But the shape we meant to make is gone.

There's an Iron & Wine album that I go to when I want familiarity and comfort. I've been pulling it out recently. It's funny because it started out as what I call my, "paper writing music." Originally, I bought the album, because I wanted something that would foster creativity, but wouldn't distract me. I wanted something that would sound good in my ears, but I couldn't sing along to. It started as background noise to fill unwanted silence and to drown out the chaos around me. It did accomplish those things. I met the goal that I set out to achieve with these songs, but they have done so much more than fill space. They have done so much more than drown out the intensity of the noises around me.

I have listened to these songs in my favorite coffee houses, in the many rooms of the many homes that I have known over the past fews years. I've listened to these songs on the lawn of the Court of Carolina and on rainy days in the common area of the 1911 building. I've listened to these songs in cars and in headphone on planes. I've listened to these songs as I've filled the empty pages of books with the pieces of my little heart all out of order.

I've listened to these songs while writing, but what I've come to notice about these songs that started out as just songs, is that I've also listened to them while doing so many other life things. They started as songs to listen to while writing for school, but I've listened to them while reading the words of others, while cooking dinner, while thinking and praying and hoping for more out of all of this nothingness.

What began as nothing has become my comfort, my safety. What began as an ends to a means has become the means itself. I now know every word to every one of the songs on this album. I know these songs like they are a part of me. I know them in the way that a bird knows how to fly. They make sense in my world like the back of my hand makes sense.

But I had no intention of all that when I set out to find a few songs to listen to while I did homework. I've known that this paper writing music affects the way I write my papers. What I haven't always known is the way these songs have bled over into my heart. I want them around so often when I'm writing, but I also just want them around so often because I have found in them beauty and hope, glimpses of forever and encouragement to stand up and get my hands dirty.

You know, so often I think of the things that I do as a way to accomplish other things. I drive my car to arrive at a specific destination. I sing in church on Sunday to give glory to a God that loves me. I ask a sister, "what is wrong?" to get to the bottom of the issue. I cry to feel the pain of waiting. I laugh to share in the joy we have been given. And these are all good things.

But these songs remind me that there is purpose and value and meaning behind the way we do the thing that accomplish the other things. It matters how I go about writing my papers, driving my car, singing my songs. It all matters, because these things are not just a means to an end. These things are shaping me and they are shaping us. These things are shaping the way that I interact with the world around me and they are shaping the way that I interact with my Father. These things that I do matter and the way that I do these things that I do matter too.

Sometimes that is beautiful. Sometimes that is scary.

I am grateful for these songs full of beauty and truth. I am thankful for the empty space they create each time I turn them on. Space to exist honestly and without expectation, space to do nothing, space to do everything that matters.

Maybe you have a space like this too. My hope is that you do. Maybe it looks like an album. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe I'm nuts.

More recently when I listen to these old and familiar songs I have been reminded of the beauty that so often exists in the mundane. If we would just take a moment to look we might just see Jesus. We might see him in the paper writing or phone call making or grocery store shopping. We might just get a glimpse of eternity if we would begin to live like a people who really believe that we spend all of our days with endlessly valuable, eternal souls surrounding us.

I'm not sure that I can put words to the comfort I've found in these paper writing, heart beating, life giving songs that I listen to every now and then. They have convinced me that very little, if anything at all, is neutral. I am learning every day that there is nothing we do that only fills space. Things can feed us or take from us, point us to truth or point us away from truth. Things we do and the way we do the things we do all matter if not for any reason other than the fact that they are all changing us in one way or another.

Give me eyes, ears, hands and feet that care deeply about how I get from point A to point B and how I help others do the same. Let me love the gray. Quiet my soul and give me your peace.

Give me understanding that I may live.

Anyone who wonders if they're welcome back at home.

I am always longing for a place that feels like home, for a place that is a home. I've wanted people and places to feel like home that never could, but I've also known spaces that have felt overwhelmingly comfortable, like I belonged there. I want to feel like I matter somewhere. I want to feel safe. I want a place where I can rest and be fueled in order to go out every day and do. Because I want to do things that matter.

Honestly, I moved to Greensboro (the second time), because I wanted to feel at home. And I do. But if you could flashback to the first time I moved to Greensboro, you would find a girl in the midst of something that has no resemblance to a homecoming. This place has been so many different things to me.

This city has been my enemy. There have been days and months and years when I have wanted out. I have wanted freedom from this place. I have wanted a choice, a chance to leave the prison that I created for myself here. I have been angry at the people that put me here and forced me to stay. I have fought hard against new people and places knowing me here. I have wanted to hold onto my past, because there was a time in my life when giving Greensboro a place in my heart felt like letting go of the beauty and comfort of my foundation. I never want to forget where I have come from and how I got here. There is so much to remember and be thankful for before I ever even stepped foot in this city.

This place had been my best friend. I have cried and complained about having to leave her for a time. I have loved the comfort of these places that fill my days. I have loved the people of this city and the diversity that my community has to offer. I have found hope and transformation and love and redemption all in this place. I have known the joys of newness and the wonders of old things that still feel brand new here. I have loved big here. And the second time around it was very much like a homecoming.

Here, I've known both heartbreak and the joys of a full heart. I've done tears here, lots of tears. But I've also done smiles and laughter and talks full of meaning and hope and possibility. I've hated it here, and I've wanted to be anywhere else, but I've also loved it; I've found myself angry and sad and confused in the times that I've had to leave. But, then again, I've also found myself missing the comforts of somewhere else.

It feels so unstable when I look back over the journey that has been my experience with this city. I've loved other places too, but here has been different. Here I have found healing that feels like the breaking of chains that have held me captive for so long. No place has met so many of my longings all at one time while simultaneously leaving me feeling afraid and alone and looking for more.

This is my home. These streets are my home and these people are my home. I like my neighborhood and my backyard and the restaurants and stores that fill this place. I also like my neighbors and the people that fill my days.

But home is not always easy and I've struggled to accept and come to terms with that fact. Pain and confusion and disillusion fill my pretty little home. Death and suffering, you have no place in my home, and yet here you are, filling the time and space that make up this place. Who knew that a place full of redemption and wonder and awe could so quickly turn to a place full of sadness and anxiety? Can all of those things exist in the same space? Yes, redemption is here, but so is humanity and the inevitable cracks that attempt to compromise the fullness of our hope. Sometimes it's all just too much.

I can hold a mean grudge; I know I can and I usually know when I'm doing it. It's not one of my more favorable qualities. I have a tendency to get stuck dwelling on things that I think ought not to have happened. It's particularly deadly when I can find a specific person to aim all of the grudging energy towards (whoops). I'm trying to work on it.

More recently, I have found myself frustrated with my home, with the city and people that make up this place. Home should feel safe and it hasn't. Home should be a place of rest and I've forgotten what rest even looks like. Home should be a lot of things that have been stripped from us recently, and I am angry about it. Can you hold a grudge against the people and places that you call home? I think I am doing that right now.

"Regardless of what you feel or what I feel, I hope, pray and believe that there is something after this."

A sweet friend and woman of wisdom recently spoke those words to me. How I wish that I could learn to speak them to myself. So often, when I write I feel like I end up saying that same thing over and over again. Apparently, I need repetition. Her reminder saved my heart from the trap and allure of a grudge that I was never meant to hold.

Is the bitterness still there? Well, yeah. But I can see clearly now the damage it has done in the past. This isn't the first time I have held a grudge against the people and places of this city. This isn't the first time darkness has penetrated my safe place. But this is the first time I have been able to look back and see all of the beauty my Father created out of that darkness. It doesn't make the darkness any more light and it doesn't make the ugliness any more enjoyable, but I have been able, for the first time, to remember that there is something after this and that I believe with all of my heart that he will do it again. He will bring light out of darkness and create beauty from ashes.

I believe those things. And my prayer is that I wold learn to move forward in expectation of them, leaving the grudges behind.

It's not really about this place. I love Greensboro and I love North Carolina. From the bottom of my heart, I love this place. Sometimes I expect too much out of my home. I've come to realize that home is here and home is there and home is everywhere in between. I'm glad. I really never thought that home would feel like anywhere other than right here, but home is where you are. Home is where you are living, home is where you dwell. The journey has been both painful and rewarding. It has been full of ups and downs. The journey home is not yet done.

That's the kicker. That's the part that knocks me off my feet every time I have to relearn the lesson. I love my home, but I am also searching and longing for more. I am also restless. I need more out of my home than this place can give. One day I will know what it is to feel at home and to feel content at the same time. It's hard wanting something that I know I can't have. But I hope to continue longing for that day all the while knowing that home is here and home is now.

Thank you for a home that I can lean into.

How painful it must be, to bruise so easily.

I have been apologizing a lot lately. To my friends, to my clients, to the woman that sold me Q Tips at Target the other night. I've apologized to Finley, my dog. I've apologized to my mom and to Walker. I even apologized to my washing machine the other day. Pretty much if I haven't apologized to you, I probably have felt like I should have. 

It was small at first, this feeling. It started off as a small seed of anxiety, a little feeling of having a small plate with a lot on it. It started because I was feeling overwhelmed. It started because I was feeling stressed. Stress, for me, doesn't typically look like one might think it should. I usually sleep fine. I usually don't talk about the things that I am stressed about, not a lot at least. I usually carry them quietly at the very center of my body so that no one, especially the people that might be looking, can see them. I carry them in the inner most part of me, my core, where the light cannot get to them. There they stay hidden and secret. There they are free to carry on, but only for as long as they remain covered by darkness.  

For whatever reason that did not seem to be an option this time around. Maybe it was because things felt heavier than they have in the past. Maybe because there were more things than there usually are. Maybe because the things were different than the typical things. Maybe there is a different reason that I can't see. Maybe I am just changing. Regardless of the reason, my usual way of handling and interacting with stress and anxiety and pain didn't come through. Something was up and it showed. And that was hard for me. That is hard for me. That feels scary and out of control and risky. It also feels like I'm whining when I don't want or mean to be. It also feels like I'm needy when I don't want or mean to be. But it also feels good. Like the kind of light that is blinding and too much for your eyes to handle, but once they adjust you can see better than you've ever seen before.

And even with all that light, I know there is still so much I cannot see. 

Thank you for seeing. Thank you for keeping me where the light is. Thank you for that push and shove and kick I needed to stay out of the cave, out of the pit, out of the darkness that I have known so well for so long. 

I turned into a kind of zombie. Not the kind that eats people, but the kind that walks through life in a daze with perpetual sleepy eyes. It felt like I had too much. It feels like I have too much. I felt tired. Not sleep deprived, but exhausted in every sense except for physically. I felt like I couldn't do it all and so I allowed my heart to go into hibernation. It didn't shut down, but it did slow down. It didn't refuse to take on new things, but it was hesitant and overly sensitive and protective and defensive. 

If I'm honest, it's still doing those things some days. I am still a little overly sensitive and hesitant. And to be honest, I'm alright with that, with how my heart is acting. I don't want to be like this forever. I don't want my heart to stay always in hibernation, but I do need for it to keep beating and while a hesitant heart is not the most open, it does allows for life to remain. 

Roughly one year ago, I was told that I ought to allow myself to create imperfectly. If I had to make a list of the top five things I have learned over the past year that would definitely be at the top of the list; It has been huge for me. It was discussed in the context of an artist making something. Whether it be a writer and a novel or a musician and a song or a painter and a painting. 

"Fears about art making fall into two families: one, fear about yourself, and two, fear about your reception by others. In a general way, fear about yourself prevents you from doing your best work, while fear about your reception by others prevents you from doing your own work. " Art & Fear

Whatever the craft, we must allow ourselves to create imperfectly, otherwise will will never create. Otherwise, we will never share with the world or even with one other person the things that we have made. Otherwise, we risk becoming obsessed with making our work perfect; we will never create or we will create less, we will miss out on things we could be making or doing while we over analyze every little detail of our work. Have pride in your work. Do your best. Blah. Blah. Blah. But realize and understand that no one is perfect and no one can continually create perfection. Allow yourself to be what you are: imperfect. And allow your work to be the same.

It was liberating for me. As a writer, I feel connected and exposed by the things that I write. I feel more vulnerable allowing someone to read something that I have written than I would sitting down and having a conversation with the very same person about the very same thing. So the thought of writing something that I am not 150% happy with and then sharing it with someone else that I do not 150% trust can be debilitating. For a long, long time I didn't share those things with anyone. For a long, long time it was debilitating. And honestly, it's still scary, but I've found that it's a risk I want to take. It's a risk I like to take. And it's a risk I believe I was created to take. Maybe one day it won't feel much like a risk anymore. I'm not there yet, but I am closer than I once was. I think that's something. 

The lesson has continued to surprise me and shape me and I continue to be terribly thankful for it. "Allow yourself to create imperfectly," has transformed into, "allow yourself to be imperfect." I would never have used the word, "perfectionist," to describe myself. Most people that know anything at all about me would not use that word to describe this girl. I was never a perfectionist in school; I never lost sleep over making As on tests or papers. I've never worried too much about others having a high view of what I am capable of. Yeah, it's annoying when someone doesn't believe in me. I don't like that feeling, but me, by myself knowing that I am capable is usually enough. I'm pretty comfortable answering a question with a simple, "I don't know." So often I don't know. I'm usually content without knowing. 

It gets sticky when we start to talk about how I manage and deal with things that are not easy to manage or deal with, hard things. I want one of two things. One, I want you to have no idea how I manage or deal with those things or two, I want you to think that I manage and deal with those things perfectly. In this area I want to at least appear as if I am a perfectionist. I know that I am not perfect at these things, but I don't want anyone else to know that. Coming to this realization was like meeting a part of myself I had never met before. We are still getting to know each other. We like each other, at least I like her. I don't always know how she feels about me. It's funny finding a part of myself that is so different from the other parts that I more often identify with. I am trying to teach her that it's ok to not be perfect and more than that it's ok for other people to see that you're not perfect. And she is trying to teach me something too. But I haven't quite figured out exactly what that is yet. 

My heart is not perfect, of this I am sure. I do want an open heart. I promise, that is something that I desire. But something else I desire is that I might find a way to allow my heart to be exactly where it is. Right now, part of the imperfection in me, looks like a heart that is having a hard time remaining open like a lake. I want to allow for that imperfection to exist, because it's honest, all the while hoping for something more, hoping for change to come into my heart. I want two opposite things at the same time. I feel two opposite ways at the same time (lesson number two for the year, but that's a different story).

I'm not done apologizing, because I do things every day that merit regret, but I am done (or at least I want to be done) hiding. The response to my imperfection was surprising. No one told me to quit whining. No one told me to stuff those things back into the place where no light can get to them. No one told me I was being needy. I was the only one that said those words. You told me it was ok. You told me that I wasn't alone. You told me that you wanted to know. You told me that you were with me. Beautifully terrible.

The first surprise I can say that I am truly, truly thankful for.  

I don't know why our words are so proud

Yet their promise so thin

And our lives blow about 

Like flags in the wind

You who mourn will be comforted

You who hunger will hunger no more

All the last shall be first 

Of this I am sure

You who weep now will laugh again

All you lonely, be lonely no more

Yes, the last will be first

Of this I am sure

I don't know why the innocents fall 

While the monsters still stand 

I don't know why the little ones thirst 

But I know the last shall be first 

BF

Letting darkness grow as if we need its palette & we need its color.

Sometimes my to do list is my best friend. It gives me structure and goals to reach for. It fills my time and helps me feel like I have something small to hold on to and control when so many other things seem big and overwhelming. Crossing things off of my list brings me comfort. It makes breathing seem easier. I like structure. I like schedule. I like routine and I like to do lists.

I like all of those things until I don't. Most times they are life giving. Most times they give me fuel. Most days lists and schedules make me excited and happy to do the things the I need to do, but sometimes I feel like I'm being suffocated. Sometimes I hate my lists and schedules and reminders. Sometimes I just want to run and hide from my lists and my schedule. I want to have days where I do what I want to do when I want to do it just because I want to. Some days I want to chuck the schedule and eat lunch for 2 hours. I want to go to bed at 3:00 am because I'm having a conversation that runs into the early morning. I want to do my work, but maybe not on the 9-5 schedule that I am on, even though most days I am thankful for the boundaries that 9-5 affords me.

Most days I love my schedule. Most days I cling to it for dear life. But some days every now and then I hate it. Don't ask me how I can absolutely love and absolutely despise the same exact thing. John Eldredge might tell you it's because I'm a woman. The Myers Briggs test might tell you it's because I'm an INFP. If you know me you know I am not fond of those answers; I think it's much more simple than that.

I think it has to do with being human, something to do with my soul's cry for forever.

Maybe. Maybe not.

I think we were all born with longings in our hearts. I long for comfort and peace and joy. I want to feel worthwhile, like I matter. I want to feel like dreaming isn't a dead end road. Don't we all feel those things? Don't we all long for those things to feel true in our hearts?

Maybe not everyone feels that way. But I do. And most of the time when I look at my list, it points me to eternity, it fills just a hint of my longing for true purpose and real comfort and belonging. But other times I look at my schedule and I want to cry because all I can see and all I can feel is the weight of a to do list that will never be able to meet all of the needs around me. Most of the time I see the good in my schedule and structure, but every now and then I feel the absolute destitution of a to do list broken and corrupt.

I wrote the following about a month ago. I wrote it when I was having one of those days where I hate a lot of things that I usually love. I had just started a new job and I was feeling overwhelmed.

"It feels a little bit like I can’t breathe right now. People talk all the time about there not being enough hours in the day but I’ve never understood that feeling exactly the way that I do right now. I want to do this work. I want to be in this setting, with these clients, these people, but I don’t want to feel like I’m drowning. I don’t want to feel like I can’t breathe. I don’t want to feel like I am sinking and pulling everyone around me down with me. I want to feel like I am doing something good. I want to feel like I am doing more good than bad. I want to feel like I am doing something that matters. Right now I feel shell shocked. I can’t catch up. I can’t do it. There is too much for me to learn, too many people for me to please, too many clients for me to serve. There are too many needs and it’s hard because all of the needs are real and they are all big and they are all pressing right this very second. 

Even taking the time to prioritize all the needs feels like I am wasting time that I could be using to do something else vitally important. And then there is me. I want to have a life. I want to know myself outside of this place and I want to be known outside of this place. I want to feel full and happy and like I belong here. I want to feel full and more than that I want to actually be full. I want those things to be true, because I am 100% certain that I am a better person when those things are true. I am more like I was created to be when I have a life that is balanced. I am better able to help serve these people when I am full. I am getting to the end of my fuel tank and I need to be filled. 

Lord, help me to be full, because I feel empty and I cannot do this on empty. Help me to be full because without your help I will try and try and try to fill myself up with fuel that wasn't ever meant to sustain me. It won’t work. I want this to be a place where I shine, but I can’t shine on my own. I am struggling to see my worth. I am struggling to see the things that I do well. I am struggling to remember why I am here and how I got here and who you say I am. Help me to remember, because I will crash and burn without that reminder. 

Every day I want to know that I can get out of bed because you are here and you are alive and you will give to me all that I need for every second of every moment. Help me to live as if I actually believed that. Help me to live as if I actually knew how much hope I have. Give me hope. Fill me with hope every morning, and then again at lunch when I have forgotten and then again after work when I just want to cry. Remind me of your hope, because I so often forget. Fill me with your hope. Fill me with your love. Fill me with your mercy and grace. Fill me with your story all day, every day, because I am not going to fill myself with it. Left to my own devices I get to this place where I feel like I cannot breathe and the walls are caving in around me and I will be crushed. 

If I have to drown, Lord, may it be in your ocean of grace. If I have to be crushed, Lord, may it be by the weight of your love for me. If you must break me, God, make it for something worthwhile. I love it here. I love these people. I love this place. Remind me why I can be here. Remind me why I can be overworked and underpaid. Remind me why it’s ok that I do not have enough hours in the day. Tell me again who it is that I answer to. Give me strength to face the misery that is painted on so many of our client’s faces. Give me wisdom to speak your words of love. Give me power to proclaim the hope that you have called me to. Give me grace upon grace upon grace upon grace, because I am going to fail. A lot. Remind me why it is ok to fail. Help me to extend to others the same grace that I ask for you to extend to me. I miss you. I love you. Help me." 

I need to be reminded so often. I need to look for hope even when all I feel is the weight of pain, the stress of brokenness, the anxiety of a life lived in between times.

Please let this wind blow me home.

I prayed two days ago that he would find comfort. I prayed that he would find peace and rest. I prayed that God would give him joy, that we might see him smile again. I prayed that he would feel loved and protected. I prayed that God would take away his fear, his frustration, and his pain. I prayed that he would once again know hope.

He didn’t seem to have very much rest the past few days. Comfort seemed impossible to find. Joy, only in the moments when his eyes caught those of his daughter or son or wife. I want him to still be here. I want him to ask me what I thought of the latest Eagles game. I want him to playfully roll his eyes as he realizes my “political rebellion,” has rubbed off in subtle, small ways onto his daughter. I want to hear about the latest book he’s been reading. I want to listen as he and Sarah debate who has the best basketball program in the ACC. I want him to be here and I’m angry. I want him to be here and it’s just not fair that he’s gone. I want him here. And I am sad.

He went home to be with Jesus late last night. He left his body and the rest of us behind and he went home. We cried and cried and cried. Last night was by far the hardest thing I have ever had to do. To watch this man that I love die, to look into his eyes and to know that I will never be able to see them again, to watch as his family grieves their loss. The most heartbreaking thing I have ever known.

I am sad for Sarah and I am sad for Wes and I am sad for Lisa, but I am also just sad, because I love him. He made me laugh and he made me feel like I was a part of a family that I wasn’t really a part of. He welcomed me into his life, into his home, into his family day after day, week after week, year after year. He gave me advice and he asked me about my life. Sometimes he was frustrated when he tried to watch the news while Sarah, Lisa and I talked too loudly in the kitchen. He didn’t always love when I showed up at midnight unannounced, but I never doubted whether or not I belonged. Not one second of doubt. Mr. Sutton has always made me feel welcome. The Suttons have always made me feel like I was one of them. The W always made me feel like I belonged. I can’t over emphasize how redemptive his treatment of me has been over the past eight years.

I am thankful for him, for his life and the legacy that he leaves behind in his beautiful children, who are honestly two of the most incredible individuals I know. I am thankful for his words of wisdom and his sense of humor. I am thankful for the ways that he challenged me. I am thankful for the ways that he encouraged me. I am thankful for how much love and support he poured into me year after year. I am thankful for the children that he raised and the pieces of him that I see in each of them. I am thankful for the wife that he has loved for twenty-nine years. I am thankful for how hard he worked to take care of them. I am thankful for his family. I am thankful. And I am sad.

He left us last night and after the initial tears, the shock set in. Is this really happening? Can we all wake up from this nightmare now?

I will never understand. I know that. I don’t know why children have to watch their parents die while they are still children. I don’t know why death comes and steals our loved ones away like it does. I don’t know why he seems to take the good dads and leave the other ones behind. I don’t know why some people get to live and some people have to die. I don’t understand. And I know I never will. The mystery of our Lord is not always beautiful from where I stand. Today, it is hard. Today, not understanding makes me angry and sad.

Today, not understanding doesn’t leave me in awe, it leaves me in tears. And I don’t know how to correct that. I don’t know how to pretend as if this feeling isn’t there. I don’t know how to move from anger and sadness and pain to wonder.

And I think maybe that’s ok.

“A broken and contrite heart, Oh God, you will not despise.”

So today we will be sad that he is gone, because there is certainly much to be sad about; there is certainly much to mourn.

Last night Sarah, Anthony and I sat together on the tiniest sofa in the tiniest, “Serenity Room,” at Wesley Long Hospital. Sarah looked around for a minute and finally she said, “he’s so happy now.” 

We are sad, but praise the God of comfort for we can take hold of the knowledge that he is no longer sad, he is no longer in pain, he is no longer afraid. We are sad, because we miss him, but he is not. He is not sad. You are right Suttontown, he is so very happy.

I know only a portion of the peace I will one day know in full. I know only a small amount of the rest I will one day find. I know only a hint of true comfort and joy and love. I know bits and pieces of those things. I have caught glimpses of the beauty we were meant for, but I feel it at the core of my heart, this fact: he now has all of those things in full. He has joy and rest and peace and love and beauty and God. He is free from his cancer. And he is home.

He found comfort. He found peace and rest. God gave him joy, and we will see him smile again. He has found love. He has found protection. He knows no fear. He knows no frustration. He feels absolutely no pain. And he is at the right hand of the God of hope.

He’s with Nana.

He’s with Anthony’s dad.

He’s with Ashley’s dad.

He’s with Anna’s dad.

And they are all with Jesus. 

Something changed inside me, broke wide open, all spilled out.

I went to Costa Rica for a week in August, and I’m still not entirely sure how to talk about it. I’m not entirely sure what I want to tell people or how I want to word what I want to tell people. Have mercy. I did my best.

I saw evil as up close and personal as I ever have before. The huge weight of the sex trade industry, the complete darkness surrounding prostitution, the urgency in the faces of orphaned children, the hopelessness of drug addiction; these things all looked me in the face and they leveled me. I looked into the eyes of human beings that are used repeatedly night after night and I saw deep brokenness. I saw the kind of brokenness that knocks the air out of your lungs. I saw poverty individually on the faces of countless children, but I also saw it in a bigger, systematic cycle. I saw women roll their eyes when I told them that God thinks they are beautiful. I saw fear in the eyes of a 14 year old mother. I saw so many things that filled my heart with pain and sadness and those things made days in Costa Rica hard.

I didn’t know what to do with all of those things. I still don’t know what to do with all of those things. The place where we were staying had stalls in the women’s bathroom. On one of the stall doors someone had written, “God is not based on feelings.” I read it the first day and laughed because it was right next to some cheesy David Crowder lyric that made me roll my eyes. But I read it again the next day. God is not based on feelings. And then again the next day. God is not based on feelings. I read it every day that we spent in Costa Rica, and eventually I came to feel that there was power in that statement.

God it not based on feelings, but I sure did feel a lot of very different, very intense, very deep feelings while I was in Costa Rica.

Joy.

I left the United States full of it. The day before we left I had the privilege of standing next to one of my favorite people as she married her best friend. The wedding was beautiful in every possible way. There was so much love and laughter and so much hope. Hope for a future full of Jesus, and hope for a life full of real love. I was and am so incredibly happy for these friends of mine. Their wedding, their relationship, and their marriage have all brought me so much joy.

Encouragement.

We met so many incredible people during our time in Costa Rica. We saw so many incredible things. We spent time building each other up as a team and we spent time in prayer for the people of Costa Rica. I felt loved. I felt the safety and comfort that community brings.

Exhaustion.

Amber and Brandon’s wedding was beautiful and flawless and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. The process was exhausting in the best kind of way. Leaving the reception I felt full and peaceful but I also felt tired. The following morning I met the rest of my Costa Rica team at the airport and we took off running.

You can ask anyone. I was the first one to sleep every night and the last one up every morning. I was just exhausted the entire week and I couldn’t seem to shake it. My body was tired. My heart was tired. My mind was tired. It seemed like every single inch of every single part of me was desperate for fuel. I felt helplessly exhausted.

Homesick.

Upon our arrival into Costa Rica, we were greeted by a country that looked, smelled, and tasted differently than anything I am used to. I’ve been out of the United States before and I work with people from all around the world. But in Costa Rica I gained a greater appreciation for how hard it must be for someone to leave everything they know and come to a new country, a new culture. I wasn’t uncomfortable or afraid. It wasn’t even that I didn’t like the culture of Costa Rica. It was beautiful and hugely humbling to see people do life so differently, and with so much beauty and grace.

It was hard for no other reason, except that I missed the comfort and stability of my own culture. I was tired and I wanted the comfort of home. How fortunate that nine times out of ten I have that option, that comfort. How humbling that so many do not.

Sadness.

Most days I spent at least some amount of time with children. We helped with a Vacation Bible School ministry. We visited several orphanages. We met incredible women who turned their homes into safe houses for abandoned children. We held babies and jumped rope and sang songs. We folded laundry and cleaned tables and organized shoes. We did things that needed to be done for these children. And I am glad we did it, I am glad that we were there, but more than anything these places filled me with an overwhelming feeling of sadness. Sadness for these little souls who know so strongly what it is to be rejected. Sadness for the brokenness of so many families. Sadness for the countless fatherless babies. I felt sadness because the kids we met were perfect and so many of them didn’t know it.

I am an introvert except when it comes to babies and kids. Babies and kids give me things that adults do not. I can say this now only because I am not a parent and one day when I have kids of my own I will surely eat my words, but I love being around kids because they fill me up and make me laugh. They play game and sing songs and it makes my heart happy. They give love so freely and they feel feelings really well and I love that. They are honest in the best possible way and it is great.

It was really hard to be around so many beautiful kids in Costa Rica that genuinely needed things that they were not getting. I felt like they were giving me so much and there was nothing that I could give to them in return. I couldn’t put their pieces back together. All I could do was be there for a few days. All I could do was sing a song or play a game or fold some clothes. I felt guilty and sad that these precious little souls were filling me up and I had nothing to give them. I need for nothing. I felt like I was stealing their joy.

Anger.

I thought that seeing sex trafficking and prostitution in such a real way would make me sad. And, yeah, it did. But I felt anger more than anything else. I felt this burning hatred for the evil that swindles people out of their dignity. I felt animosity for the people that make this cycle continue. I felt outraged by the size of an industry that survives by taking pieces of people away from them and filling them with the lie that they are worth no more than a monetary value. We saw so much pain and confusion and loss and brokenness. And it made me angry, because it just doesn’t have to be that way. People are doing this to other people and it’s not right. It shouldn’t be happening.

I walked around all week in Costa Rica and I tried to remember that God is not based on feelings. I tried to remember that the Lord I serve is changeless. I tried to remember that he is sovereign and all-powerful and that he is good.  I tried to remember that the Lord is strong and loving and he is in complete control. I tried to remember that he loves me and he loves the people of Costa Rica.

I am still trying to remember that most days. I know it’s true. I know that God is not subject to my emotions at any particular moment, (and praise Him for that because sometimes I cry watching State basketball highlights) but the point is that even though I know he is not based on how I’m feeling, that doesn’t change the fact that sometimes it still doesn’t feel like he loves me or us or that man I met on the street in Costa Rica.

I know that he does. I know that it’s always true. He loves me more than I ever could imagine and he loves me all day every day. I believe those words and I ask that God would give me eyes to see his heart for the people of Costa Rica and for the people of this world. How our father’s soul must ache watching his children hurt so badly. God is not based on my feelings, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel things. Help me to feel the things that you feel, Lord. Help me to see things as you see them, through the lenses of a masterpiece that has already been completed in full. The race has been won. The fight is over. The enemy is defeated. That is not always easy to believe. Lord, help my unbelief. 

ponder anew.

I graduated well over a month ago. That is still hard to believe. Maybe not hard to believe. Maybe just funny or strange or uncomfortable. Maybe a little bit of all of those. About a month ago my mom, my brother, my godmother and I boarded a plane to Florence. Graduation trip. I am fortunate. I am spoiled. I have so much. All of these things I know. And yet, it is good to remind myself. I have so, so much. I am a poor, unemployed college graduate, and yet I have so, so much. Sometimes I act like I don't.

Europe. Our first stop was Florence where I loved walking through the street markets. Where I loved drinking Chianti and eating pasta. Where I attempted to speak Italian and wait until 9 PM to eat dinner. Where I climbed the 400 something stairs to the top of the Duomo and where I bought my very first piece of leather clothing. We ate well in Italy, enjoying every last bite of every last meal. We made our way to the coast and spent a day wandering between the five villages of Cinque Terre. Beauty was everywhere we looked. Unavoidable, unadulterated beauty. In the architecture, in the museums, in the people, in the art being created and displayed all around us.

Next, we found our way back to the airport and headed off to France. We spent three days in Paris walking from monument to monument, navigating the metro, climbing the Notre Dame, eating crepes, and taking in the grandness of such a brilliant city. I expected to love Paris, and I did love it. But more than anything Paris made me feel my smallness. A deep feeling of my tininess compared to the world around me, compared to the vast wealth and history of this place, compared to the God that I serve. Europe was lovely. Europe pointed me to infinity, to eternity and to the small part that my finite little body can and does play in all of that. Paris put me in my place and Paris taught me the thrills of being so small. I get to enjoy the bigness. I get to take in the wonder all around me. And I don't have to have all the answers, because I am small and there's just no way that I could know it all. Paris taught me to rest in wonder; there is peace there.

Barcelona was last on the schedule. It was a little more challenging to get there than we anticipated. We checked out of our hotel in Paris and took a taxi with all of our 10000000 bags to the airport. We checked our 100000000 bags. We were informed that the flight was an hour delayed. No one told us why. We didn't think much of it. No big deal. We made our way to the terminal and Walker and I set up camp at a little restaurant near our gate. We met an older couple that was also traveling to Barcelona. We talked to them for hours as our flight continued to be pushed back more and more.

Luckily our new friends spoke Spanish and French. Otherwise, we may never have gotten the news that our flight was cancelled. Something about lightening hitting the control tower. Or a workers strike. We're still not really sure. Our entire flight congregated around the information desk pleading for a way to our destination. We all just wanted to get to Barcelona.

Initially, we were told that buses would come and take us to a nearby airport where we would be able to catch a later flight to Spain. We walked with our new, Canadian friends to baggage claim where we retrieved our 100000000 bags and then headed to the designated bus pick-up spot.

And we waited. Along with everyone else on our flight, we waited for the buses to come. We waited for almost two and a half hours before we learned from our trilingual friends that there was in fact no other flight. Our airline had not gotten permission from the other airport to use their facility. We were still flightless.

Everyone around us was growing hungry and tired. By this point all of the shops and restaurants in the airport had closed. There was one small, red vending machine that got some good cash-flow that night.

At one point there was a woman from our flight that got pushed over by an airline worker as she attempted to take a picture of the crowd of people unhappily waiting for our buses to arrive. The police were called in more than one time as little fights (verbal and physical) broke out every so often.

We were eventually ushered back inside where we were promised refunds for our flight that never happened. We stood there waiting as more hours ticked by and no one came to help us. People had started passing around petitions and yelling chants, most of which were in Spanish, but I can assure you that they were not happy chants.

We debated finding a train to Spain. Families with small children began setting up camp in little territories around the airport. Small, makeshift homes for their babies to find some rest.

My family and I were growing anxious and unsure of where we were going to sleep and how we were going to get to our next destination. At 2:30 AM we finally managed to negotiate our way on to the 9:15 AM flight to Barcelona. We said our goodbyes to our new friends and went in search of a place to find some rest.

Our airline had showed us very little compassion throughout the whole process so when we stumbled upon some kind airport workers putting together cots for us to sleep on we fell into their arms without any hesitation. We were tired and thirsty and we hadn't eaten since noon. They gave us blankets and bottled water and pretzels and I am not sure that I have every been so thankful for the kindness of a stranger. They made me feel like I was human again.

At one point earlier in the night my little brother looked over at me and in his ever surprising wisdom he said, "Well, at least this can't last forever."

We half-slept, half-worried about our 10000000 bags of luggage being taken in a room with 50 other strangers.

I was dirty and tired and dehydrated. My clothes smelled like smoke and my eyes felt like they had dirt in them. The blanket that I had been given was not quite long enough to cover my body, but I laid there on my cot after using my 15 free minutes of airport wifi, and I thought about what Walker had said:

"At least this can't last forever."

This is but one night. I told myself, "you are tired and cranky and hungry, but this will be over so soon."

I thought about the people in my life dealing with things that do not have an end in sight. Disease and pain and death and mourning. I thought to myself that I would rather do this for 100 nights than go through the hard things that they and many like them are facing. I would rather do this for 100 nights than watch these people that I love walk through such darkness.

Laying there in that room with so many people around me, again I remembered my smallness. I was reminded of my lack of power. My finiteness. I have nothing to give. I cannot change these things. They are so big and I am so small. I didn't have the power to end the workers strike or to stop the storm and I don't have the power to heal sick bodies or to take away deep, soul pain. I can't do any of those things. I just can't.

I am but one little person. I am but myself and that is as it ought to be. No more can I remember how small I am before I am reminded of how big my father is. He was there that night in the airport and he is there with the people that I love in the darkness, in the pain and in the fear. He is there in the hospitals and in the homes. He is there. And he is not small.

I couldn't help but think of all of the things we had visited in Italy and France. Human beings spent so much time and energy and money building these magnificent churches and sanctuaries. My family and I visited them in every city we went to. They are all huge and they are all beautiful. They are without a doubt filled with true grandeur. They are wonderful.

I was reminded, laying on my cot in the airport hall that He is so much bigger, so much more beautiful than the tallest tower or the most intricate painting.

And then I fell asleep, uncomfortable as I had been in a very long time, full of questions that I still do not have the answers to, but brimming with peace knowing that I lay in my Father's great big arms.

Lord, help my unbelief.

"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection & on his own terms, not anyone else's."

I was recently asked to think about the time or times in my life that I have felt the most known, the most understood.

I can tell you about times I have tried really hard to be understood, and I wasn't. I can tell you about other times that I have hidden from people who genuinely wanted to know me. I can tell you about times that I talked and talked and talked, explaining my life away, desperately trying to be heard and ultimately known. Some of those attempts proved unsuccessful. Some of them seemed successful for a while and then somehow lost their place.

I thought you knew. I thought you understood. Now I'm not so sure. The success stories are still in play. Being known, being understood, feeling like I belong in spite of myself. It's a process. It's seemingly never ending. Partially, because I am always changing and rearranging. Part of the process is me. You can't all-of-the-sudden know me, because I don't all-of-the-way know myself. I am changing and I am learning to embrace that. But this change has implications not only for how I understand and deal with myself, but how I am seen and understood, how I am known by other people, the ones that are willing to walk with me. I am thankful for those people. How precious it is to feel known and loved. But there is so much fear.

I think that I probably don't have that many new fears. Fears are neither created, nor destroyed; that's the theory, right? I've been running from the same things for years. Maybe there are three of them, maybe there are more. I think they travel in packs, my fears. They walk around together, stomping their feet so that they sound bigger than they actually are. And some of them are pretty big to begin with. At least I think they are, but I've never actually seen them. My monsters are not so historic. They are old, but these guys are still here; they're still around. They won't let me go; they won't let go of my hand. These monsters are old, but don't let that fool you, they are not frail. They are strong. I know, because I give them their strength.

They shape just about every aspect of my life. They bend and move to fit whatever scenario I am facing, but they are absolutely the same every time. The same things that hold me back as an artist, as a creator are the very same things that hold me back everywhere else. In school, in relationships, in the way I drive my car and eat my food. They shape the way I dress and write, but they also shape the way I talk, the way I move from one room to the next, the way I sit at the kitchen table.

Please don't look at me. I am afraid of being exposed. Please don't reject me. I am afraid of you not liking me anymore, not loving me anymore, even the smallest piece of me. Please don't laugh or mock or ridicule. Worst of all, please don't misunderstand. I want to be loved and heard and understood, but I want to maintain the right to hide, to be invisible. Sometimes the thought of you knowing is too much. For better or for worse, like it or not, it is out there now. I am afraid of being known. I am afraid of what being known might mean. I said it and now I can't take it back. I can't turn around. I can't change the focus, even though every bone in my body would rather talk about you. I'd rather talk to my monsters, about what they think than show them what I am thinking. Yeah, part of it is about not wanting to be rejected, but part of it is just me wanting that for myself. My independence, my ability to remain anonymous, mysterious, without understanding.

You are my monster. You are my monsters. I don't want to feel exposed, and I can't let you see these things without complete and utter exposure happening. This is my mind, my heart. It feels like it's the essence of who I am, my very being. I don't really mind what you think about it (not really true), but to show it to you means I give you a part of myself. Sometimes I am not sure I have that many more pieces left to give. I want to hoard them, store them up, save them, keep them somewhere safe so that they are that - safe. So that they are not misunderstood, marginalized, rejected, sometimes even so that they are not praised, puffed up.

Maybe they are pretty, but maybe they're not. Maybe they're actually just Cs. Don't tell me they're As, when really they're just Cs. If Cs are what I have, if Cs are what I am, then Cs are beautiful, then Cs are what I was created to be. How dare you tell me that I wasn't. How dare you tell me that I was made for more, or that I was made for less. This is all. This is it. This is what I have. I am terrified to be exposed. What I have is mine. I give it value. I don't want your value. I don't want what you think about it. It just is and that's all. Allow me to exist, and don't try to change me. Don't try to make me more pretty or more relevant. Just let me exist. I'm afraid that if I am exposed you won't let me do that, you won't let me exist. You'll force me into something I'm not, something I don't want to be, a lie. Please let me be.

I'll give you one last chance to try. I'll give you one more shot to do what I am terrified you might actually do.

There is something so profoundly comforting and nurturing about feeling deeply and intimately known.  You've taken the time to figure me out. You really see. You understand, or at least you're trying to. Regardless of whether or not you like it all, there is something to be said for being seen and understood.

"It's a sweet, sweet thing: standing here with you & nothing to hide." 

There are things to learn there, in that place of true and abundant light. Nothing to hide. That sounds so free. All part of the process. Honesty, commitment, vulnerability, intentionality. Those things all have to be there for this kind of process to play out. The perfect storm of factors coming together so that I can finally show you. Here you go. This is it. This is what I have for you. That process is continual. That process can only occur in the context of safety. Trust is there, but also boldness. This is long term. This doesn't happen over night. How sweet when we get here. How true and beautiful and valuable that we ended up here. Who would have thought?

I love this first kind of being known. I love it because it is something that we choose to do. This is the kind that heals us. I am covered in light. I think there's a second kind. It's equally as valuable, equally as redemptive, but starkly different. This kind takes you off guard. You don't know it's happening until it's over. It blindsides. It knocks the wind out of you. I can't believe that just happened. I didn't give you clearance to go there, to do that, to know what you know.

If you're reading this, and you have at all followed what I am trying to say, then you know me in this way. And that scares me, but it also sets me free. It also heals and legitimizes me. Thank you, but know that I'm a little freaked out.

Shock and relief. I cannot hide anymore, and that is hugely freeing. I can breathe, because the waiting is over. The cat is out of the bag. There's no going back. Am I sure I want to do this? I don't know, but I know it is good.

Two weeks ago I took four midterms in two days. Ew. Then, I had Spring Break. Then, Spring Break was over, and I went back to school. My Lit professor kindly warned us at the beginning of class on Monday that he would be handing our midterms back at the end of the class period.

I had all but forgotten about that midterm. I had taken Spring Break to mean a week of detachment from the reality of my life. I left school and the routine that I do every week behind and I dove head first into the last Spring Break I'll ever have. My teacher, standing at the front of the room talking about midterms sucked me back into the world that I live in, my reality.

It's a Lit class. Studies in Fiction. For the exam we got three prompts to choose from and we wrote one essay. That was it. As my professor continued to talk about themes in our papers and the average grade, I began to remember my own paper. I wrote about a novel by J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey. I wrote about Zooey's desire in the novel to overlook the depravity in himself and others, the desire to focus on the good within each individual. I wrote about the pain and hurt that is in and around Zooey. I wrote about how he lives in the middle of one great big pile of brokenness. He cannot escape it. It comes from within and just fills every second of his days. I argued that Zooey wants people (specifically, his sister, Franny) to focus on the innate beauty that everyone possesses, because that is what we each need reminding of, not the darkness, not the ugliness.

I was writing about this character in the story, things he was wrestling with.  But as I wrote, the words poured. I was writing until the very last minute of the class period. It felt like I had just taken a small part of myself and laid it down on the exam. This blue book, a mirror to my soul. I handed my professor this little piece of my heart, and then I began Spring Break, not thinking twice about it.

I created this thing, an essay. Someone might call it art. I am not that person, but I feel comfortable calling it my, "creation." I did make it. It came from me. I gave it life. I gave it meaning and substance. I molded it. I wrote and wrote for an hour and a half and then it was done, the final product. I don't feel this way often, especially with papers I write for school, but I was happy with it. I was confident handing it in, because it mattered. It meant something to me. Ideas always matter, but this time I liked the form that my ideas had taken.

My final product looked familiar. My final product looked a lot like something I had seen before. My final product reflected not only the ideas I had about this particular novel, but it reflected my own desires, my own hopes, my own dreams and ambitions. This was a piece of myself. Never has the creation process seemed so clear to me. All of the sudden, as my teacher was standing up in front of the class, talking about extra credit points, it clicked. I do this, not because I have some obsession with writing, or creation, but because this is who I am. This is not something that I give life to. This has life because it is a part of me. Its life is not separate from my own. We are one. My creation and me. This thing that I wrote is a very real part of me. This is a way for me to be known.

As class came to an end, he began to hand back our exams. Suddenly, I felt afraid. Again, these monsters came stomping around the corner. "Surely he won't remember my essay. He's graded 100s of papers this week," I told myself. "You're safe. You're hidden." All the while, I can feel the vibration from the monsters' stomps.

He called my name. It was my turn to collect my exam, my paper. It was time to take that little piece of myself back. "Finally," I thought. I reached for my exam. We stood there, my professor and I, each with a firm grip on my paper. He engaged eye contact. My stomach hurt. I couldn't think about anything outside of the fact that I might throw up on this man. "This was really very good," he said. "thank you," I said, in what I am sure was the tiniest voice anyone has ever heard (if he even heard it at all). And then I ran away.

That was one of the most intimate moments I have ever had. That eye contact felt like a looking glass into the deepest part of me. Exposure at its finest. This man that I do not know outside of the context of this class now knows more of me than some people that I see every week. It had nothing to do with what he thought of my paper. Was I glad that he liked it? Duh. Especially, because he hands out the grades and I am a fifth year senior hoping to graduate at some point. The praise and encouragement was nice, but the intensity came from being heard, understood, seen, and known.

I wasn't ready for it. It completely blindsided me. But it also somehow made me feel legitimate. It made me feel like a human being. Somehow him seeing that part of me, made me real.

To be known. To be understood. To be seen. I don't think I live my life in hiding, but part of me likes the idea of being able to hide. When that option disappears, it's scary, regardless of whether or not I see it coming, whether or not I welcome it.

Maybe that has to happen if I want people to read the things that I write, and maybe that has to happen if I want to write things that are worth reading.

LIST TWO: My favorites.

1. Re-watching movies 

2. Words

3. Front doors, especially red ones 

4. Concerts 

5. Green stuff

6. Blankets

7. The 1911 building

8. Creeks

9. The way Home Depot smells

10. Stars

11. Blogs

12. Vests

13. [Buttermilk] pies & most desserts 

14. Time with my people 

15. Ski lifts 

16. (night time) Beaches

17. Coffee, especially Larry's Beans  and Cup A Joe

18. (screened in) Porches with comfy chairs 

19. Fireworks (slightly less than stars)

20. Clothes, especially Fall/Spring clothes 

21. Medium-large sized dogs
22. Frozen vegetables 

23. The smell of gasoline

24. Time magazine

25. Fancy restaurants like Caffe Luna & Josephine's 

26. Roads with really wide lanes

27. Letters (sending & receiving) 

28. Sundays

29. Plastic silverware 

30. Lists
31. Trains
32. The smell of worn in books
33. Scarves
34. Pictures
35. Cranberry Juice 

Spinning like a girl in a brand new dress, we had this big wide city all to ourselves.

I am straight addicted to coffee in a very dependent, I-Need-You-To-Function kind of way. Some days I wish that I could inject it straight into my veins. Is that bad? Too much? Whatever. I've never thought of myself as the addictive personality type, but there are worse things to be addicted to, at least that is what I tell myself. I've always enjoyed coffee, but these days I can drink it black. I prefer a little bit of half and half in there, but if I run out, I'm still drinking it. I definitely don't use any of that sweet, specialty creamer. Hazelnut and peppermint and french vanilla have no place in my coffee. How did I get here? When did I start being capable of drinking my coffee black?

If you would like some answers to what I have been doing for the past four months (clearly I have not been blogging), you can go here, and read about my experience as an intern at Church World Service (CWS). If you want some faces to match the experience I have had as an intern, you can go here, and read about just a few of the beautiful people I got to spend time with this semester. If you want to know a little bit more about what I've been up to, how I've been feeling, and what I've been learning, you can  keep reading. My intention is to put words to where exactly I am at this moment in my life, and how exactly I got here. We'll see if that happens. But now you know my intentions.

I started off the semester with hazelnut Coffeemate in my refrigerator. That stuff is non dairy. aka there is no milk in it. aka what is it? I ended the semester with half and half in the fridge, but only because I recently went grocery shopping. This is the tale of how I came to drink my coffee black, how I came to feel more tired than I've ever felt, and how I loved every second of it (except for that one time a client threw up in my car. I actually didn't love that).

I started the semester off nervous and unsure, eager but insecure, anxious and very much aware of the inevitable shift that is happening and in many ways has already happened in my life and the lives of my friends, my peers. We are grown ups. We're not done growing, maturing, and learning. My prayer for us is that we would never stop learning, that we would never close our minds and hearts to new things, that we would hold on to a small part of our youth, our innocence, our desire to become something more, something better, forever. But in the eyes of society, in the eyes of the Law, and in the eyes of our mothers, we are grown ups. We do grown up things like go to bed before midnight and go grocery shopping and buy light bulbs. We do a lot of things now, because they are expected of us, but I think my favorite part about being friends with grown ups is just that - being friends with grown ups.

I have always had people that love me. I have always had good friends. Jesus has never left me feeling unloved (duh), but being friends with grown ups is one of the coolest things I've experienced so far in the game of life. My grown up friends love me so well. When I am sad, they are sad with me. When I am happy, they are happy with me. When I am in crisis, they know without me having to say a word. They know and they care and they respond in a way that demonstrates that they care. They know me. they know my hopes and my fears. They know what I am passionate about and they know what makes me angry. Being friends with grown ups means that I can't always be a hero. I can't always be right. I can't always be blameless. I can't always have the answers, because being friends with grown ups means knowing and being known. Being friends with grown ups means loving and being loved. Being friends with grown ups means facing life in the context of community, in the safety of trustworthiness, and in the beauty of light and all that relationships have to offer. I am afraid of a lot of things, but I am thankful for my grown up friends and the ways that they know me, the ways that they love me, and the ways that they encourage me to be more like I was made to be.

My friends are not perfect, but as we have matured and grown and learned, as we have begun to enter the real world, I have felt a shift in the way that we treat each other and the way that we care for each other. I think we value each other more now that we are grown ups. Things are different than before. We can't spend as much time together as we could in college or high school, but maybe that's the point. We value the time that we do have. We see that there is something there to be valued and protected.

I am shaken to the core each time I think about you guys. I would survive without you, but life would be a lot less full. Thank you for bringing fullness to my life. My heart is so full, so open, and so overjoyed, because of your continual demonstration of love and grace. Grace and love. Love and grace. This semester, I have come to appreciate just how much I need you and just how good it is to need you.

I began the semester feeling small and incompetent, but I was not alone. I was supported and loved like you wouldn't believe. If you clicked on either of those links above, you know that I've spent a lot of time, almost 500 hours, at CWS over the past several months. Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services. When I tell people that I worked as an intern in an agency that does Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services most people need more explanation, and most times I am not so good at explaining. But here it goes...

I did a little bit of everything, but most of my time was spent working in the Citizenship Program. My supervisor was over the Citizenship Program at CWS. The purpose of the Citizenship Program is to help clients become citizens of the United States. There are all kinds of reasons that immigrants want to become citizens but it's not an easy process, it's not a short process, and it's rarely a process that occurs without any bumps in the road. I spent time teaching classes that were designed to help people pass the citizenship test. I spent time tutoring clients with test dates approaching. I spent time registering newly naturalized citizens to vote. I drove to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Charlotte quite a few times with nervous, sleepless clients for test appointments.

I expected to gain good experience, but I had no idea what I was signing up for. I have learned more than I ever could have hoped to learn about the process of Refugee Resettlement and the process of becoming a legal citizen of the United States. I have learned about how grant writing works (a little). I have learned how to communicate [relatively] effectively with an individual that speaks very little English. I have seen the importance of strength based practice and cultural competence. I have learned about many resources in Greensboro that I didn't even know existed before my time at CWS. I have learned so, so much. I now have faces and specific instances to place next to things that I once read in a textbook.

I have also learned about the innate dignity that each of us hold. I have learned about the beauty that can be found in differences and disagreements, if we would just take the time to look. I have learned the value of open ears, of listening without a clock, of meeting someone exactly where they are, even if that is right in the middle of the muck and the mire. I have learned what true joy looks like on the face of someone who has tirelessly worked their ass off for months and months and months to finally be able to call this place home. I have learned that courage doesn't always look like we think it should and strength is not always big and loud. Sometimes, it is quiet, almost invisible, undetectable until you catch a glimpse of it and it takes your breath away; it levels you in a way you didn't know was possible.

I learned that this city (and others, I suspect) is full of people that don't look like me, don't speak like me, and don't know the same things that I know. These people are not all that different from me. I have learned that these people are not to be feared. They are not to be treated like children. They are not to be exploited or ridiculed. They are beautiful, they are precious, and they have given me infinitely more than I have given them.

Hearing their stories has helped me to grow up. They have helped me to become an adult. Being a part of their lives opened my eyes and allowed me to see things I had never seen before. I am humbled and grateful for their trust, their dedication, their words, and their actions. I could write endlessly about any one of my students and all of the beauty that lies within them. They have reminded me of why I am here. They have worn me out, well I guess I have worn myself out, but I wouldn't want to be this tired for any other reason. They have left me forever changed. And they have helped me to enjoy black coffee.

I have been reading Ephesians lately. Of course this is in Ephesians.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Never has the term, "fellow citizens," meant something so special to me. Never has the gift that Christ died to give me seemed quite so unique. I know what it takes to gain citizenship in the United States. It's hard. How can I even begin to imagine what it took for me to gain citizenship in Heaven. I know the anxiety and stress that my students try to hide as their test dates approach. I know the relief, the joy, the wonder and possibility that they each radiate when the day finally comes for them to stand and pledge their allegiance to the United States. Ear to ear smiles. Security. Home. Freedom. Family. Safety. Sanctuary. That is what they hope citizenship in the United States will promise them.

There are many reasons that people come to this country. It's  often not the paradise that was promised or hoped for. There is not an unlimited supply of job opportunities. Creating a life here is by no means easy, but then again, I've come to realize that easy was never what they were after, at least not the people I have met. They want life, not death. They want hope, not hopelessness. They want a chance, a choice, not a paradise, not streets paved with gold or money growing on trees. They don't want to take anything away from anyone. They only want what we all want, the opportunity to have a life worth living, to give their children the things they never had. They would give anything and often times have made incredible sacrifices to be here, to have this chance, to call this country home.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household...

Never has that sentence filled me with so much gratitude. Never has the gospel touched that nerve in exactly that way. I have it all. I have freedom that no government can give or take away from me. I have citizenship in Heaven. I have a spotless record and abundant life for all eternity. Because he loves me. Only because he loves me. Above everything else, they have shown me that - he loves me and he loves them. He loves us. Watching my students work so hard everyday for this gift that I never had to work for reminds me how much I don't deserve any of it. These people have worked so hard, they have worried so much. For many of them this has consumed their lives for months, even years. I have it all and I can't point to a single thing I did that merits my status. And that is so freeing and beautiful and humbling. How can that bring me to a place of anything other than gratefulness?

These past four months have changed the way I see the world, the way I see injustice, and they way I drink my coffee. These past four months have changed me, I hope for the better, but sometimes it's hard to tell. These past four months have changed me and I'm sure the next four months will continue to do the same. In the midst of all of that I am sure that he loves me. I may have changed. He hasn't. He loves me. He loves me still.

May those of us that are troubled by the trials and chances of this life rest in his eternal changelessness. Amen.

You better hang on tooth and nail.

Summer slipped away. I know that everyone says that every year, but this is the slipperiest summer yet for me. I had my internship kickoff on Thursday and then my first day of work on Friday and now I am having my first weekend of Fall semester. I cannot imagine a day when I do not measure my life by semesters, but I know it is coming. This semester will be different from others. I live in Greensboro now. I am working 32 hours a week this semester, and I only have 3 hours of class a week. Whatttt??

Summer slipped away. Maybe it feels extra slippery, because it feels like other things are slipping away right now too. College. Raleigh things. Childhood. Familiar. Routine. Comfort. Those things are all slipping away, but there are also things like this: beautiful people, joy, encouragement, and truth. I feel them all slipping away as well. I have those things here, too, but they're in different places, different people.

It's the people. It's always the people, isn't it? The people in my life have and are changing. The actual people are different when you move from one city to another, but I think what scares me the most, what makes me the most sad are the little changes, the growth, the continual rebirth and evolution I won't be as much a part of in the people I left. The actual people changed, but the people are actually changing as well. Everyday changing. I am happy. I am excited. I am eager to find my place here, to be a part of those new people changing here, but another part of me is sad. A little homesick for my favorites and the ways they are growing, changing, becoming more like how they are intended to be. I will miss being a part of that every day kind of change.

Well, once again here I am standing in front of my friend, Change, and equally loving and hating him. Change is a boy, because boys are stupid, but you still love them. I've never wanted and not wanted something, lots of things actually, like I do right now. I want to be able to dive in, but that's not all I want. I also want to drag my feet a little bit. To have more time. But I think we have established that the time is slipping away. My in between time is just about gone, and I am ready to work. I am ready to learn the ins and outs of CWS, of GSO, of everything about this new life, but I am not quite ready to let go of things, people, places, that I count on, that give me life and fuel to move forward. I know that they're not disappearing, only changing. But sometimes changing feels like shifting, and sometimes shifting feels like slipping and sometimes slipping just feels scary. Like I don't have a whole lot of control, like I can't hold on, or like I can't control the way that I hold on.

Lately, I have been thinking about my life in terms of skiing. Bare with me. Skiing is my sport. It is just about the only athletic thing that I love and can do well. I really can't take credit for it. LK had me out there early. When I was old enough to walk, I was old enough to ski. We used to have a little condo at Wintergreen and I conquered Eagle's Swoop and its icy terrain as a small ski bunny in my black and white polka dotted, puffy jacket. I have a lot of good childhood memories in the mountains.

When you learn to ski, if you have a good teacher, you start off without poles. All you have and all you need to worry about are the two panels attached to the two boots on your feet. And one of the first things you've got to get down is the "pizza" maneuver.

Pizza-ing is not the end goal, but you have to walk before you can run. People say that, right? Some call it the pie or the pizza pie. I have always fondly referred to this basic move simply as, "the pizza." It's where you angle the tips of your skis together so that they look like a little slice of pizza.

The pizza allows you to maintain control. The pizza helps you slow down and stop, even turn a little. The pizza is important for beginners, because while skis can feel really foreign and awkward, if you can get a hold of your pizza pose, you can have control, even if it's just enough control to stop yourself and get outta those skis. You have control to rearrange and reevaluate. And you have a foundation on which you can keep improving.

Moving up in the world, we want to get our skis side by side,  not angled inward. We want to get to poles and parallel turns. We want to add some speed in there somewhere. We want to keep building and getting better. But we always have our pizza to fall back on.

That is how I have been feeling the past week. I feel like I have been in pizza mode. I am just trying to survive. I am just trying to get down the mountain, or this part of the mountain without killing myself. And it's good. I can get down anything with my pizza, so I am glad that I have it, but it doesn't look especially good, and I don't especially enjoy it. It's hard to appreciate the view, the scenery when all you can do is focus whole heartedly on pizza-ing down the mountain.

Transitions are the worst. I know in a few weeks I will have this down. I will be making parallel turns like it's my job and will have no need for the pizza, but I'm not there yet. Things are slipping away and I am trying to hold onto them while simultaneously attempting to get a grasp on all of these new things that are all starting. I am learning my new job and the way the organization works and how I can best be used there. I am learning how to have normal, non summer life in Greensboro; I haven't done that in a lot of years. I am learning how to be a good friend to my friends here and I am learning how to be a good friend to the people I left in Rals and the ones that left me. I am learning lots of things, and I am unsure of how I feel about it all. I know I am happy and I know I am sad, but I don't know how those two contradictory feelings can exist so strongly alongside of each other.

I am pizza-ing. I am just trying to make it through days one at a time. I am trying to learn and adjust and I am trying to have a good attitude about it all, but that's hard and I don't always do it well. I am excited for the day when that is not the case anymore, when I can appreciate the days instead of just trying to get through them. Maybe that's not the best way to look at things, but it's the best I can do right now, and I think that's okay. I think it's okay that life feels heavy right now. I think it's okay that change still stresses me out like you wouldn't believe, and I think it's okay that I am relying on my pizza a whole, whole lot.

Honestly, I love it here. Honestly, I loved it there. Honestly, I am excited and eager to keep moving forward. Honestly, I never want to let go of the beautiful things of the past. Honestly, those are all truths.

I hope I never forget how incredibly precious it is that I have so much to look forward to and so much to miss. I hope I never forget to be thankful for that, even in the midst of all the pizza.

We stood, steady as the stars in the wood, so happy hearted & the warmth rang true inside these bones.

Sometimes I write letters. Sometimes I write letters to people just to figure out what it is that I would want to say. Most times, in these letter writing scenarios, when I'm writing to figure out where I am, how I'm feeling, I don't send them. I have a few times, but usually that's totally mine. Usually, I don't let anyone else in on that. Usually, that's something really sacred, and special to me. I like that I have shared them a few times, because those times keep me grounded. Those times keep the process valid. I could at some point, actually want to share this with the name at the top. That keeps me from leaving reality and going off into some alternate universe where everything revolves around me. But the fact that most times these letters never leave my journal makes them real, too. Statistically, it is more likely that I will keep this to myself, than share it with anyone. And so, I'm really not trying to just be nice. I'm really not trying to just be mean. I'm really not interested in making things sound particularly good or well written. I'm really not trying to be anything other than honest.

The more I do this little exercise, the more I realize how seldom all of my energy, all of my effort, or even just the majority of it goes into being honest, being truthful. That freaks me out, because honesty is something that I have to think about and, because I usually don't think about honesty as something that I have to think about.

The process is freeing. The process is enlightening. The process is endless and surprising and sometimes it hurts, sometimes it hurts a lot, but the process is always worth it. It has always given me something valuable, or at least pointed me towards something of worth.

I think I got to this place, where I have to write these letters, because somewhere along the way I stopped being honest about my relationships. Somewhere along the way, I stopped talking honestly, or more likely, I stopped talking altogether about what it means for me to be hurt by someone that I shouldn't have to worry about hurting me. I got really good at answering questions. I developed this skill where I could talk about really painful things without letting anyone (including myself) know that they were actually really painful. I got really good at controlling the way that I talked about things.

Facts. That is the secret. Only facts. If I'm not really careful, if I don't take a second every now and then to remind myself of what honesty actually is, I'll slide back into talking about facts. I can talk to you about something that has impacted my life a whole lot, something that hurt me a whole lot, or even something that has brought me a whole lot of joy, but if I can control the way that I talk about it, if you will let me tell you what happened or is happening without ever actually having to address how it touches me, I can separate the two.

So good. And so, so bad.

And it's usually not as obvious as it sounds like it would be. I'm pretty good at tricking you into thinking that I've talked about myself, my feelings, my heart without ever actually having to do it. I can trick myself too, but that's getting harder to do. Trickery doesn't sound a whole lot like honesty.

The letters help me. They give me opportunities to be honest. And I can write a letter to absolutely anyone, about absolutely anything, absolutely anytime. Anyone. Anything. Anytime. For someone that kind-of-sort-of just discovered honesty, those are really helpful, really great, really incredible things.

The facts are important, but the feelings rule my days. The feelings are so much bigger than the facts. We need them both. I'm not entirely sure how I operated for so long with just one.

It's funny how things that you do to keep yourself strong can actually do the opposite. I thought I was protecting myself, and I was, but it didn't make me strong. Strength is not in facing the facts. Strength comes when we face the things that the facts produce. Strength comes when we face the feelings, the scars, the joys and the sorrows.

So far, 2012 has taught me a lot. I have cried more in 2012 than I have in a long, long time. And I feel stronger than I ever have. I asked God to make me more honest in 2012. He's surprising me. Everyday, he's surprising me.

Tears and strength have gone hand in hand for me this year. He's teaching me about what it means to really be honest. He's teaching me that real honesty is way more than just not lying. He's also teaching me that honesty yields things like tears. And he's showing me that the kind of strong he wants me to be is not cold, it is not fact based, and it is not strong like an impenetrable forcefield.

He's showing me that the strong he wants me to be is alive and it feels things. The strong he wants me to be is tender. The strong he wants me to be isn't afraid of empathy and the strong he wants me to be can cry. The strong he wants me to be can cry a lot, because the strong he wants me to be is rooted in facts and it's rooted in feeling feelings and it's rooted in a whole lot of hope.

And we have so much more of 2012 left.