. I dropped them at the airport, gave hugs and got back in my Jeep. About five minutes in my eyes were wet. You know, I just really love them. And they love me. Not always well. Not always practically. But with the best love we can, we love each other.

I'm coming away from this with two things.

One, I'm really proud of my life. Not in an arrogant, boastful way (well, maybe sometimes), but it's just that I really love it and I'm really happy in it. This life of mine, with these friends and places and tea shops and books is lovely. And I'm so grateful to call it mine and proud to show it to my mom and sis.

Two, I'm more me here than I have been anywhere else. I feel like I've become more fully myself in the last month than I did through the majority of my time in undergrad. I can't say what it is. I just know it's good. And, I just want to say, that I'm sincerely happy and really, authentically content here.

That's why it's right for me to be sipping tea here while they head back to Iowa. Because this is where I belong right now and for all it's quirky shops and silly baristas and terrible drivers, I'm making it home. And I think that's just pretty wonderful.

Adam's Curse. By William Butler Yeats.

2011-11-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'

And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied: 'To be born woman is to know--
Although they do not talk of it at school--
That we must labour to be beautiful.'

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

St. Augustine.

2011-11-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

"But when I love You, what do I love? It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthy eyes, nor the weet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odour of flowers and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor limbs welcoming the embraces of the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God. Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God - a light, voice, odour, food, embrace of my inner man, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God."

St. Augustine, Confessions.

A Rebellious Morning.

2011-11-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last night was a rough night. I couldn’t sleep. I was hot. I got tangled in my blanket and then it fell off the bed. And the other side of my pillow was never cold. And my alarm went off far too early.

So.

This morning, I’m feeling rather rebellious.

I’m not going to get dressed until noon. I’m going to spend an hour just doing my nails if I want to. And if I paint one hand and don’t feel like painting the other, I’m going to stop. I’m going to watch multiple episodes of The Office. I’m going to drink an entire french press of coffee by myself and if I want more when I’m done I’m going to make more. I’m going to each this dark chocolate for breakfast and, as a chaser, eat peanut butter right out of the jar. Yes, I’m going to double dip the spoon. No, I’m not showering. I'm going to yell at the internet when it stops working. I'm going to waste time on Pinterest. I’m going to read Emily Dickinson for as long as I want even though it’s not required for one single class. I’m going to draw something. I’m going to stalk my friends on facebook. I’m taking Hemmingway for a ride (my yellow Schwinn) in my pajamas. I’m going to pick up some fall leaves and the only use for my textbooks this morning will be to press my autumn treasures. I’m going to listen to Kid Cudi and JT and probably dance around just a little.

And then …

Noon will come.

And I’ll go to the library. And write my paper. And translate my Greek. And read my assignments.

But not now. Now, I’m feeling rebellious.

The Space Between Reheated Cups of Coffee.

2011-11-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

Seminary is a wonderful, wonderful thing. seriously, friends. I love it here. Today I even got to brag on the place to some perspective students. Admissions Office, you should be expecting three rather excited applications soon.

There are, however, times when the days get a little long. There are days when the library seems a little drab and the hours it’s going to take you to finish your Greek translations seem quite endless. I mean, let’s be honest for a moment. Even the nerdiest among us (my hand just involuntarily raised itself in the air) can reach a point when, well, reading isn’t the first thing we’d like to do today. In all fairness to our kind, we live in the space between reheated cups of coffee. And, you know what, it’s great. Just a little wearisome is all.

Tonight, though, we stopped. Just for a moment. Just to regroup. And it changed things. Anne, Molly and I plopped on the floor of Molly’s room, passed around a plate of pumpkin cupcakes (yum yum yum) and shared life and prayer requests and confessed sin. We heard each other and listened intently and then held hands as we prayed. And for all my reading on spiritual formation and the how-to’s of ministry, there’s a point at which you can’t describe it. there’s a unity we have in prayer that there aren’t words for and no matter who tries to write the textbook for it, it’s gunna come up short.

And I’m starting to think the rest of my studies are similar.

Now, I love the academics with the best of them. I’ll talk about theological dispositions and propositions over lunch, dinner, and any break between. But at the end of the day, if Jesus was to walk into my classroom there’s nothing in me that is going to sit back and say, “Okay. Now, let me think about You and analyze You.” Nope. I would be flat on my face.

And there’s no how-to for that.

We Have Become Like Our Gods.

2011-11-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

We know you are right and we know we’ve been foolish.

Yes, they have eyes but do not see.
They have ears but do not hear.

Fashioned from wood and stone
and paper
and cotton
and sugar
and flesh
they cannot see or hear and yet we bow.

How slummy are our hearts and how anemic our affections.

We are quick to turn our faces from Your throne
to seek lesser, lower lovers.

And before Your good Self,
we notice ours
in new nakedness.

We have become like our gods.

It is us who have eyes but do not see
and ears but do not hear.

we are the fashioned ones, in self-perpetuated works of crafting our lives with materials of wood and stone
and paper
and cotton
and sugar
and flesh.

Our rightful place is among those thrown into the fire – not here in Your presence, with Your seeing, hearing Self who is grand in appearance and the only Speaking One we can name.

No, here we are out of place.

We cannot see or hear.

And yet we bow.

Because we know it is only here that we find our true selves. Here, Your Self gives name and, therefore, promise.

You give us eyes unscaled and ears unwaxed.

And so we ask You to be this God again with us today.

See us with pity and hear us with mercy.

Until our eyes are opened…

and we become like our God again.

You All Along.

2011-11-02T06:02:00.001-07:00

You behind.
You before.
You all around
and on every side
and in every crevice.

We’re swimming in a sea of You and yet find the joy of child-like play on Your shores. Deep enough to never plumb the depths, safe enough to come in our youth and innocence and feeble ways.

We find You mysterious and endless and, for this moment, we will sit and marvel at how You are -

how You are just and forgiving
how You are with us and eternal
how You are near and entirely too holy for us.

and as we look back at the narrative of our journeys, we see that You have always been.

You behind.
You before.
You all around
and on every side
and in every crevice.

It was You all along, wasn’t it.

In Your unexplained ways with us and Your bizarre pursuit of us.

And we are grateful.

Waiting.

2011-10-31T05:29:00.001-07:00

I don’t have much to say this morning. Words seem costly at this hour of the morning and precarious in the silence of early day. I don’t spend a lot of mornings this way, but this morning I'm remembering the way He is with us and way we are without Him.

What I mean to say is this: Look how faithful and present and abundant He has been with us. look at our history – has He not been there the entire time? Has not every moment been saturated by His presence and protection and provision?

Sigh. Yes. Yes.

At the same time, look at how we are still without Him. Do you feel that distance? Can you feel how far heaven is? Don’t you ache for that which is “not yet”? For completed union, fulfilled days, and eternity begun.

I suppose this is the paradox of our lives. With Him and still without Him. Waiting and longing and ever full of His presence.

Oh, Lord … that You would rend the heavens. That You would come down.

We’re hoping – squinting into the sunrise and hoping on those clouds, this day, and maybe even this morning You’ll come.

Come soon, Yellow Bird.

We’re waiting.

Our Memories are Short.

2011-10-31T05:19:00.001-07:00

We wake early … or late.

We rest easy … or restless.

We make coffee … and breakfast and plans and petitions.

Our requests before You are quaint, at best. We ask to secure and protect and retain and gather in. Grateful for privilege, and then grappling for more good and hording it.

We ask for things that start here, and now, and mostly begin with “us”, “me”, and “I”.

And somewhere and somehow, in the silence of the morning, in the pause of our prayers, we remember

The orphan in Peru.
The abused in Somalia.
The sick in Iraq.
The hungry right down the street.

The numbers are staggering, we know. The images are offensive and grotesque and all too true for our white picket fence lives.

We know of their broken bodies and bloated stomachs and soiled eyes. We know not where they’ll lie down tonight, nor where they will find food today.

We can’t sit here long, God. And You know why.

Our memories are short, and we like them that way.

Because for as much as we do and work and plan and protect, here we face that which we cannot. Here, our lives are too small, our plans to short, our money insufficient (not that we were thinking of giving it anyway).

So in the brief time we pause here – in the interval between our busied moments – would You grant us these requests:

Feed the hungry.
Freed the enslaved.
Defend the oppressed.
Judge the wicked.
Forgive us.

Do Your making-new act in this world of chaos and disorder.

And as You do, remember us.

As You make the orphan Your son and the hungry Your daughter would You, in Your severe mercies, remake us in Your likeness

that tomorrow

we might remember

a little longer.

Well-Loved Pages.

2011-10-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

When I was seven, I had a best friend.

We would run into the woods and hide out until mom called us for lunch.

I remember once, we found a bird’s nest tucked in a tree branch. I ran home to get sunflower seeds to feed the babies when they hatched. And I left my friend in the woods.

I didn’t know I was different from the other little girls with a best friend of her kind. Instead of pigtails she had pages and a cover in place of curls.

We passed most days in silence and glee and tall, itchy grass. Together, we could go anywhere.

Today I opened a book. The aged, well-loved pages smelled of childhood bliss and took me to the bird’s nest again.

I’ve forgotten her here once more, I’m afraid. Her binding is worn by the dew.

But brush her off lightly I’ll do once again.

And take her with me, my old friend.

Emily.

2011-10-26T05:01:00.000-07:00

Hope
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Emily Dickinson

We Forgot About the Night.

2011-10-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

We wake to a day of doing -
Of working to earn
Of doing to attain
Of securing to content
Of protecting that which we have worked and done and secured.

We’re hard workers, Lord. Don’t You see? Look how busy we are.

We’re building walls and laying plans and creating masterpieces. Yes, mostly of sand; but we think they’re really pretty. Don’t You?

We’re safe and sheltered and out of harms way. Look at out bank accounts and pretty little houses and that paper on the wall that says we’re so smart. We lay down at night without a care for tomorrow, because today we ensured our own security.

Oh, yes. We forgot about the night.

Well, we may not have cares for tomorrow, but cares find us on our pillows all the same.

When the lights go out, before our eyes will surrender to sleep, they’re there –
The shame of childhood never spoken.
The accusation all too true.
The act of injustice ignored.
The disgrace we cannot even bear to name.

Yes. In the dark, we are afraid.

But we bolster ourselves with what we can do –
Of working to earn
Of doing to attain
Of securing to content
Of protecting that which we have worked and done and secured.

And we’ll drift off to sleep here. Self-relied, self-assured, self-protected … and just a little bit tender from the nighttime journey of our hearts.

We’ll wake in the morning and do it all again. Before our heads hit the pillow again, we’ll work late and miss his t-ball game, we’ll wound our spouses and our friends in self-protecting acts, and we’ll tell illegal immigrants to get the hell out of our country because we don’t want to share that which we have secured.

And then the night will come.

As it always does.

But this time, would You … maybe, could You meet us there.

When the fear breaks in and whispers in our ears
Before we retreat into our self-made safe places –
In the space between awake and asleep
Fear and forgetting
Insecurity and ignoring –
Come.

Wreck the walls we have built with the sand and collide with our shame and disgrace. Grant us the grace of self-honesty and the courage before You to say, “I can’t”.

Not-New Phrases.

2011-10-24T04:04:00.000-07:00

You are the God of beginning and birth and newness. At the dawn of the day, we can hardly dismiss Your staggering way of genesis among us.

And yet, in the many crevices of our hearts, we notice that which is not new and territories where there is no newness.

We hear Your radical promises of healing, and we remember those in Turkey who are newly without homes or clean water or daughters or daddies.

We read of Your infinite willingness to make alive, and images come to mind of mothers searching the rubble for their babes.

You said, good God. You said.

And we want to believe.

But we imagine You distant and hidden in these places where there is no newness …

yet.

Would You give us imaginations of faith to see and anticipate the inception of Your mercies; grant us the willingness to dream again in prayer and petitions for a world of birth in place of this death.

Grace us with Your Self in the darkness of these not-new phrases, give us the courage to whisper "yet".

Achy Mornings.

2011-10-21T06:35:00.001-07:00

I woke up achy this morning. I hurt just a little bit everywhere.

My heart is achy.

My head is tired.

My eyes are just a little bit watery.

I woke up missing my people this morning. I don’t know what it is about today. Maybe because its fall and this would be the perfect weekend for apple picking at the Wilson’s with the fam. Or maybe because I know tomorrow morning Chicago will have a fabulous farmer’s market in Lincoln Park and Kate and I would be walking through, buying nothing but a cup of cider to share and looking, smelling, touching all the pretty things for sale. It could also be because coming soon is a day very special to me, in which I remember Tonya, celebrating her life, mourning her death, and rejoicing in her new heavenly life. For the past few years, Jamie has remembered the day and we would escape campus for a few hours and sip tea and laugh and cry.

I didn’t realize Boston was so far away. And this morning I feel every inch of the distance. Yeah. I’m a little achy this morning.

And that okay. Because it means what we had was good. And what we have will last a while longer.

I Love a Good Morning Rant.

2011-10-18T05:04:00.000-07:00

It’s five am. And I’m ready for a good rant.

I know, I know. Most girls wake up slowly, sip their coffee and think lovely thoughts about what they shall wear for the day [actually, I don’t know a single female who does this]. But I wake up like a bull horn [ask my neighbor, Molly], I will probably end up wearing the same thing as yesterday, and I don’t believe in “sipping” coffee when you drink it by the dregs as I often find myself doing.

Anyway, on with it.

Last night I had a conversation with a close friend about porn. Her bf struggled with it, as did many individuals I have been close to. It’s a heart-wrenching conversation, to be honest. It hurts in ways and places we can’t name or understand. And we weren’t even the perpetrators.

Here’s the thing about porn. I don’t think the problem with porn is that it’s addictive. I don’t think the problem with porn is that it’s naughty. I don’t think the problem with porn is even nakedness. No.

The problem with porn is that it is anti-Gospel.

Since it’s early and I’m feeling feisty, I might even dare to say that it is the most anti-Gospel notion that our culture has conjured up yet [in the same camp I would place sexual abuse of children as well].

Think on this, though. The Gospel is imaged in marital intimacy. God said, “Hey, you wanna know what it’s like between Me and My Church? Look at the sexual union between a husband and wife.” Kinda radical, if you ask me [you didn’t, but it’s my blog so I get to keep on ranting here…] So if sex is to image the union we have with Christ, then anything that distorts that image would warp the truth we are to find there. But I suppose this could happen on many different levels. Well, I would argue that porn does this on many of them.

When we look at the Gospel [He who is the Gospel and the Good News He brought about an invitation into union with Him] we find that it is life-giving, it makes us more human as it seeks to restore us into full humanity as we become more and more like the ultimate Human; the Gospel takes us from being objects of wrath and makes us children of God; He welcomes us into Himself, into intimate union, to partake of all that is His as He takes all that is ours. This is the Gospel.

To now begin thinking about porn in these ways is overwhelmingly disturbing. In light of this, it makes sense that we want to walk away from this conversation because the nakedness of the issue [no pun intended] is disconcerting, to say the least. Where as the Gospel is imaged by pure, unashamed, holy sex, porn pretends it. where the Gospel is life-giving, porn is life-squelching [perhaps this is why it is so addicting?]. Where the Gospel seeks to make us more human, porn takes away the life-nature of the one it portrays. As the Gospel takes us from being objects and makes us children, porn takes children and makes them objects. Where the Gospel welcomes us into an intimate relationship of union, porn is one-way gratification devoid of relationship or intimacy or mutual giving.

It’s my vote that we stop talking about porn in a quaint way in churches, where we slap hands and say, “that was naughty, now don’t do that again.” Instead, we need to preach what this is really about, the Gospel. I wonder what would happen if the next pastor to talk with one in his flock about this told him or her that in their participation of pornography they were participating in the distortion of the person of Christ Himself. I just wonder …

I wish there was a lighthearted way to end this rant. One can usually be found, but not here. And, on second thought, I’m kinda glad there’s not.

So. Now it’s 5:30am. Rant complete.

A Delightful Calling.

2011-10-15T12:48:00.001-07:00

This tea shop is crowded and there’s so many people to watch. My coffee’s getting cold over there where my books are doing the splits. This couch is far too deep for me to be productive and the music I want to listen to does not cooperate well with reading. The barista had dreads and is just flirty enough to sufficiently distract. The swirling leaves keep hitting the window reminding me that fall makes me giddy.

And You’ve brought me here. I almost can’t believe it. it seems absurd that this is my calling for this season of my life. You have called me to so much delight and joy. And I am grateful.

A Multi-Faced Body.

2011-10-15T05:09:00.001-07:00

Last night I had the honor of listening to Dr. Haddon Robinson preach for the EHS conference being held on campus. I honestly don't have much to say about it (miraculous, i know). It was a phenomenal sermon, but I didn't expect less. He blessed and edified the Church gathered there. Yes, all this is a given. But when he stepped from the pulpit and reclaimed his seat after concluding his sermon, I was overwhelmed by what an honor it is to be a part of the Church. We are a multi-faced Body; we are young, old, black, white, and any shade between; we are learned and ignorant, wise and foolish. And somehow, our good God has intimately and mysteriously united us with Himself and one another. And it is an honor each family.

Great New Blog!

2011-10-14T06:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.emergingmummy.com/2011/10/in-which-i-write-letter-to-womens.html

This is a must-read. It mirrors much [not all] of my heart and desires. Please, hear her out.

En. Why. See.

2011-10-10T16:17:00.001-07:00

This weekend I occupied myself with getting to know the East Side a little bit more, and the girls and I (Molly and Anne) took a little road trip to New York City. Now, I’ve only been to NYC once, and I absolutely hated it. I admit, that might have had something to do with the fact that it was pouring the whole time, I didn’t have an umbrella, and I was on my way to Africa in the morning. Maybe. But This time, it was a whole different story.

Molly, Anne and I left South Hamilton Saturday morning so we could get to the city by noon. Once there, we ate a delicious lunch of New York style pizza (ain’t got nuthin’ on you, Chicago!) and salad. Then, we hit Central Park and The Met. After walking a bajillion miles, we ate some more, this time Mexican with a cupcake chaser. Fabulous. Sunday morning we went to Redeemer Church and had the privalage of hearing Dr. Tim Keller speak. I say “privalage” because He was preaching, not because he’s famous. I’m quite serious about that.

[I’m going to iterrupt this current blog post for a minor rant…hope you won’t mind. I really struggled that morning at church. There is something seriously ary in the church when on the doors there is posted a sign that read, “no flash photography, please.” Seriously? The person behind me took several pictures of Tim after the string quartet finished leading us in hymns. I’m bothered by this, friends, and I can’t put my finger on why. I know I have to pray that the Lord with guard me from pride in this conversation because I know that those there were probably brothers and sisters in Christ to whom I am intimately adjoined. How can Tim pastor that congregation well when he’s become a celebrity of sorts? What would that look like? I don’t know… Okay. Rant complete.]

we then spent our afternoon walking through more park and then the theater district and Times Square. Then we shopped. Yay for boosting the economy.

And I think I learned something about myself through this trip. No, it wasn’t on the trip per se. It was when we pulled up the driveway. Just as we turned the corner to circle our little cul-de-sac in from of our little house, my heart sighed, “home”.

Yeah. I think this is getting quite close. I think this place is slowly but surly becoming home to be, and certainly more quickly than any other has.

It’s everywhere and everything. It’s the ivy that sprawls itself across our old bring building, and how she’s showing off her fall colors. It’s the smell of autumn that makes me happy and sad, just as I had hoped. It’s the library and the excitement I feel when I look up from my desk and see how many more books there are still to read. It’s the girls that live next door and ice cream excursions with them. it’s the professor who weeps in class and the one who tells yet another Bible joke. All these things…

Yeah. This place, I think, is something like home.

The Thunder Woke me Up.

2011-10-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

The thunder woke me up, and the lightning lit my room. I can't think of a better way to be stirred for the day, can you? The drops outside my window are heavy and full and constant and sing like a melody I once knew but forgot.

You are unmistakable.

Today will be a long day, I know. It stretches out before me holding lists to complete, meetings to attend, friends to call, exams to pass, and papers to write. This day boasts of length of work and brevity of time and its sound makes my soul just a little bit weary. Today, in the bustle of things I know I will forget again; life will get loud and I will loose Your song amidst other, poorer refrains. In the library under the silent glare of the clock, I'm sure I will flack at Your presence. As I'm writing my Greek exam, trying to recall that vocabulary word I never quite got right, I'm certain I will reduce Your word to a translation and a grade. Later on, under the pressure of friendships and the strain of distances too long, I will reject the notion of Your goodness and, rather, insist You give me that for which my heart is aching.

But not here.

Not here.

No, here, before this open window with raindrops quietly sneaking their way in, there is no flacking, reducing or rejecting. Here, in the morning rain, with every drop and every peal of thunder comes the harmonic assurance of Your faithfulness. As the water comes and nourishes the earth, my souls responds, "Of course. Of course You nourish me. Of course You do." The sound of constant rain washes over my heart and it sighs, "Yes. You, too, will be constant today."

Perhaps it is this fidelity that will break through the hours and the silence and the to-dos of today and insist I recall the melody of Your presence. And if I don't hear or won't sing along, send the thunder to wake me up again.

Abram.

2011-09-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

Infatuated with the idea of Him, like a girl going on a date.

There’s no one here just now,
not in this moment, not in this room.

But

oh

how He is.

Clinging to that notion
with hopeful anticipation
that He will be as said,
And the aged man sets out.

Away from all he knows,
And carting along all he owns,
he leaves all things familiar
setting face toward the unknown.

The journey is steady and the
Divine does not visit
as often as a man might hope.

There are dark nights, to be sure, in more sense than one;
Without the glow of home in this life on the road.
Nights in which his old mind ticks along wondering
if
his awake is a dream and
his journal an illusion.

There are no writings to remind him,
no covenant to assure.

Only his memories of visitation.
Only the command to go.

And to keep going.

And to go some more.

He presses against the darkness and chases the ever-eluding horizon.

And pushing one step to chase the next is

the thought that his Beloved

once visited and is

calling him to

come.

{For a more detailed account of Abram, see Genesis 12 and following}

Preaching and the Church.

2011-09-19T15:31:00.001-07:00

Mondays are my long days. I have Round Table in Preaching till noon and Church to the Reformation till five. Seven hours of class today. Sigh. Full, long, robust, and wonderful.

Classes just ended and I grabbed dinner quickly because I have a lot running through my mind and this keyboard better catch it before it all just seeps out….

This morning in my preaching class we were talking about the dynamic of "truth through personality", or the reality that God often uses a person's personality in the sermon He crafts within them. Its still truth because its based on the Word of God, but different preachers will preach it differently because they have different personalities. Makes sense, right? Well then we got into the discussion of personality. Not "truth through personality", just, well, personality. Many of my classmates were fascinated by the idea of personality in the pulpit, maybe they could even be called obsessed. The guy on my right said it is necessary, you can't be boring and preach because no one will come. So he's taking acting classes and voice lessons so that he can be a more "dynamic speaker to the glory of God". Okay. I see his point. I get it, to some extent. Another student was talking about how if you're not a southern personality you can't preach to the southerners. This was followed by, "well, I'm a fan of Mark Discoll's church. I follow Rob Bell's preaching", etc. Hmmm. I was starting to get a little disturbed by the way we were talking. I mean, we were talking about the sacrament of preaching, right? Well, not so much anymore, I suppose. I wanted to say something, but I felt intimidated because I'm a first year in a third year preaching class, I'm just auditing, I'm only 22, I'm a woman, I haven't studied as long as most of them…you name it, I thought it.

As I was walking out of the classroom and headed down the stairs, one of my classmates whispered to me, "I don't buy it either. The whole personality thing, I mean." So I took a breath of fresh air, smiled at him and said, "Yeah. Thanks."

I went to lunch, then the library for a bit and then was off to class again. Church to the Reformation, also known as the best Church history class ever, is a small class; probably only about 15 students. Today we were talking about the persecution of the early Church. I've studied them all before, you know. At Moody, I crammed all their names and famous quotes into my head and them barfed them on a test or two. I think I even got an A. But today, we talked about them. My professor didn't lecture. We talked about them. We watched a video clip from the film Artificial Intelligence, in which droids are being destroyed at what is called a Flesh Fair. Apparently, droids were beginning to scare humans and so they were "killing" them. They decided to make it more fun by making a fair out of it, naming it appropriately as to celebrate true life rather than robotic creations. They would put a droid in the middle of the ring and them pull them apart or blow them up or throw rocks at them until they were no more than a heap of metal. Then the maintenance guys would come and sweep all the pieces out of the way so they could do it some more.

That happened. Not to robots, not to droids, but to one of us. Many of us, actually. Millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ have gone through heinous, chaotic deaths at the hands of those who find enjoyment and entertainment out of it. And they stood firm in the Lord. Felicity, a pregnant woman prayed that she may deliver her baby early so that the could die with her local church. Perpetua withstood the pleadings of her elderly father to recant so that she would not be ashamed before her Lord. Polykarp, upon his trial, said, "Eighty years and six my Lord has served me well. Would I deny Him now?"

I wept, friends. I wept for all that they suffered and all I have not. I wept for our Family who is persecuted today and for my life that is so contentedly complacent.

My professor passed around a box containing some coins from that era. In the box was also a ring with a cross on it. I slipped it on my finger and realized again that I am a part of a greater narrative. I remembered that the God of the martyr is my God today. I remembered that I am intricately linked to the man in the center of the amphitheater in the fifth century and the one in North Korea this moment. I remembered what an honor it is to be a part of the Church. What a privilege. And I wept again.

That was about an hour again, and tears still prick my eyes. But I have something more to say.

What were we talking about in my preaching class? What in the world possessed us to talk about ministering to the Church in such a shallow way? What the hell are we doing when we reduce the ministry of the Word to personality and acting classes? How absurd is that?!? How utterly disturbing! Have we forgotten that we are not new to this turf? This ministry is not something that must evolve with the culture but is something is we must preserve and pass down to the next generation. We are preaching Christ! Not pushing a product. Or are we? I guarantee that would not have gotten those men and women of old to lay down their lives. It's pathetic, really.

I don't buy it.

I hope your here your heart says, "Yeah. Thanks".

This is who You Are.

2011-09-18T05:46:00.000-07:00

We are the creature of unknown proportions.

We are the one in whom the child is safe, taken in, nurtured, taught.

We are the one who cares for the fatherless with arms not our own.

It is to us the prostitute comes when Saturday night has finally passed, and it is in our home he finds forgiveness and love enough to insist he leave his trade.

It is in our midst that the orphan finds a family, the outcast is given a place to belong, the rich man is reminded of his greater needs.

It is here the lost come and here they are found.

In our company, there is the offer of a new identity.

We open our mouths to sing and in doing so we preach to one another - this is who you are! this is what you're for! this is where your'e going!

We are clumsy and faulty. From our lips come blessings and cursing riding on the same breath.

But.

We are being made white. We are being made new.

And as the music dies down,

the melody of truth continues to swirl around:

we are the Church.

Perfection.

2011-09-17T10:17:00.003-07:00

I'm becoming obsessed with this place. These people. Actually, I think I'm in love. And his name is Gordon Conwell.

This morning the two girls I'm living with and I went apple picking. Anne is a hippie heart and artist from Colorado. Molly is a spunky redhead from Richmond. They live on either side of me. And I adore them. This morning, we picked apples and talked about the cute boys on campus and the vast amount of reading our little excursion was allowing us to procrastinate. We sipped pumpkin spice lattes and share a cider doughnut. Honestly, today may have been one of the best days. Ever.

Your way of Mercy and Relating.

2011-09-16T16:34:00.001-07:00

The way You took Your abode in the temple, You abide in me. The way You hovered over the intricately designed temple abiding in the glory cloud, You hover over me. Through Your eternal Fatherliness, You have called and perused and insisted and haunted me to Yourself. In Your Incarnated way, You came and sought and persisted in bringing me into relationship to Your own Kind. And in Your Holy Spirit, You have won and guided and prompted and reckoned me as one with Yourself. I treasure Your awful way of mercy and relating.

Home.

2011-09-15T06:22:00.000-07:00

God of our Fathers,

God of our Mothers,

God of those since passed and long missed,

You have been our Home in the years now behind us. You have been our Dwelling Place. Our Haven. Our Sanctuary.

You are the One to which we run when the sky starts to blacken. When the clouds roll in and we sense the storm is growing, it it from You we seek shelter. From You. With You. In You.

And this morning the sky seems a little dark. The clouds are moving in ominous ways we do not recognize. So it is to You we run.

We beg You be our Home even now. Once again, be the Refuge for our souls and the place we count familiar. Be the One in whom we remember ourselves and our history and our hope for the days to come. As we crouch beneath the shelter of Your wings, remind us that in You we are safe. Though far from our heavenly home, our earthly home, our familiar home, be the Home we forgot to expect You to be.

Here.

Now.

In this shadowed land we dare call "home", be our Forever Home.

And we run to You as the rains come.

First Few Days.

2011-09-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

I'm here.

The journey here was long, tiring, troublesome, complicated, and clumsy. But I'm here all the same. And right now, that's what counts.

I don't really know how to put words to my experience on the Gordon-Conwell campus these last few days, but I'll give it a shot anyway. This place is beautiful. Stunning, really. I didn't really know a place like this existed outside of Austin's novels. There are trees as far as I can see. Students keep laughing at me when I say we're in the country, but seriously; even when I squint and strain, still trees are about the only thing in sight. Trees and old buildings. I cannot wait to post a picture of my dorm building. It is a beautiful 1890 colonial style house. My room is huge, with cream walls and white trim. The view out my windows is the grassy courtyard where women's functions are often held, and yesterday Mrs. Robbinson invited me for tea. Yes, Mrs. Robbinson. Yes, I was in Haddon Robbinson's house. I carried in his groceries. We're neighbors, you see…

A friend recently emailed me and said, "I am thinking that the weather is about to turn cool and sunny and you will be able to stroll the sprawling campus and think about how much God loves you and the amazing realities you get to study." And that adequately sums up my experience over the last two days. I was walking across the campus last night as I returned to my room after supper and I was overwhelmed to tears. God must really love me to have desired for me to be in such a wonderful place.

And its only day four...

Goodbye.

2011-09-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

The day has come.

Goodbyes have been said, and now, as if to make them effective and worthwhile, September 4th has arrived.

There is so much to be said this morning; so much I'm feeling. But few words are better, I think.

I'm afraid. I'm excited. I'm ready.

This morning I took my coffee out onto the roof and sat with the skyline and my Jesus for a bit. I told Jesus I was afraid. And it was as if He said, "Do you see that skyline? One day, I will wipe that out in a heartbeat, but you? I will hold onto you forever. Nothing can snatch you out of My Father's hand."

So I'm going. With confidence and fear, hesitation and eagerness.

Goodbye, Chicago.

Goodbye, skyline and sirens and chaos.

Goodbye, Moody.

Goodbye, Nine North.

Goodbye, Katelynn and Matthew.

Goodbye, Amy and Hannah.

Goodbye, familiar.

Hello, adventure.

The Hardest Goodbyes that Aren't.

2011-09-01T12:26:00.001-07:00

Goodbyes are hard.

This has been the week of goodbyes and see ya laters. But mostly goodbyes. It has been one week since I moved out of my small, dingy apartment in Streeterville, Chicago, and moved back onto Moody campus with some wonderfully generous friends of mine. These past seven days I have been having coffee, lunches, dinner, breakfasts, walks, shopping trips, and classes with some of my favorite people God placed on this earth. They're people who have inspired me and taught me and loved me and led me and followed me and helped me and comforted me. They have been my mentors and professors and cheer leaders and nine northers and study buddies and counselors. And, for all those reasons, goodbyes are hard.

One thing I'm realizing today is that some are harder than others. I know, I know … that's so not kosher. But if I'm honest its true, and if you are you'll agree. There are some goodbyes that I can say, "Hey, its been fun, you know? I'm going to miss you, but there's always facebook." Then you can walk away somewhat easily. There might be a sigh of relinquishing what was, but all in all you can walk away unscathed.

But … then there are some, where this is the farthest thing from the case. There are some friends that, when it comes to say goodbye, you might as well say, "Here, you might as well chop off my arm and keep it because you're ripping at my heart and at least you can see arms bleed." When you part ways with this kind of friend, you're saying goodbye to something that was and something that has become a part of yourself. To leave is to leave a piece of you behind and to go is to take something of theirs. There's physical pain involved, an internal rending that leads to heavy sighs, watery eyes, pounding hearts, and headaches that last a few days. Somewhere along the lines, your paths crossed. It started as a roommate freshmen year, the girl behind you in class, the professor who talked too fast, the guy who took you on your first date, the girl across the hall, and that one in your small group. And then something changed. Slowly, progressively, increasingly they became part of the fabric of your life. They were so immeshed in your life that, at times, it is hard to tell where their thoughts end and your statements begin; where their pain is their pain and your joy is your joy because, lets be honest, we pass all of the above around. All goodbyes are hard, but for this kind, there are no words.

Here's what I'm thinking it is … they remind you of who you are. They give affirmation to the reality that we really are the Church. A dear friend of mine, as we were saying a particularly hard goodbye, told me that I gave him confidence that the Church and Jesus Christ and all that comes with it is real. And that's how I feel about him as well, along with a few others. They remind me that its all true! I affirm the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting with them in mind. When I hug them goodbye and it hurts I'm reminded that in some wondrously mysterious way we are the physical Body of Christ in the world. When I cry because of their pain or they smile because of my joy I am once again aware that we are united permanently, eternally and intimately. I know that as I follow our Lord into this unknown adventure, as I care for my soul as I study in Boston, I care for them because we are one body. I know also that as they work with integrity and in union with His Spirit in Chicago, as they go about their days with their eyes fixed on Him, they feed me as well because we are one body.

Yes, these are the goodbyes that are hardest.

But I guess, because of who we are … or excuse me, Whose we are … it's only goodbye for now.

One Week Left.

2011-08-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

Its really happening. I mean really happening.

This morning I'm waking up on Moody campus and in a rush to get out the door for everything this day holds. Yesterday is a blur, to be honest. I completed my last day of work (can I get a little PTL?) and moved out of my apartment. My Jeep is so full you cannot see out of any of the windows (don't worry, I made sure the windshield remained in full view). I sometimes worry that someone might see how full it is and try to break into it. But honestly, the Jeep is the only thing worth anything in that situation. To get to all my books and blankets and cheap picture frames you'd have to break one of the windows. And, seriously, I'd rather just unlock it for you. Actually, if you think about it, its kinda funny. If someone broke in only to find my lame belongings it would really suck for them.

Anyway, I have one week left here in this wonderful city. Today I'm meeting with a Greek tutor in an attempt to refresh myself on what I have forgotten. I will test out of Greek One and Two at GC, hopefully. Please understand I say hopefully very tentatively.

Then I will begin the lasts. The last coffee date with a certain friend or the last time I'll play with the volleyball league at Montrose Beach or the last time I'll worship with HTC during this season. These days are getting nostalgic. But they're good.

Because its really happening.

Philippians 1:1-9

2011-08-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

Giver of Good things,

This morning strings of gratitude meander my mind, yet none seem sufficient. In our culture, we say "Thank You", but two little words fall so far short of the immense desire of my heart.

Every time I part my lips before Your throne, gratefulness bounds from them for these precious people. Every time I recall their love, their fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, their generosity, their hope, I "Thank You". And it is not enough.

With joy I ask for their joy. With delight I ask for their delight. With elation I ask for their elation. Every time I remember them.

And I know You. You are a God of response and reply and recognition; a God who hears and listens and grants. You will bring to completion the good things You've begun in them. It is who You are.

My heart wells up. I am full. I carry these people in the crevices of my heart and hold them dear in my spirit.

And it is right.

It is right because they have sat with me, cried with me, yelled with me, prayed with me, stayed up with me, listened to me, taught me, shaped me, counseled me, hugged me, mentored me, led me, held me. In every sorrow, they entered in. In every struggle, they partook.

You are my witness, are You not? Before You my love is known. Only You, probably. Because there are no words of expression.

And so I ask…

That You, Love Himself, would cause their love to abound more and more in knowledge and discernment.

That You would cause them to approve the things that are excellent.

That they might be sincere and without offense until You come again.

That the spiritual harvest of righteousness might be abundant.

Linked in Love. Never to say a final "goodbye".

"Thank You".

Wihle I Strove, You Were Waiting.

2011-08-19T08:26:00.000-07:00

Oh God.

I forgot. I neglected. I dismissed.

Your goodness. Your abundance. Your blessing.

While I strove after finer things, You were waiting to give me the finest. While I sought after shinny things, You were waiting to give me the richest. While I grasped at temporary treasures, You were waiting to give me truth.

And I thought You indifferent.

Forgive me, Good God.

For You are the only One of whom the words "abundant", "lavish", and "extravagant" can rightfully be employed.

You are Good.