Wendy

My father and my little sister just walked out the door and drove off. They are going to Romania. Some 7000 miles and more, away. For two weeks, and then for three months.
And then I am going.
Four hours from here. From this little white house. From the peach and the plum trees. From the hens. From the books and the memories and the dreams. From childhood. From youth.
From my family.
Four hours from my family for two years.

I cannot even express the pull on my heart right now. How many salty tears are trailing down my face. How my hands are shaking.

I have never loved anyone so much as I love my family.

I have always been Wendy. It became so obvious to me last night as I wrapped myself in a quilt and wrote letters to my father and my sister and I sobbed. I was always Wendy. With the flying and the stories and the loving of Peter. The full heart and the tears and the responsibilities. The stubbornness. The thimbles and the little house. The fascination with fairies. The mermaids. The dreams.
I stood on the cusp of womanhood last night. Peter pulling on my nightdress. Saying, come with me. Fly away with me. Come back to Neverland. 
But I couldn't.
I am already grown.
There are lost boys Peter, I told him, more of them than your's. I need to find them. I need to help them. I need to help people. And he cried. Loud, ripping sobs. And so did I.
The moon even cried with us last night.

We cannot always stay young.

This is the hardest thing I've ever done. Saying goodbye, but also saying, I'll be back. I promise I'll come back. My mouth is full of salt and tears. I've never had that happen to me before. And I have cried, I have wept my heart out. But never this, this taste. Mingled with my breath and the blankets I press against my mouth as I try to catch the scent of my favorite girl, the one flying across the world. Part of me says that I can't do it. The little Wendy says that. Barefoot in her nightgown. Trembling at the window. I just want to sit down and give up and quit. I just want to stay. I can't do this, she says. And it's the truth.
But then I look in the mirror.
And she's already older. She's already a woman. She has to do this. She couldn't even remember how to fly if she wanted to. It's all gone now. And so, she can do this.

I can do this.

When I was tiny and smaller and little, I used to wish my heart out to leave this place. It seemed lonely and godforsaken. But I was just selfish.
Now I wish I could take all of that back.
Can I just say that? Can I just really be honest? This seems too big. This seems too hard. God has captured my heart so kindly and gently this past year. He has shaped me and directed me in a new way. He has pushed, with a strong hand on the small of my back. He has led and guided me in a beautiful way. And now my eyes are open. Now I am less selfish. Now I see where I am supposed to go, what I am supposed to do, this mountain I am climbing. This mountain I am to move.

Today that mountain seems too big.

And that's okay. I am learning that. I am learning it is okay to doubt. To think you can't do this. To just fall on your face and weep. I am learning it is okay to miss people before you're even gone. Because God is with me. He is building me, growing me. He gives me things that seem too big.
Because nothing is impossible for me.
Even when I am that woman-Wendy, and I run back to the nursery in fear that someone will tell me to grow up. Someone will dare me to move, to change. Someone will make me. And so I sit in the rocking chair with my knees pulled to my chest trying to make myself smaller, trying to will myself to fly. Trying to disappear. I know, even then, that nothing is too hard for me. That nothing is too big for me. That nothing is impossible for me. This threshold I have to cross over is huge, a gap that is yawning, a chasm that is wide. But it is not impossible. It feels that way, but it is not.

I laid in my bed last night and tried to remember everything. All of my best and greatest moments. All of the loveliest times. It is so important right now that I do that. This change, this transition, is heartbreaking. It is gut-wrenching. It is full of sobs and blossoming with newness and aching in my bones with growth. To remember right now makes it even harder, but it also speaks to the gorgeousness and the grace of this. I am not alone in it; I am never alone and never have been. There are people near and dear to me who feel the same things. Who suffer through these changes with me. And it is that mutual suffering that makes this state of being all the harder and all the better.
I need to make room in my heart for new memories. For new people. For new friendships. I am not saying goodbye, I am only leaving for a little while. And then I will come back with all of them, and share and share and share. We go on adventures to tell those that we love about them.
So I am reminding myself of that. And I remembering everything else.
It is very possible, that I have lived one of the most magical lives. One of those itseemstoogoodandtooperfecttobereal lives. The ones with forts in the backyard and rope swings in the maple trees. With hours of searching for fairies and days of living in palaces. A life with a hundred books. A childhood with a million dreams. Years of discoveries and experiments and challenges. With butterflies collected in teacups and dragonflies hidden in pockets. With secret meetings in the pear tree. With stargazing on the roof. With picnics in the hot sun on a quilt your mother made. With hands pressed in the cool dirt, the earth, as you plant tulips in a row. A life of mystery. A childhood of pages and pages of poems. Years of love and love and love and friendship. The sweetest friendship with your sisters and your brother.
A life of togetherness.

And then there's the salt again, in my mouth.

I never thought I was Wendy. That's probably why this is too hard. Why this mountain is too big. Five years ago, if you would have looked at me and handed me "Peter Pan" and said, it's you. You are her, I would have scoffed. Threw back my head and laughed. Now I wring my hands and cry. Because it would have been the truth you told me then. I am so pitiful I did not even know myself.
This is the best thing about me, that I cherish like this. That I love this hard.

I am Wendy Darling, and I never want to be anyone else.

I miss so much this morning, that pushing mountains is something I won't do today.
And that is okay.
I am fine with that.

This is a love letter

There was a point in my life, more than ten years actually, when I thought I'd never meet another soul like mine. You know? Someone with the same bones. The same longings. The same hopes and dreams and passions for the Church and my carpenter and wooden boxes full of good things.

A point that is more than ten years long is really a line.

I thought all of you didn't exist. And that may sound just a tiny part silly and a small bit stupid, but before you belittle my distress, let me explain what it was like.
I used to hide the best parts of me. I thought they were my ugliest self. The worst. The sinful. Flesh. I denied myself things. I sacrificed what could have been some of my best explorations and discoveries and epiphanies. Some of my best essays were never written. I woke up in the morning and sat alone at my kitchen table wrapped in a quilt with a cup of tea and my Bible, and I would lay my head on that table, and I would be sad. I would read the birth story, and I would be sad. I would read the death story, and I would be sad. I would read the resurrection story, and I would be sad. Because no one loved Him like I did. Because I loved Him all wrong.

For more than ten years, I thought I loved Jesus wrong. 

I had the smallest secrets. Poetry on the kitchen floor late night. James Bond under my sheets at two in the morning. Lipstick, but only at the house. Pants. Fairytales. Peter Pan. Songs, whispered under my breath outside. Hands that I sat on. Hopes that I killed. Thoughts I never dared to share. I used to hit myself in the thigh, with a fist. I only did it for a little while. I was fourteen I think. But every time I did something wrong, I would punish myself, I would hit myself. Not hard enough to leave a mark, just to feel the sting at impact and the ebbing, dull pain afterwards. That lasted for two weeks or so, until I forgot my morning reading one time and I left a small bruise. I stopped after that. I never told anyone, not even till now.

I was never perfect, but I didn't want people to know that. 

I was alone. It was like I woke up every day, and no one was home. All that was there was an empty white house with empty white walls and an empty white-washed me. A pile of dry bones. Dead. Worthless. I told myself that lie all of the time. You are worthless. I didn't believe even my favorite verses because of that lie. I would read 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new," and I couldn't even see those words. I didn't even understand what they meant. Because I was worthless. Because I told myself I was worthless. I would repeat that, daily. You are worthless, you are worthless, you are worthless. It became my mantra, my words to live by. My thoughts were worthless. My life for Christ was worthless. My hands were worthless. My gifts were worthless. I was worthless. I was alone, in everything + all of it. There was no one else like me. I searched continents for all of you. And still, I couldn't find anyone. And so, I was worthless.

I was a piece of driftwood.

I do not want you to think my life was terrible. My life was terribly beautiful. I had a loving family. I had friends. I had kindness. I had books and good food and Jesus. But I wasn't happy. I couldn't be happy. I had everything, it seemed like I had everything, but everything wasn't enough. And I was told, consistently, that there was nothing more. I ran and ran and ran. I looked and looked and looked. I searched and searched and searched. I never made a single discovery. So I believed them. I was wrong, and you weren't real. When I decided that, I almost wanted to die.

I know loneliness. She was my dearest companion. 

I had a dream once. I wrote about it before. It crept up on me in my sleep during one of the sweetest times in my life. The time when I was learning everything and found some of you for the first.
It was about a fox. He was called Childer, and he and I were together. We were going everywhere, quickly. We were searching. And we didn't really stop. I remember being tired in that dream, running + walking next to a little red fox that darted around me as we went. We went down cobble-stoned streets. We went up mountains. We went through caves. We walked through houses. We traipsed through meadows. We conquered peaks. We went and went and went. I thought we would never stop. And just when I was so frustrated in that dream and I could feel the salty tears spilling out of my eyes and onto my pillow in reality, we did stop. On the crest of a hill, overlooking a golden field full of wheat that blinked and winked in the sunlight that was just coming up. We stopped and we sat there. And I felt it. For one of the first times in my life. I actually felt at rest. I actually felt peace.
But it was only a dream.

But when I woke up, it was real too.

There comes a point in everyone's life when you can't blame anyone for how you've been living and who you are anymore. You just can't. And hesitantly, regretfully, clenching your teeth, you accept that it's your fault. In part, if not the whole. Because you are you.
I realize now that I actually did see you. I just didn't want to. I walked by you in the streets. I ignored you in the coffee shops. I scrolled through your words. I passed you by without a second glance. I saw you in bookshops, holding the same books as me. Shamefully, I even have to admit that I judged you. I judged your Americanized way of church. Your loud worship. Your raised hands. Your seemingly cliché prayers. Your mission work and house-building projects. Your lives. Your clothes. Your lack of knowledge or too much theology. Your doctrine. Your music. Your feet. Your heart. I judged your hearts so hard that I riddled them with my disdain.

I'm sorry. 

If I will ask you one thing now, it's that you would not pity me. Please don't pity me. I know that I look to have been a hopeless case, but I have such joy now, and it's because of all of this. It's because of all of this self-inflicted pain and stupidity. So don't do that. Don't feel sorry for me. Don't think me in need of more compassion. Don't think me more sensitive. Don't think me broken. And please don't pity me. I'm strong now. I promise.
I just want to thank you. For everything. Because I know what it feels like, to be lonely. To think that you are the only one. To hold your hands over your eyes while you look for people who have always been right here. You are beautiful. Thank you for showing me how to be beautiful too. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your prayers. For your hopes. For your worship to the same carpenter. For your hands. For your hearts. Thank you. I know what it is like to wake up every morning, cold and with a heart spilling over with despair and a bruise on my thigh turning from blue to green to yellow to nothing. I know, and so thank you. I don't have to do that anymore. I found you. And you have helped me back to my first love, my sweetest ever, my carpenter, my Jesus.
I think we don't tell each other things like this enough. I want you to know that you have changed and you are changing my life. With your words and instagram pictures + captions and blog posts and letters and kindness and extended hands and hopes to meet and have coffee. You are making me better. It is true that Jesus alone has saved my soul and changed my heart, but we are also earthly right now, and so it is you who are changing my life. This is something I can touch, something I can feel, something of dirt + dust and here and now. You are changing it, all of it, and for good. I am so thankful. If my gratitude could be bottled and sent your way, it would last you a hundred lifetimes. Because I want you to know, I can't believe that people who have the same aches and longings in their bones like me exist. I can't believe we are becoming friends.

Finding you was one of the most gorgeous things that ever happened to me. 

I love you. I'm saying it very un-apologetically and unabashedly because the truth is, I do. I adore you. You are inspiring and lovely and full of grace and the spirit. I see that in you. And I know you're only human too. I know that you mess up and you sin and you make mistakes and you need grace too. I am not putting you on a pedestal. I just don't want anyone in their life to feel what I have felt, to feel lonely. To be so lost and saved all at once. To have the best gift of all time, and to ignore it. And since you changed that for me, I want you to know. I will always be here for you. I will always have extended arms. I will be a shoulder for you. I will send you things you need. I can be a friend. I can weep with you. I can learn about you. I will try my hardest to earn the grace you've shown. I will live my life like Jesus, because you do too. I will walk beside you. I will pray with you and for you. I will sing together, all of us. We will praise with the sweetest sounds. No matter what your part in my life is, whether it be letters every month + a growing friendship or an instagram picture with a caption that gives me hope for the day but I don't even comment on it, I want you to know, I will be your friend.

If you ever need me, I'm here. Because even though you may not know it, you have been there for me.

I love you. There is such a love in my heart for all of you now. And it is so right, that sometimes I forget you might need to be reassured that it is there. So, I assure you, it is there. It is just like it says in 1 Peter 1:22. "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently." I love you. Fervently.
I woke up this morning, I wrapped a quilt around my shoulders, I mumbled some tired prayers, I piled my hair on top of my head, and I read. And even I was reassured, because it was 1 Peter 2:9 + 10. "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness in his marvellous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." Isn't that the most beautiful thing? We have obtained mercy. I have obtained mercy. And we get to be a chosen generation.
I hope this doesn't make you feel odd. I hope you only feel loved and thanked. If you have ever had any part in changing my life or inspiring me or loving me or simply learning about me + being my friend, this letter is for you. It has been a privilege to worship our carpenter together, and I can't wait to do it for the rest of this life, and eternity. You make me excited for that. The fact that Jesus made lovely people like you to do that with makes me excited.

So, I love you + thank you.

Amos.

I made the richest raspberry espresso over the stovetop tonight. It's biting at the back of my throat in such a good way. I'm thrilled. Really. Today has been so good. This morning was the first morning in months that I didn't set an alarm or worry about when I was going to wake up. And then I did, and I actually had time to drink tea and pray and read my Bible. There was no rush, no schedule, nothing to do but what I wanted to do. Also, I picked up two new little white demitasses. That is definite call for celebration. And I'm reading Amos. More celebrating, I love the minor prophets.

I've fallen into the habit of picking verses out of what I read. The ones I like best. I never learned to do that before. I was actually taught not to do that, because things don't mean what they mean unless they're in context. So I learned stories and chapters and whole books. I didn't pick things out.
For years I didn't underline anything in my Bible.
That all changed one, two, three years ago. I threw my hands up and gave in to that desire. The yearning for singularity. The lust for something smaller and simpler. And after a while, I realized that it was okay to do that. It is okay to want that. It is okay to like one verse better.
The end of Amos is something quite beautiful. It says,
15And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord they God.
I like that. I like the pictures in Amos, but I like that one best. "And they shall no more be pulled up..." It reminds me of Lamentations 3, where it says that because of God's mercies, we will not be consumed.

Can I confess something? I like the new testament. I love the books that speak of Jesus and the early church and Paul and so many other things, but I really, really love the old testament. The old testament is so much more poetic. It is so much more promising. It gives me a bigger faith. It grows me.
I was taught the old testament in a harsh and unforgiving manner. One full of numbers and historical references and relations of prophecies and extremely rigid rules that were supposed to still apply to me today.
I used to hate the old testament.
I feel like I'm discovering it new though. And now I love it.

I am so much happier these days, months, years. I like who I am becoming and have already. I sat at the kitchen table today and took account of all the changes God thrust on me in the past five years, and I thanked Him profusely. My life is so beautiful now, so full of joy. I feel like I have proven that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Honestly. I learn so well now. I am liberated. And I can't stop preaching and writing about it. I even wrote letters about it this week, and it's only Tuesday.
So here's to wonder.
Here's to minor prophets and freedom to wear boyfriend jeans and new loves and new friends and change.
Because change? Change is gorgeous.

My life is proof of that.

I am working on a new project. It has to do with church[es] and who I was and who I am now. It's not so much that I have something to prove, but more that I have everything to share. Because I know some people will not like it. I know some people will judge me for it. But. But I want to say some things. I owe it to my Savior.