The Gardener.

"What I cannot now comprehend – be it mine to wait the disclosures of that blessed morning when, standing at the luminous portals of Heaven, I shall joyfully acknowledge that, 'You have done all things well!' I look forward to that time when all Your inscrutable dealings will be unfolded, when inner meanings and purposes now undiscerned by the eye of sense – will be brought to light, and all discovered to be full of infinite love! Other refuges may fail – but I am as secure in You, as everlasting love and wisdom and power can make me."

John MacDuff

"Some of the greatest discouragements will not come only from those who are against you, but those who are standing beside you."

Tim Chaddick

This year has had two major themes running throughout it, woven with golden and grey threads. 

Beginnings and grief. 

Many a wondrous wonder has happened in my surroundings these past few months. I have seen friendships blossom and deepen, hearts and hands and bones and flesh become tied together and one, new life be created, stories shared, arms extended, mountains crumble, and long, slow days seep into gentle evenings shared with kindred spirits. It was oftentimes easy to say, "There is no valley here."
But many a trial has come as well. The valley seemed to stretch for miles and miles and miles some days. And silver linings were scarce to nonexistent. I didn't understand a lot. I felt lost as that grey thread knitted itself into my chest cavity and brought me to my knees. I felt betrayed. Angered. Sorrowful. Hopeless.

I hate goodbyes.
I am terrified of them.
And I have had to say a lot goodbyes this year.

The Maker is good though. He is such a gardener in character. I have seen Him till the rocky soil of my soul, felt Him press the seeds of grace into my disillusioned being, listened to His gentle whispers as He fed and watered and cultivated my heart. The Maker knows all. And thus, I trust Him with His trowel. I allow myself to be planted. I am ready for His design.
I partake in the goodbyes.
This last month, on a lonely, grey summer day, I was sitting on my back patio repotting my houseplants. I was covered in dirt, the knees of my jeans stained with soil and the thighs with white gouache, my hair pulled up, and my hands cradling my lavender plant, and I had been busy arguing with Christ about whether or not I should be able to understand why everything happens the way it happens. I was near tears, and so frustrated, when I heard Him.
I know all, He told me.
That's not enough, I retorted. Why shouldn't I know it all too? Why can't I? 
And I felt His calm presence, His reassurance as He said again, I know all. 
I slapped my thighs. But I want to understand, I said.
You will, He encouraged me. But right now, that is not necessary. It's not part of my design, it's not part of my plan. 
I did cry then. I don't understand that either, I confessed.
You don't have to, He said. Because I do. I know all. And that is enough. 
And I lost, there in my backyard, having one of those conversations with the Gardener of life that you can never win. I'll confess I was still angry for a while after that, just sitting there in the dirt, tears trailing down my face. I wanted to know. I wanted to know why all of the bad things that had happened this year had happened. Loss. Tragedy. People leaving, choosing not to stay. Feeling isolated. Those goodbyes. I wanted to know what they all meant, what they were all for.
But I don't get to know.
And I don't have to.

Sorrow will be nonexistent in Heaven, but the point of sorrow I think will be fuller. It'll be a culmination of incandescence when we get there. We'll look at Him after it all and say, Oh. Oh that's why. And it'll be more than enough, that knowledge then and there. It won't hurt. It will just be. The goodbyes will finally have reasons behind them.

I feel like I'm not an easily discouraged person. But for some reason this year has just found me with a lesser helping of faith, a more trying demon on my shoulder, and I constantly seem to be knee-deep in mud. I know that it's preparation for what's to come. I understand that. But it's been a lot of goodbyes, and a lot of them were ones I never imagined I have to say. There is a part in Jude that talks about awaiting mercy and how love is on the way. After a lot of these goodbyes, I've found myself dwelling on that. There was even one grey day when I was so desperate I wrote the words above the crease of my elbow.
"Await mercy. Love is coming."
I didn't believe them at the time. I've found that I do that when I face a trial or suffering attempts to consume me. I press hard into the Gardener's promises, even though there is no solace there for me at that moment. But I know, I know that there will be. I know the truth even when I call Him liar.
These are good lessons He is giving me this year. These are difficult times He is pushing me through. These are worthwhile.

The other morning I sat in my kitchen on my counter, and I was okay with not knowing, so I told Him. And I confessed that at that moment, I was awaiting mercy. I did believe love is coming. And I closed my eyes and wrapped my hands around my warm, white mug full of tea and He whispered into my spirit.
He said, I know all. Yet still, child, you know some. 
So I went upstairs and put a label on a jar full of coins and dollar bills, because I do know some things. That is something new he is showing me. That I do get to know some things, and those are the ones I should be concerned about. My plans to be in the dirt – with Him, the Gardener – reaping and sowing and blooming and ripening are things that I do know. My focus and presence should be towards them, those little seeds of plans.

Because hellos are coming too.
Jude tells me that, and the Cultivator of my soul assures me of it.

Small I am

It is hard for me to spill my thoughts lately. They seem so heavy and dark and brooding and wet that I feel a small part guilty for shoving them at people and saying, Here. Take these, would you? I can't hold them anymore. 
But they're not all like that.
Last month I wrote in my journal, I can't see the silver lining in this. And I don't think there is one. I was angry at God, and not without reason. But He was patient with me. Even still, when there are the mornings when I wake up wanting to scream in anger and frustration, even then, He blesses me.
This month is better. It's not easier, but it is better. The struggles have shifted and the tragedy lives elsewhere in my heart, not in that tender place near my spirit that makes me want to shake my fist at the Carpenter. It's in a different place. Still present, but with a different presence. And now I can seek comfort in the one who can offer it most readily and beautifully. That is good. That is better than how it was last month.

And those good thoughts, the lighter ones? They've grown in number.

I was driving away from home group the other night, feeling the best I have felt in a long time. We had talked about Christ and how His forgiveness is unfathomable, how it doesn't end. One of the men there was sitting next to me, and he got really excited and he said with a choked up voice, You know what's really incredible? God has the ability to forgive everyone. No matter what they've done, what they've been through, who they are, He can forgive them. And He will forgive them if they ask. He will do that.
There are some moments in my life when I feel very small.
And as I was driving away, I put the radio on and Joel Houston of Hillsong United was sharing his testimony. And he said something that piled on top of that wonderfulness I was already bringing home with me. He said, God does not fail at things. He does not make mistakes. He does not mess up. And we don't have to worry about His plans, because they're wonderful, they're beautiful, they are not going to fail. Because God does not fail. We may fail, but God does not fail.
I felt even smaller.

There is this verse in the Psalms, where it talks about how God keeps our tears in a bottle. I know for a fact that He has all of mine bottled up from that night as I drove home sobbing and my car was full of the sound of an Australian man's voice saying things I needed to hear.
I love that I know I will never get tired of hearing the same things about Jesus that I do every week. I love that you can devote years to Him, and still cry when you think about what He gave for you. I love how Christianity renews itself daily.

Spring is coming friends. I'm welcoming her with open arms. This winter has been trying. But I'm tired of this bitterness. I'm tired of being an Eeyore when I could be a Christopher Robin. I'm tired of my soggy thoughts dripping everywhere I go. And while I know and understand that it is okay to grieve and feel bad sometimes, I want to count those blessings again, like I was doing only weeks ago. I want that back.

I just want to wake up and have my first thought be light again.

He speaks

Hush child. 
Hush daughter. 
Just listen. 
I am here, I am here, I am here. I never left you. I am right here, my hand on the small of your back, gently guiding you, covering and hiding you. Your eyes were turned away. You couldn't see me, but I assure you, I have been here the whole time. Come to me. Come into my arms my daughter. Just turn around and look. All those promises I made to you, they are still promised to you. None of them are gone. I have not wronged you. Do not lose perspective sweet girl. Open your eyes, this isn't a fog, you've only shut your eyes. You're clenching them. Refusing to look. 
You are a mountain mover.
That will never change.
I am a promise keeper.
That will never change.
My daughter, my daughter, my daughter. Fear not. I see you. I know you. I hear you. I hear your crying in the night and your sobbing on the kitchen floor. It hurts my spirit to see you so. But don't shake your fist at me child. You knew this would come. Maybe not like this, but you knew that one day you would have to meet grief. Welcome him. I'm right behind you, so welcome him dear child. I'll be here for you, whatever he tells you next. Know that as he distresses you and worries you and presses his fingers tightly onto your skin, so tight that it bruises, I will be here.
I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
You have always been so precious to me. More so than even the sparrows. That was not a lie my child, I promise you that. I meant those words. I know it doesn't seem like it right now, not in this moment, but I did. I meant them then and I mean them now. My thoughts towards you are more numerous than the grains of sand on this earth. I catch your tears. Your strength is unfailing, your faith unwavering. 
Grief has nothing on you dear girl.  
All those promises I made to you, about who you are and who you will be, they all still hold true. You will be a repairer of the breach. You will bring grace. You will inherit my kingdom. You will not be separated from me. You will be a hope-bringer and a world-shaker. You are my treasure. You are a storm-weatherer. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are purposeful, intentional, capable. You can do all things through me. You are my child. 
I will fight for you. I will keep you. I will be your redemption and your grace. I will be your shelter in the time of trouble. I am your salvation. I am with you always. I am your rock. 
Come home child, come into my arms. Grieve with me, the one who knows you most intimately, who loves you most desperately. Come home.
I am here.
Hush daughter.
Hush child. 

I am here. 

Grace-giver

The orchard stretches for acres, so far that I cannot see the end of it."Pick four," He says with a straight face but a shiver of laughter, because He understands the temptation I feel the moment He limits me. After all, He was the one who created me. 

"Just four?" I plead, beg with Him. Four is so small, so tiny, so less than five or six or seven.  

"Just four." He stands by His decision. Four is enough. Four is more than enough for me to express the state of my heart to Him. I stare out across the gold and glory from the branch in the tree, and I choose. Slowly, carefully, picking plums that you aren't quite sure are the ripest and sweetest. Listening for the sticky, summer juices to speak to you, to pulse with the same thrumming that your blood is rushing through your veins with, and if you're quiet enough, you can hear it. Choosing swollen summer fruits. Choosing blessings. Just four.  

"Those are good," He tells me when I finish reaching my quivering hands up into my tree and harvesting those that I am unsure of, but still feel perfect to my touch and gaze. And I know, I know I've made loveliness for Him. I know I've given Him just a little bit of glory, a touch more of fatherly pride. I know that He is knowing me, bettering me, making me.  

"Thank you," I whisper to Him. "Thank you." 

Some mornings I count my blessings. It's actually becoming quite the habit. I do it in my bed, with the sheets pulled up to my nose and in a breathy whisper with bleary eyes. Or in the kitchen, sitting with my legs crossed and on the edge of the countertop, my hands wrapped around a hot mug of black tea. Or in my car, on the short drive to the university. Or in the shower, my fingers rubbing the sleep off my face and suds in my dripping curls. Everywhere it seems. I wake up, and I tell Him what I'm most thankful for, most blessed by.

This morning He asked for only four.

And so I laid there for a while, in the quiet sanctuary of my bedroom, light just spilling in through my window and the cold pressing on the pink tips of my toes when I snuck them out from underneath my comforter to aid myself in waking up. The Lord only wanted four, but I wanted them to be my best four, the four I was most sure of.
I was hardly sure of anything this morning.

"My childhood," I say after a brief hesitation.  

The wink is in His eye, but He never seems to wink. Maybe I just always miss it.  

"I like remembering all of it now. And I'm so grateful for it. Who it made me out to be, what I want now because of it. I never thought it would mean so much to me, but years build up with a weight that is fierce." 

He nods. He is the one who made that weight possible. 

"I appreciate it more now than ever before." 

One plum, plucked.

I've been learning how to be less. I'm at the end of C. S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce," and there's this part when it says, "Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountain." I think I understand that now. Here on earth, we make a decision to submit and nail our ear to His door, or to follow our own folly and reap that demise. If we choose the latter, we may become much in this place. But the first — if we decide upon the first, in the end we will be near nothing. We can only truly worship the Carpenter to the utmost of our souls if we give up all that we are and ever could be. And it is only then that we'll die enough to ourselves to enter His kingdom.
A lifetime of servitude for eternity with a white ribbon tied around it.
It's not so bad a trade-off when you recognize the worth on each end of the comparison. What is ninety years instead of forever? Nothing I want.

"People who offer more than is necessary." I get a little sad and choked up about this one. "I see how selfish I am now. How inadequate. How I don't give enough."  

He wraps His arm around my shoulder as I wipe a tear from my cheek with the palm of my hand. I feel His hip against mine as He envelopes me in His presence. "You will learn," He encourages me softly, gently. 

"I know," I tell Him. "It's made me love them more though, the ones who do give. Like they make up for my lack and fill my holes, replenish my gaps." 

He takes the second plum from my hands. "That's why I put them in your life," He tells me.

Jim Eliot once wrote the words in his journal, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." And in Luke 9 it says,
24For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 25For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
More and more the fact that I have to be less and less is becoming real and relevant to me.
I can't reconcile some things anymore because if it. This is a season of my life when I'm supposed to try and be attractive. I'm supposed to have my eyes open for that man to sweep me off my feet. I'm supposed to be beautiful and better and lovely. I'm supposed to capture the essence of what it means to be a wife so that someone will want to make me their wife.
I don't really want that though. Not in the same way I used to at least.
I want my whole life to be steeped in Jesus. Him and only Him. First and evermost. I want to preach Him daily, to present Him and His glory. I want people to notice me less, and see Him more.
I admit that it is hard. This is incredibly difficult for me. Because there is nothing I want more than to be a mother and wife.
Nothing, but Jesus.

I settle the third plum into his palm with little thought. It is an easy one, that called with a plumpness I could have recognized a mile away. "My ability to listen to sermons."  

His smile is unmistakable as He listens, and he presses a kiss onto my forehead.  

"I can remember when I didn't care. When I thought there was no one. When I actually believed I would be in my bedroom for the rest of my life only reading the words of C. S. Lewis and Oswald Chambers and Spurgeon and Hannah Hurnard, and I would never hear someone's voice say something so wonderful." I shake my head. "I remember believing that in all my naivety, C. S. Lewis' would be the only voice I ever loved so much. And I remember all the apathy that was born from that. But now," now I smile, "now there's Judah Smith and Mark Driscoll and my pastors and Tim Chaddick. All of them and more."  

"There will be even more," He tells me with delight.  

And I know, He will always give me more. I will discover them daily. And that sadness that I felt when I thought there would never be a voice along with the words of wisdom I loved so much will be gone. Because I can click a button, I can go to a service, I can call someone, and I can hear it. Out loud. Audibly. I can do that.

Because great men and women for the Lord live today as well. 

I was under the impression that I understood grace. But the Carpenter is continually placing me in churches and with people who want to talk about grace.
Grace and grace and grace.
This morning my pastor was preaching about Noah. You know what the point of the sermon was?
Grace.
And I sat there while he spoke, and I thought, I guess I'm not done with this. I guess there's more you want to show me Lord. And I think that's true. I wrote my older sister a while back, and I told her about remembering something my pastor in my church back home had said to our family. I remembered it with such detail that it made me cry. It was one of my defining moments, one of those ones that changed my expectations and my entire existence.
I had forgotten about it till this year.
It's things like that, they're pressing into my bones and whispering that this isn't over yet.
I haven't discovered everything there is to discover about grace yet.

"Promises." It is the last one I tell Him, after much thought and contemplation. "I am blessed by promises," I say. "Especially the ones that tell me who I will get to be someday. Those I cherish most."  

"Which are best for you right now?" He asks. Not expectant, just curious. He wants to know me better. That always surprises me, for He is the one who knows me most. 

"Redeemed. Repairer of the breach. More valued than the sparrow. Intentional forgiver. Kind. Daughter of Christ. Bride to the King, an Esther. Loved."  

"Quite the list," He says, and puts my fourth plum into his pocket. "But here's one more to add. I've been working on it just for you." He brushes my hair back from my ear and leans in close, His face soft against mine, His manner warm, His presence full.  

"Grace-giver," He tells me. 

I am growing so much in this season. Learning so much. Seeing so much. I'm listening to Judah Smith right now actually, and the one thing that he has said thus far that struck me hardest is this,
"God is good."
And we've heard it a million times. I've heard it a million times. But you know what? It's true. And I am recognizing it again and again and again, all for what it's worth. I am growing in it. I am learning it over. I am seeing it in a new way.
And I am becoming less.

At one time, I thought I understood how being worked. I believed I simply was and am and that you simply are and can be. But then I stared at the moon for far too long. I touched the white crests of the ocean waves. I pressed my hands deep into the cool earth. I watched the clouds fling themselves across the horizon with a promise of we'll be back tomorrow. I saw one too many sunrises. I spilled salty tears onto the palms of my hands. I closed my eyes and opened them and closed them again, winking, blinking. I heard the river pressing up toward the mountain. I breathed in wheat and gold and sunshine. I became small. I recognized Him.
I picked plums and filled His pockets with them.
And it was then I understood that I understood nothing.
Human existence is quite the delicate, fragile venture. Every morning when I wake up, I learn that I have discovered more, but I know less. We all sell our souls to something. And you don't quite realize it, but the moment you give in to all that surrounds you and nail your ear to His door, He begins to overtake you. Piece by piece, breath by breath, He changes me. He strips of myself, and develops me into a lesser being more capable of hosting His glory and grace.
The Maker makes me daily.
I cannot be but His, and so I don't really understand how being works. My entire life is about un-being for Him.
I would not have it any other way.

Count your blessings friends. It will change your life.

Taking up arms

"The Christian life is not a playground; it is a battleground."

I am in the beginnings of Levi Lusko's sermon on Jude. He quotes Warren Wiersbie almost right away, making his point before he's even begun to preach.
This is a war.
And we are the army.

I was thinking about that this morning. At first, I was anything but humble. I imagined us, in our armor, with our weapons. And in my mind, goodness gracious, in my mind we were outfitted with it all. We were the ultimate warriors. With capable hands and countless skills. Calm and collected. Prepared and sure.
And then I imagined myself in there.
And it all fell apart.

You should know that I could probably kill someone. Quite easily. Maybe without hesitation. I've practiced for years. Learning how to kick, which strike to use, how much weight is needed to choke, how much pressure to break. I learned about my body. How it moves, feels, works. When it is most powerful and when it is weakest. I made it a goal years back to know myself, to understand my abilities as intimately as possible, to know what I am capable of. I still have more to learn, but today, right now, I claim with confidence that not only could I hurt someone, I could snatch their life away as well. I say that heavily. I understand the weight of that statement.
It's a little bit frightening.
I am a weapon. I am a warrior.

When I put myself in the army though, it suddenly looked pathetic. I made it somewhat less than before. Somehow, I did that. Me, the warrior. The one who knows herself and her abilities. The one who is actually capable.
And for good reason.
I am pitiful.
As are we all.

We are not an army of sure, strong soldiers. The truth is, we are an army of sinners saved by grace. We are a people who see ourselves as unworthy. We are only hope-filled by grace and forgiveness. We are a mess.

We are just a bunch of bondservants.

Do you see how laughable that is? I imagined us as a fierce band of brothers and sisters and comrades. With serious expressions and determined hearts and scarred, hardworking hands. Men and women who were lions. But then there was me.

I am just a girl who nailed her ear to a door as a promise to a man who died for me.
I am no fighter.
I am no lion.

But I am bought with a price. I am His. And that's enough.

In humility, I see God's army for what it truly is. A ragtag band of failures who found the light only by His sweet hand of guidance. Outfitted with love and righteousness and they all have holes in their ears as a mark of being owned. They look to be fools. Marked and broken and stained.

We are very unlikely.

But we must remember who we are by His power and blood. For by Him, the least of us will be the boldest and the bravest. The weakest will be the leaders. And those most scared will be the heartiest of fighters.

I love knowing about this war. I love even more that our God is a God of wonder and miracles.
He makes me worthy. He does the impossible. He is great. I am ever so thankful for that.

The hardest and the easiest of lessons

Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis.

"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.'  Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do...It is like that here. The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ....I must be ploughed up and re-sown."

These days I think in pictures and patterns. I like this one so much, the idea of giving it all. Being plucked up from the earth, torn out, and then planted again. I can appreciate that.

Lukewarmness and nonchalance are trying me as of late. I have lost all patience with the disloyal and undedicated. But slowly and most certainly the Carpenter is tugging at my heart and teaching me grace. Perfection is not an expectation I want to impose. I need to learn rather to desire passion and boldness and bravery in people. Those qualities will overcome the others after a certain time.

I am discovering that instead of harping on that which I hate and despise, I must needs encourage and support and foster that which I admire.

As he said above, this is far harder and far easier than I think.
And that is beautiful.

Stuff that matters.

There's something so tiring about my generation and our perpetual narcissism. We love attention. We crave attention.
I'm sorry, I'm going to be blatantly honest and crude here.
We are attention whores.
We build a hearth and make camp and dock ourselves by dropping weighty anchors at the cusp of everything we find controversial. We live lives that are incredibly dismissive of God and His omnipotence. We are lazy and un-daring and unwilling.

And I'm tired of it.

I am so very tired of people. And I know that probably sounds rude and selfish and unchristian, but it's the truth. It is the sharp truth in my life right now. If I could, I would move to the mountains and make beautiful things and knit and read the Bible and love little children and put my hands in the dirt up to my elbows and cook good food and paint. I would do all that if I could.

It's a very good thing God doesn't always listen to me.
If He did, I'd be a hermit of sorts about now.

I don't want to participate all the time, especially in social respects. But more important than that, I want to make it quite clear that I'm tired of defending and refuting things, and you guys, I swear I'm done with it. I've left the port. I'm gone and gone and gone, and I'm not looking back. I refuse to discuss pointless endeavors that have nothing to do with Christ and His goodness. I refuse to waste my time like that anymore. I don't want everyone staring at me just for the sake of having them stare at me.

Do stuff that matters, not things that will make people look at you.

That's all I have to say today.

Fear not.

Aside from the few guilty pleasures of Clemence Dane and Oswald Chambers, my literature life lately is all about allegory. I have fallen in love with Hannah Hurnard's "Hinds' Feet on High Places" all over again, and I'll be honest with you, I am agitated beyond belief in a search for "Pilgrim's Progress." I moved down here without realizing the only copy I've ever had my hands on is my mother's.
There are woes I discover daily to pulling up roots and leaving those you love. My library is tiny and lacking in comparison to that which I left behind; that is what I learned today as I ached for John Bunyan's words.

I miss a lot of things.

And it's such a perpetual state that I find myself in, this missing, that I worry I'll never be rid of it. I am trying to get over that though. This year I have found two phrases to live by, and one of them is

Fear not. 

I'm tired of being afraid of everything.
I drove to school early the other morning, the sun had just come up. The sunrise is different here. The colors are missing from it, the violets and lavenders and roses and oranges and periwinkles. This one was amazing though, even with a lack of boldness. It was like the ocean had erupted into the sky, with huge waves crashing against the hills and gold light spilling everywhere with a luster I'd never seen. Pale blues and greys and I swear, I don't think those clouds were clouds.
It looked so much like the sea that I began to cry.
And then, against my usual inclination, I began to apologize to God instead of thanking Him. I apologized for everything I was afraid of. And though my drive is only fifteen minutes long, my list could have filled pages and with my bitterness written across the margins too. I am afraid of a lot of things.
After my profuse apologies, I begged the Carpenter to help me shrug off those fears this year.

It's almost too perfect, beginning 2014 with Much-Afraid in my hands, and knowing it will end with Grace and Glory. Yearning for Christian and his story, and sure I will find a beautiful copy of my own by December.

I claim this year.

I claim it as a year for overcoming and for firsts.

How to be a boring Christian

Jesus found me when I was something like five years old. No fireworks, no flash, no bang. Just me as a child and a few tears pressed out of the corners of my eyes because of a very real fear in a dark theater. I surrendered what little life I had then, and all the rest of my years as well.

If anyone has a boring testimony, it's me.  

I need to tell you, I think the worst thing I've ever done is lie.

I don't say that to brag in self-righteousness about my goodness. Please don't read it like that, although you probably already did. All sin is the same in God's eyes. I am just as ugly and filthy as the next person. I'm saying it though, to put this into context for you. I've never done anything incredibly terrible. I'm not very adventurous. I don't have much real life experience. I can count the R rated movies I've seen on my fingers. And turns out, I'm just a small town girl who's never kissed a boy. In all honesty, most people call it innocence, but the reality of it is, I'm probably a little bit naive. 

I've always felt guilty about that.

When your life is as lulling as mine has been, you begin to doubt the credibility of your salvation. You also begin to feel guilty. 

I worry constantly now that people will assume I expect perfection of them because of the life I've lived. And while I do expect wondrous things of people, I don't expect perfection. That's a ridiculous standard I am trying to rid myself of. I never knew what grace was, and now I feel it's continuously necessary for me to apologize to everyone for my high expectations because I'm still learning to forgive myself. 

And so, I worry. 

I worry that people will think I have a holier-than-thou attitude if I tell them my story. 

I worry that I make people feel guilty about their past actions just by walking into a room and knowing me.

I worry that people will see through my facade of I have tragic circumstances as well and realize that all my tragedies ended in joyfulness and aren't really considered tragic in the first place.

I worry that they will be less willing to befriend me because I live in what seems like a fairytale.

I worry that people will judge me for my simplicity. 

I worry that people will dismiss me as a 'good girl.'

I worry that people will never tell me anything about their heart because they believe I'll not understand. 

I worry that people disregard my words because I'm outspoken about things when I have no valid experiences to relate to those areas and shouldn't say what I think anyway.

I worry that people will think I am always judging them.

I worry that people will notice my doubts and shaking hands.

I worry that people will realize while I pretend to be a Paul, I'm really just a Peter.

I worry that I'll never get married because my ideals all relate to the life I've lived and no one will be willing to try hard enough the be that sort of man. 

I worry that people won't listen to me because there's nothing radical about my testimony, let alone my life. 

I worry that my life is a terrible representation of the Carpenter and His ministry and His heart because it doesn't burst with redemption and change. 

I worry that people will think me little and unwise. 

I worry that I rob the cross of its impact. 

But that's all wrong. I'm going to say that again. That is all wrong.

I was listening to an old sermon of Pastor Tim Chaddick's this morning. He was talking about Hosea and stories and testimonies. And near the end, he shares who he was and how God drastically changed his life for the better. It is all fireworks and flash and bang. Tim Chaddick's testimony is a celebration. It's a redemption story like none other. 

But it's paired with another testimony. 

His wife's.

Her's is subtle, slow, and in all honesty, boring. It's a gentle work that Christ did through her, nothing huge and obvious. Just an incessant, ever-present walk throughout her life. And it was when he shared how he loved her for it, for the mellowness of her story, it was then I realized that this is why we have boring testimonies too. 

There is nothing wrong with having a boring, un-radical testimony. In fact, it's a necessary thing. Because when you have that simple, constant surrender of your life to Christ, you also have an amazing gift to give. You get to be a grace-giver. You get to be an actual illustration of mercy and love. You get to forgive people in a real manner that speaks to their heart. You get to demonstrate Jesus on a different level. It's not better and it's not less than. It's different. 

You, yes you. With your boring, plain testimony that took place probably sometime in your childhood and you feel like nothing drastic ever happened to you and you have no validity to preach the gospel with your story packaged neatly in your hands. 

You are necessary. 

More so than you think.

Because there are people out there who have the radical stories. The life-changing moments when everything turned around and Christ was so evident and obvious you could grab for Him. Those people, they feel guilty. The feel like grace is far-fetched. They walk around unsure that anyone so 'right' in comparison to themselves could ever accept them, let alone love them. They still feel the weight of all their sin. Their past, they carry it in their pockets, hiding it with a fervency and constantly worried that it will fall out or someone will get a peek. They live a life of forgiveness from Christ coupled with un-forgiveness from themselves. And while it's not necessary for all of these radical story people to be found and loved by a simple story person, it is important for some. 

Even after Jesus and His grace, it is important for some people to be found by a small worker and their grace. 

Your ministry as a considerably almost 'perfect' lover of the Lord who has never done anything relatively bad seems tiny in comparison to the hugely authentic and compelling lives of those who have done almost everything bad and completed a turn-around like none other seen before. You can't really preach in that persuasive manner, and oftentimes we regret that. 

Maybe you're like me. Maybe when you were younger you lied and fashioned for yourself problems that you never really had, struggles that never really took place. Maybe you made the things that actually did happen bigger than they were. Maybe you cried at something that didn't really crush your heart, but your tears gave it more legitimacy. Maybe you spent time on your knees, always worried that your friends would realize you have no idea what you're talking about when you tell them you can understand, when you pretend to relate to them in their difficult circumstances. 

Maybe you were a liar because you feared God has no use for those that seem to be smaller saints with less shiny stories than all the rest. 

Ministering to those who have 'messed up' on a deeper level by the world's standards of sin is not a grievous and less-than position though. 

It's beautiful. 

And you're one of the only people who can do it.  The fact that Jesus has lived in your heart and your life is one rhythmic pattern of constant devotion is not cause for grief. It should be a call for joy. 

Not everyone has lived a life which renders them capable of displaying Jesus in a beautiful way to those who haven't. 

Don't get me wrong, your forgiveness is no more valid than forgiveness from others, but it is gorgeous in a different manner nonetheless. 

Can you imagine making every mistake in the book, living a life rampant with sin and destruction, and then one day waking up and turning to someone who has tried daily to be better than they ever have been and righter still, and they look at you and say, it's okay. All that stuff you did, I don't hold it against you. I think you're beautiful anyway. And because Jesus forgave me, I can forgive you. I forgive you.
I forgive you.
Those are probably some of the most powerful words you could ever say to another soul.

We each preach the Carpenter differently through our lives. Whether it's a radical, beautiful change that slams onto the chest of everyone who hears it in a breathless way that catches in your throat, choking you with tears, or it is a devoted, simple life that was lived with a loyalty that followed all the rules all the days, they are both important. 

We are all creatures of the cross once we're sinners saved by grace. 

Don't belittle God's ability to use each of his beings in a beautiful way by counting yourself and your story useless. His plan is always better than we imagine. Have faith in that. 

You never know if you're going to meet a Tim Chaddick who thinks the most beautiful thing he's ever seen is the most boring thing you've ever been. 

Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." So often we need to know everything about everything. I think sometimes though, it should be enough that God knows everything about everything. It should be enough that even in our boringness we are promised a future and a hope.

Your purpose isn't something you know all the time. Usually, it's something you do. 

If you are interested in listening to Pastor Tim Chaddick's sermon, it can be found here. If you are interested in reading a small part of what else I think about boring testimonies, you can find that here. And if you have any thoughts or questions or ever want to meet for coffee, you can always email me . I think we need to share our thoughts more with one another, so please, let's make more of an effort to get to know one another and share the beautiful things we know of and are learning. 

How to be nonsensical and daring

Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. 

Psalms 34:7 

When I was a little girl, or even maybe just a littler woman, I felt a constant desire to discover beautiful things. I was a searcher. I looked, at everything. Wide-eyed and wondrous. Somewhat brave. At least I like to think I was brave. Really, I have trouble even imagining me as a brave tiny soul. I was never brave. One can pretend though, for one's own sake I suppose.
So. Brave. Let's say I was part lion-hearted, if only an eighth. That's quite a bit though. How about one-sixteenth. We'll call it all even + fair then.
I liked to find things out. Smallish discoveries only, mind you, but still. I kept a shoebox full of rocks underneath my bed, polished and not. I had jars of seashells. And a piece of driftwood. I still keep flowers pressed between the pages of my poetry books. Dried lavender in wooden boxes. Lilac branches. Words. Teas. White dishes. Quilts. Small pen + ink drawings. Jars of paint. Butterfly wings. British stamps. Sand.
I have always loved finding beautiful things.

Now I love to make them.

I sat at the table this morning + last night, making plans and painting pictures and writing. I am in the middle of a story about a man who has red hair and lives in a cat's ear. He is very small and witty and has grand adventures. I like him so far, though his face is yet to be painted in. I also have lists strewn about my bedroom and the kitchen table. All of them are concerning Christmas. But there are future plans too. I had an idea in Anthropology class the other morning that has bewitched me ever since it crept into my heart. I think it knitted itself into the lining, tight and with a purl stitch. It's not even clear yet, just heart in-between words that are mostly nonsensical + unsure. But hopeful. It's all written in the margins of a lot of hope. Honestly. It is potentially one of the best ideas I've ever had. I'm actually excited. I don't even know if I'll be able to lift it off the ground, but I'm actually excited.
Tables. Tables are involved. And flowers. And food. And giving. Ah my gosh, the giving involved in this idea gives me goosebumps just imagining it.
I want this.
I want to make this beautiful thing.

I'm in Matthew this November. Reading about being salt and a city on a hill and good places to plant seeds. I've been so encouraged. I'm at a point when it all seems possible now.
God is amazingly large. And yet, and yet He uses us in ways we can't even imagine being purposed + designed for. Us. These little people, these small beings. He uses us in His wondrous plan and marvelous workings. That is such a privilege. And such a responsibility, one which we should not take so lightly as we do.
I never actually thought about how hard being the city on a hill is.
I am so impatient + fed up with how unmotivated so many of my fellow young people are. I don't want to generalize, but I can't help it. I keep thinking of the conversation Chelsea + I had. She looked at me and said in her sweet, gentle voice, they don't know how to do anything anymore. No one, anyone. None of them know how to make things or be someone or change. And I agreed with her. I nodded my head and felt my heart clench just a little bit. You're right, I told her.
And she is. Because there may come a day when no one knows how to do the important things anymore because we're all too lazy to bother learning them now. No one will know how to lead a ministry. No one will know how to have the patience to sit and read a real book. How to build houses. How to be dedicated. How to be loyal. How to make a difference and an impact and be.
We are not a generation of doers.
We're all talk.
And that makes me nervous. That frightens me. Because there are imperative things out there that we simply ignore. There are things out there that the carpenter is calling us to do, but we're so busy on our iPhones and Xboxes that we don't even get on our knees to pray about what they are. I am not always so cynical about this. There are days when I have such faith and excitement over my generation and the things they are + were + will do. But I think it's this season of life, being here at the university. I am frustrated. I am tired of hearing people talk about how they 'bs' their way through every paper. How they studied for ten minutes before class. How they're okay with a 'c' because it's not a 'd.' I am losing patience with the people who aren't trying. Who really don't care. I need to let you know, people my age don't care anymore. There are far + few between who are even willing to put forth any effort at all. I can get over the failures. I can, honestly. The truth is, I can't handle the apathy, even my own. Everyone is so complacent.
And I'm afraid.
Who is going to lead?
I know we can't relive the past over and over. I know things will be different. Because of innovation + revolution + boldness. But the truth is, I don't know who anyone is, and I don't think they do either. I mean, where are the Billy Grahams of my day? Where are the Mark Driscolls and the Greg Lauries and the Chuck Smiths? Where are the Chopins? Where are the Nate Saints and the Jim Elliots? Where, for that matter, are the Elisabeth Elliots? Or the Bruchkos? The Corrie ten Booms? The Anne Franks? The Vincent van Goghs? Where are the Beatrix Potters? The Davids and Jonathons? Where are the Peters of my time? Where are the Pauls? And the Timothys? And the Esthers and Ruths? Where are the Noahs? Where are the Daniels? Where are the Amy Carmichaels?
Sometimes I think I can't see any of them.
I know that my generation is amazing and makes amazing things and has done things people before never imagined. But the impacts we make aren't rippling. And I think we just don't see that we aren't throwing our stones into a lake anymore. We're just throwing them at a brick wall. We don't make a difference. Yes, there are some people who do. There are a few who are brave + good. There are some who just go for it, but not nearly enough of us. And I'm preaching to myself as well friends. Don't think I'm just talking at you. I'm standing in the audience too. I am ashamed of how much time I waste. I hate the hours that I've done nothing with; I can't forgive myself of them. I feel terrible for all the times I simply didn't care or forgot to care.
There have been days of my life that I did nothing of worth at all.
I am done with complacency and apathy and half-heartedness. I am so done.

I moved down here with the intention of doing small things. I had a pile of more love letters with me and a few skeins of yarn. I told myself, I wrote it to myself, I said, these next two years, they're all about the small things. And I was so okay with that. I was okay with the thought of focusing on school and finishing. Because then, then I would be done. The big things are for when you have your degree. The big things are for when you have time. The big things are for when you know more. The big things are for when you've discovered enough. The big things are for later. And so I pocketed them, I folded + tied them neatly, and I slipped them into my pocket. All of those big things. I wrapped mine up too friends, I need you to know that I did that.
But I have to be honest with you, I'm sitting at our wooden table, surrounded by journals and paintings and plans and ideas and drawings and storyboards, and I can't keep them in anymore. I don't know how to do what I want to do. I don't even know where to start. But I am. I refuse to wait. Because in two years, yes I will be done. But in two years, it has been two years.
We don't always have time. Sometimes, it's taken from us. And we need to live like we know that. We need to live like that's true.
I have always been worried that I have too many dreams to fit into the length of my life. It makes me nervous just thinking about it. We were talking late the other night though, and A told me something that I'll probably never forget. Whatever God has planned for you, she said, He will make sure you can do it. No matter how impossible your dreams seem to you, they will come to pass if God designed you to carry them out. 

"God won't tie your soul to a dead-end dream."

My pastor said that once. I think I never really believed it till now. Because it's hard to reconcile my imagination with the things I know I need to do. I don't understand how I can do what I want to do in India and do what I want to do in the states. I don't understand that.
It is relief to know I don't need to though.
I just need to have faith. God is so much bigger than we think, so much more than we think. We're pitiful, puny beings in comparison. And how dare I assume a superior position and an authority on a life that's not even my own.
Here is my advice and my decision. We can't wait anymore. We don't have time to wait. Laziness is a conscious decision on all our parts. And so let's just do it. All of it. Even if it scares you, even if it's big, I beg of you, push, pursue, persist. Write the list of those things you're afraid to do but not afraid to dream of, and then go do them.
Now.

Let's stop throwing stones at the wall.
Let's be more.

Alone in Italy

A morning:

"I love them all. Perhaps more than I should, perhaps just a small part too much. I can't really help it though, it's my heart. I think my heart has some sort of condition with the way it grows and is always so brimming and full. I think it doesn't listen to me anymore.

But I'm okay with that. 

I'm okay with loving them all. Even if it means they'll never love me back half as much. That's really not all that terrible or grey. I mean, I can hardly tell myself that these days, tell myself that it should hurt. I used to think it would hurt. I used to be afraid that when this time came, they would all forget me and I would die. But it did, and I didn't. It's not so bad as I imagined it would be, loving with abandon. In fact, there's a strange beauty in it. 

I am learning to appreciate loving without being loved back to the same extent. I am learning just to give. 

And it's okay. It is okay to have a spilling heart. There's no sin in that." 

To be a singular human is a splendid thing, and not. I have learned that. I am learning that.
I woke up this morning, alone in a blanket fort while the light crept in through the white of the sheets above my head, and I pulled my quilt up to my chin as I thought in the earliest of the day, and I began to write those words above onto a page in my journal. You're going to be alone like this, I said to myself. You're going to be alone like this more than just now, many times. You're going to be alone in amazing places. You're going to be alone doing amazing things. You're going to be alone for a little while longer. I wanted to cry when I thought that. But I didn't. I just didn't, because there was really no point. You're going to be alone like this, I thought. And so what, I told myself. So what if you're alone like this. 
To be alone is just a state of being.
I nestled down in my quilts after journaling, and I read parts of "Winnie the Pooh" while I drank my tea, surrounded by piles of A + my pillows. I prayed this morning, for the people I love. It was Christopher Robin that reminded me to do it. He said something in a story and it pricked my heart and suddenly I was on my knees. Christopher Robin does that to me; he takes my breath away in the best ways possible.
I prayed hard this morning underneath the walls of my blanket fort.
And then I cried. I let myself cry after a while. Because I loved everyone—I love everyone—with a lot of heart. And sometimes it gets to be too much. Sometimes I have to remind myself and quote "The Princess Bride," because sometimes I forget that life isn't fair.
No one owes love to me. No matter how much I love them, they will never owe me love.
Love isn't something you can earn or keep bottled in a jar or charge people for. Love isn't something you grasp at with fluttering hands. Love isn't designed to be of equal or lesser value, but not everyone is capable of the same amount.
No one loves me the way I love them.
And maybe that's selfish to say, or stupid, but most days I feel like it's true. I try not to be half-hearted in my relationships + friendships with people. I try to go all in, full out, pressing always. I try so dang hard. And so the realization hit me then, this morning in the white light, a blue A. A. Milne novel clutched in my hand. No one loves me the way I love them. And at first I thought I was being pitiful and unfair, but the more I thought about it, the clearer it became.
No one loves me the way I love them because we all love different.

Just because someone loves you with what seems like less, doesn't mean they don't love you with all that they have.

So I am throwing my whole heart in. No matter who, no matter what. I don't want to live half-lives. I want one life, whole, and blistering with passion + able to invoke jealousy for its persistence.
I want to give it my all.
And to think I discovered this about myself in a blanket fort.

One day, I am going to be in Italy alone.

I already know that. It's just something in my heart that I can tell will happen. It scared me though, writing those words out loud to you, whispering them under my breath as I did. Because I have never told anyone that. Even though I have always been sure of it, I've never told anyone. It's not really something to be proud of, something to flaunt. It's kind of scary actually. I like to think it will be a step of boldness for me. Really I know it will probably just be an act of desperation, going to Italy alone.
I get tired of waiting.

Another day, night rather:
I'm sitting in my bed, wrapped up in quilts, chunky yarn next to me and peppermint tea by my side. Today I had somewhat of a panic attack. It crept up on me as I sat alone in our little house, trying to finish my piles of homework.
I need a table, I thought. I need to build a table. With dark-stained wood full of knots and flaws and not so perfect corners but just almost. Simple and understated. Strong.
And then I thought a little bit more and I came to a different conclusion.
I need someone to build me a table.
And then I cried into my tea.

We all have our quirks. The little things that just make your heart beat faster than usual. The moments that catch your breath in the back of your throat and you have to pause to find it again. The spaces in between laughter. The cause of a smile. The tears and sobs. The pleasures that after a while when you're a little more grown up you realize maybe they only make you feel the way they make you feel and not the entire world.
It's warriors for me. Warriors and tables and old books full of poetry.
Tables get me every time.
More than that though, it's people who can make things with their hands + wood. My stomach is expectantly waiting for the day a man shows up in my life and hands me something absolutely gorgeous that he made. Then the butterflies will come. Then I won't have to go to Italy alone. Then it will all make sense. Then.

This spring my dad and M and I went to the ocean. We slept in a tent on the sand and watched the sunset + sunrise and collected seashells in our pockets. My dad was walking next to me while we were there and he turned to me and he said, What are you looking for in a husband? And the question caught me off-guard because before that spring, I had completely given up on the idea of knowing what my husband was supposed to be like. I was just slipping back into being okay with dreaming of him, and I hadn't had much time to give it thought. So I stuttered and stumbled and fluttered a little. Grasping at the feelings I used to have but seemed to have forgotten, and reaching for the newest ones that we're blossoming at the top. Three things, he said. Your three most important requirements. 
The last one was that I wanted him to be able to make things.

I want him to be like my dad.

I'll never forget what he said to me next. My father looked at me and he told me, I didn't know how to do all this stuff. When I met your mom. I didn't know how to build things, how to fix things. I had to learn. The ocean was soundless when he said that. In my life, my dad always knew those things. He was always my dad who could build it. Who could fix it. Who could make it better. The dad with the wood-cutting and the box building and greased hands. The dad who did all of it.
I never imagined him any other way.
And I had to reconcile that fact in my heart. I had to bury it in my bones and not forget it. I can't forget it. Because if I do, I know I won't have the grace to accept someone who is not as beautiful as they can be yet. I know if a man came to me and didn't hand me anything absolutely gorgeous that he made, I would turn him away. I wouldn't be able to forgive him of his less-than-ness. Of his youth. Of his desire and effort to learn, but nothing coming of it yet. I would deny him. So I tucked them away, those words my dad said. I sewed them into the creases of my elbow and I listen to them every time I reach for something and my arm is within sight.

People will tell you in life that you can't have too high of expectations, you can't make them unrealistic, else no one will love you. No one will pursue you. No one will chase you.
But there's a balance.
I just want to tell you, there is an in-between.
I want someone who can make things. And if he can't make things, he's going to learn how to, else I don't want him. Harsh as that sounds, it's my reality, not my dream. It's the truth. I was raised like this and with this, and I will not deny myself what I have always had. If someone really wants to be in my life, they'll rise up to meet those expectations. I promise, I know. It's just like the Italy thing. I know I'll be there alone someday. And I know he'll walk in my door someday, either saying, I can build this, or, I'll learn to build this. I will do it for you.
Those are both a given.

A third day:
Nothing I am saying or writing seems to be making much sense these days. If anything, I blame my latest journal entries and all the tears I've been sobbing. Everything is beautiful or melancholy lately. Everything is making me want to cry.
Part of that is certainly because of Charles Dickens and all the homework I have had lately. Also "Robin Hood." My gosh, have you ever read the tales of that bandit? They're heartbreaking. I still remember the first time I read the novel. I was a mess by the end.

It's like I wake up, and I'm reading "Robin Hood" every morning, all over again.
But I didn't even bring it with me.

I think in a way, all of this is me simply trying to balance and weigh everything in my life right now. All of my dreams and wants and needs and thoughts and ideas and sureness and not so sureness. All of it, everything.
I've been seeing lately that I can be so much more of a better woman than I am. I wrote a list today about it. It had sweet little things, and also some giant important things. I like that we can always become more as humans, that we can always grow. I really like that.
But I don't want you to believe that I am always impatient + discontent. I love my life right now. I adore my life right now. I am treasuring these days of being a sister and a daughter and an aunt. I am holding my niece. I am driving the hours to see people. I am reading books I have always wanted to read. I am trying new things in the kitchen. I am painting on the floor. I am listening to Turandot all of the time. I am discovering new teas. I am building new bonds, bosom friendships. I am learning, learning, learning.
I am becoming.

Life is far too short to just sit around wait for things to happen to us. I realize now that I have to go do the things I want to, even if that means I have to do them alone. And then I will wrap them tightly in my heart, and safe-keep them there until that man arrives, and then I will tell them all to him. I will pull out the journal entries + the stones from the coast of Italy. The underlined poems + pictures of Claire and I. The flowers pressed in the pages of my copy of "The Secret Garden." The verses of Proverbs memorized. The seemingly never-ending search for the Eugene Field book. Flowers, every week, no matter what. Paintings. Tea leaves. Ukulele chords. Letters received. Acorns collected. Lavender. White dishes. Illustrations sketched onto the pages of homework. Small fairytales. Pale pink ribbons. Opinions about opinions. Memories of forts + late night discussions. The story of Joseph. The somedays plans. The learning to hold myself to a standard of grace and not perfection. All of it. I will pull it all out and crush it into his hands and press onto his chest and say to him, see? See, I did all this. Before I knew you and you knew me and we knew. This is who I was, this is what I did. Because while I waited for you, I didn't wait for life. 
And then I will smile and say, she was moving a little fast, but I'm so glad you caught up to us.

Who says Italy is for those who love, not for those alone? I suppose most of the entire world does, but I also suppose I'll just have to prove them wrong.
One day, I'll let you know when.
I have a few other things to do first. Life is a little bit of a struggle to keep up with. Her pace is somewhat like that of an Olympian's, and I was always only an average runner.

Lastly:

It is possible that this all boils down to the fact that it's midterms + I've been reading "Peter Pan" late at night under my sheets. It is quite possible my dears.

Being nice is not overrated

Some days I see the point of all this. I wake up passionate and ready and brimming, almost spilling over with effort. And it's easy. It's easy to sit through the lectures. It's easy to read the countless articles and pages of pages textbooks. It's easy to watch the documentaries. It's easy to memorize and recite and practice and discover and explore.
And then there are days.
Then there are mornings.

There are mornings when all I want to do is quit.

But I am coming to see that this is only what I make of it, and those mornings, those mornings are my choice. I choose whether or not to fully embrace today or every day. I choose that.
So I am choosing to make this what I want it to be.
I am choosing no bad days.
I am choosing to forgive others + myself.
I am choosing no regrets.
I am choosing to work harder, and then harder.
I am choosing to hide the love letters in the hallways and books and cracks and desks and chairs.

I am choosing to make a difference + an impact in these years.

I am choosing to love.

I am choosing to be salt.

I am choosing to be light.

This morning was one of those mornings. I woke up and poured my tea on my hand not in my mug + I wanted to cry for no reason at all. I had a sad song in the back of my mind, my French homework was hard to understand, and I hadn't gotten enough sleep for precisely those two reasons. I missed people. I wanted to mope. And sob. And give up. And frown. And do everything but exude joy + bursting.
So I wrote a love letter.
I scratched some happy truths out on a small painted card. I sealed a creamy pale yellow envelope. I pressed some bright fall leaves into the back pages of my Bible. I put my headphones in + listened to Josh Garrels while I walked to the bus stop. I pondered grace. I got over myself.
And I made a choice.
I made the most of today.
I know that sometimes it is hard. I'm definitely not preaching happiness constantly and in a never-ending manner, but I am preaching persistence. I think that oftentimes we don't try hard enough. And yes, I have my teary-eyed moments + I sob my tiny heart out in very true form, but many of those times have been more of a lie than a truth. It was just me giving up. It was just me wanting to quit. It was just me, all about me.
A + I are by no means doing everything perfectly over here. We've been down south for almost two months now — longer for me — and we still don't have jobs. I have turned in over twenty applications and resumés. We sometimes lack motivation. We deny ourselves things we want or need because we fear the future. We procrastinate. We don't understand. And we stand for Jesus in a way here that is already beginning to bring condemnation in a fiercer manner than I would have thought.
But all is well.
We choose for all to be well. I choose it, daily + with an anchor of a soul. This will be one of the greatest portions of my life. This will be one of my best mountains I conquer. This will be beautiful. I am determined for it to be so. With small paintings of letters + flowers at our kitchen table and love letters and dedication and a perpetual pressing forward.

I just want you to know, this morning I chose to be nice.
It was one of the best things.
You should try it.

I have some dear, dear things to share with all of you soon, about changing churches + being a single woman + pursuing things. I am learning a lot these days as I am striking out on my own, and I hope to be more of an encouragement as I express the things that God is working in me. He is so constant + good friends, always, always. He is blossoming some new dreams in the pockets of my heart — or — more likely I am only just now uncovering the buds that were already there, but they are wondrous. That you need to know. They are wondrous, and you have some too. I promise, I'll help show you. 
Sometimes all we need is someone to help us out a little bit. Sometimes all we need is a little niceness. 

Being built

I finished the old Testament this morning. Literally, really, truly. I sat with my small white porcelain cup full of milky coffee, and I read the last word in the last prophecy in the last book in my Bible. I wish I could tell you I had a "wow" moment then, after it was all over and done with. Or that I did something dramatic, like burst into tears + sobs. Or even that I celebrated. But I won't lie to you.

I just sat there.

My hand pressed on top of the small leather book that I had been reading out of. Still + silent. I breathed. I thanked God for giving me the grace to travel this far. The sun crept up behind the foggy hills. And I just sat there.

When I finished this morning + I turned the page to the book of Matthew and I looked around me. I was humbled. I could have never imagined that I would be here + now when I finished this half of what I had started so many years ago. Never in my wildest dreams. If at fourteen you had sat me down and pressed a hand against my arm and said, you'll be away from home at twenty-two when you finish Malachi. You'll be different, I would not have believed you. Never. Not for the big white bowl on the beautifully stained shelf that my daddy made. Not for the matching jars or the tins full of tea lining the walls of my kitchen. Not for the daisies on my table. Not for the French I know now. Not for the old books stacked on my pine dresser in my very own bedroom.
Not for anything in the world could you have convinced me back then.

I am so grateful for how far the carpenter has brought me.
How much more He has built me.

So I just sat there, and I thanked Him this morning.
Because I knew then that in however many more years when I actually do finish + read the final word in Revelation + close the little leather book, I have no idea where I'll be. Who I'll be. What I'll be doing. And I become slightly choked + knotted up right now just thinking about that.
God has made me new + more beautiful, and better yet, He can do it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.

I am breathless in anticipation for Revelation.
Because I am expecting even more wondrous things to have happened by then. Unimaginable things.

I can't wait for things to be even better than now.

Fleeting bravery

More + more as I wake up each morning and watch the sun rise over the long, stretched out hills here, I am coming to the same conclusion.

All is fleeting.

This life is so momentary. So weighed down by time. It is hopeless and unromantic and ending. It is not all that there is though.
I have been saying that so much these days.
There is more though. It's true. There is an eternity. And we, even us pitiful little carpenter-lovers, we even sometimes forget that. So I can't blame them anymore. I can't really look down on them for being afraid. For not caring. For not trying. For giving up.
I understand now, the depths of their despair + heartache.
And I want to change it.

A desire to be able to speak more eloquently has slowly been blossoming in my heart. I write just fine, that I know, but I want to be able to talk too. I want to be able to make the sky even bend just a little to hear what I have to say.  I want my words to wrap around people's souls as they come out of my lips and to brush their cheeks and to offer comfort when I can't write it.
I want to speak life.
I was never very good with my mouth. Always stuttering or mumbling or not finding the syllables caught in the back of my throat and finally just swallowing them. But as my vision + purpose + passion have all broadened with the growing, learning woman that I am, I find myself more desperately in need of verbal beauty, a vocal cadence that is smooth and rhythmic and assuring, an ability that I don't have.
I stumbled my way through three speech classes thus far in my college career, and my teacher sought after me with a fierceness ever since the first day he read the words I wrote.
You need to talk more, he would say and write and email to me. You have so many good things to say. 
I can't, I finally told him halfway through our second quarter together. I'm just not that kind of girl.
And he looked at me and said something no one ever had before. Then you need to be her, because if you don't try, you're robbing people. 

You need to be her.

I was devastated for days afterwards. For the entire school year actually. I couldn't. I couldn't find my voice. I couldn't raise my hand. I couldn't tell people what I knew I should say.
I couldn't speak.
But now. His words have always been there, in the back of my mind tucked in the pocket of thingspeopletoldmethatireallyshouldnotforget. They are surfacing again, those things he said that at one time I thought were unkind. That unheeded advice. But they're not about school anymore. They are not about the things he said them about. I hear his voice, deep and caring and perfectly measured. His slight laugh behind each word even when nothing was funny. His presence and the manner he carried himself in. I hear all of that still.
But now it's about this.
It's about hope.

Knowing Jesus is not really something we should have the ability to hide from other people. And I want everyone to know, I want to tell them all, I want to say it with my voice.
This is not all that there is.
And then I want to say,
Would you like to know what else there is?
The greatest love story is hard to stifle. Not sharing the carpenter is like reading "Romeo and Juliet" and never telling anyone about it. It's like shoving "Tristan and Isolde" underneath your pillow whenever anyone else comes in to whisper goodnight. It's like finishing the last words of "Jane Eyre" and not crying.
It is impossible.

After my last class with that speech professor, he + I were alone in the classroom. It was almost the last time I spoke with him, only once more after that did we cross paths. I held an empty pan sticky with icing that had covered the cinnamon rolls I brought to share with the class and he sat on the edge of his desk with his hands on his knees and his blue eyes looked straight into mine with the engaging stare he begged everyone to use. You're a good student, he told me. I only nodded in response, because he ended on a high note and I knew he had more to say.
Be brave, he told me.
Okay, I said.

Now is my brave time. Now is my brave moment. I feel it in my bones. I can't keep Him to myself anymore. I have the best one, the sweetest of ever, the savior, and I can't keep Him to myself.
Because all is fleeting.
But this is not all that there is.

Letter: To the Church

Fight the good fight of faith...

1 Timothy 6:12 

Dear storm-weatherers.

I want to encourage you, but before I begin, a story.

There was once a small woman. Young, restless, brimming + full of hope. She was a potpourri of sorts. Full of vanilla and lavender and rose oils and bergamot and almond and nutmeg and cinnamon. Nothing about her made very much sense.

She thought she was happy. She wasn't.

The fact was, she called herself delivered + saved + cherished, but woke up every morning and did the same thing. She locked the door of the house she was in. This was not a good house; it was the barracks of a regiment of rulers + dictators with no presence of mind to care. It was full of people—soldiers—who were determined that everyone had to reach a higher standard, everyone should only smell like carnations, because the best warriors are all the same. That was the one scent she did not have. And so she would lock the door and buy their lies and douse herself with the scent of small pink-petaled flowers in a meaningless effort to be more like them. And if she ever smelled of any other scent—which was often—then they hit her. In the gut. Or kicked her. In the ribs. Or brought a leather belt down on her arms. Or shot her in the back. Or knifed her forehead. Or whipped her. And burned her. And cut the tips of her fingers with razor blades. And broke her bones. And slapped her. Again and again and again.

The saddest part of it all was, sometimes she did those things to herself.

Every night she would go to sleep, bloody + worn down + sorrowful, and every morning she would wake up and lock the door and let it all begin again.

All because she didn't smell like carnations, and the commanding officer said this was the only way.

One day her older sister left, simply because she was too tired. And our young woman, our bruised + beaten warrior, she followed her sister. Crawled after her really, because by that time her knees were the only way she could stand.

They went to another house, the camp of a band of warriors, a brotherhood.

Our woman barely even made it there. She might not have, if not for the one man who came alongside them and supported her. He was tall + familiar + kind, a carpenter not a soldier, but she didn't recognize him.

He smelled of the sun.

He offered to carry her, but in her foolish pride + ignorance, she refused him and held her bloody self together with her own two hands. He looked so sad about it all and wouldn't leave her, that near the end she at least let him press down on the hole in her shoulder. She didn't want to get her blood all over the dark wooden floors of the house they had arrived at.

She did anyway. Even with his hands putting pressure on her wounds and trying to stop the bleeding. The floorboards ran red with her that morning. The harm done to her was that life-threatening, that grievous, that abusive. 

They forgave her of the stains though. There were already some there, from those before her. The hurt came here always. This house that was a safe place, a solace, a steeple.

A haven. 

Even though she was rescued, for two more years she continued to wound herself daily. She subjected herself to the same tortures that the first regiment she had been a part of had. She rubbed the carnations all over herself till her skin was raw.

But at night, she could swear the carpenter was there in her room, pressing his large hands onto her injuries, changing her, growing her, healing her.

And he was.

It was a strange place, this new regiment. They all smelled differently + they were all under the impression that it was okay for it to be that way. Sometimes they bickered, but most often they got along and loved each other in a way she could have never imagined. They were willing to lay down their lives for one another. This was more than a soldier's camp, an army post, a place for warriors. This was a community, a band of brothers + sisters, a family. The camaraderie they had was undeniable, and it was something to be jealous for. They were fierce + ready + sure. They were being led, but she didn't really know who it was that was leading. She thought she'd never find him.

She finally saw him for who he really was, two years later after she realized what she was doing was wrong + that she needed to stop. He was the king, the greatest of all, the gentlest of every man, the savior. The captain. The other fighters didn't laugh at her for her stupidity. They didn't call her an idiot. They simply gently supported her discovery with extended arms of friendship + great joy + they celebrated with her as she grasped with fluttering hands at her gorgeousness that he had created and she finally realized he had made her—fearfully and wonderfully—and all her flavors + smells + oils + scents.

The carpenter was their leader.

And suddenly everything about her made sense, and she was happy. 

The woman was me.  

We live in a tragic and brutal time. I am sure you know that. The storm we are facing is huge; it takes up the entire sky. And I am afraid, as I'm sure you are. Because though we are warriors, though we are fighting the fight + waging the war + battling the battle, we are still only human.
We are still small.
The storm we must weather sometimes looks too big.
But please take heart, please step into your armor daily. Because our leader is larger and fiercer than any other. Do not shirk your calling, do not strip yourself of your protection, do not shrink from the front-lines.

Do not be a coward.

I know it is hard. I am there too.  I am frustrated too. I am frightened too. I am quaking too. But we must man-up. We must overcome. We must hold our swords tighter.
There are too many of us leaving.
I am sure you know my friends, some of us are walking away. They are leaving the church, the band of warriors, the body. And they are doing it of their own accord + justifying it with romantic notions of global love and a greater purpose. They compare themselves to abolitionists and peaceful warriors and great men + women. But they are not. Do not listen to them. Do not be fooled. I have been there, to a similar place such as that. And it will not end well for you. I promise you that. If you go, it will not end well for you. It will not be the fairytale you are hoping for.

They will only shoot you in the back with their lukewarmness.

When I walked in through the doors of the place I now call my home, I was black + blue and a hypocrite. My blood ran all over the floors each Sunday as I condemned myself even after those who had done it before were out of my life. I was hurting myself spiritually in ways you can't imagine. But then you were there, all of you were there. And over time, I learned to love with abandon.
I learned that I would die for you.

It is up to us to fix things if they are broken. We are soldiers and fighters, but the simple truth of the matter is, we are also sons + daughters of the carpenter. And he will teach us to build and repair and make and create. He will lay a sure foundation, he will hide us in the cleft of the rock, he will prepare us. Because "the harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few."

We need to be the few.

Anchor yourselves, for the biggest waves of this raging storm have yet to come. Do not be unmoored + discouraged by those walking out the doors. See, it is that fact alone that proves it to me, that they are doing something wrong.

They are walking out the doors, whereas I crawled in them.

Wounded soldiers do not strip off their armor and hide in the warmth of an enemy's camp while licking their scratches and pretending to be pilgrims on an epic journey for truth and love, unsure of whether truth is a revelation they can find in a poem or if no one actually knows it and everything is right. Wounded soldiers lay in the dirt, gripping the earth and holding onto their dear lives with rattled breathing and pulsing blood because they know that any moment now their friend, their comrade, will come dashing across in the midst of the flying bullets to pick them up over his shoulders and he will carry you to safety on his strong back even if it means he dies for you.

Wounded soldiers do not walk out. They cannot walk. Cowards can though.

You have become my family. With your vanilla and pine and citrus and every other beautiful scent you can think of. You are fearfully + wonderfully made, and helped to show me that I am too. I have learned so much with you and from you. I have been healed and renewed and transformed. I have been loved and loved and loved. All of that, by you, the church.

Jesus saved my soul, but in a way, it was you all who saved my life.

I cannot be sure that all of you will weather this storm with me. The Bible does demand it of us though, to fight this good fight. Some of you will continue to leave your cohorts established by the builder and led by him too. Some of you will not stand. But I want to encourage those who will, those who are, those who do. You are good and righteous and beautiful. You were created in the likeness + image of a great king, and he instilled in you the spirit of a warrior, because he knew—even before you were born—that you would fight for him. You know the truth. It's written on the palm of your hands and in the creases of your elbows and behind your knees. And you may doubt, but hold fast + with courage to the promises that are hidden in your heart. The wind will moan and whip. The thunder will roll. The lightning will strike. The rain will pour, it will pelt, it will hurt. But this is more important than a journey for something that satisfies your flesh or fills your human desires. This is not brief + earthly. This storm is about eternity.

What you decide here and now, impacts your forever.

The weight of that sentence is something you need to carry with you. The gravity of this situation, this problem my generation—we—are facing, it has everlasting and permanent consequences. Whether or not you choose to stand and fight for what we've built and defend what we believe, or if you decide to walk away and desert your cohort while barely harmed and in search of a silver lining that doesn't exist will determine the everlasting future that is inevitable for each human.

Heaven or hell is a choice you make.

Church, you are able + capable. You are full of fire and passion and light and salt. You are ready.
And I need you to know, I am sorry.
I am sorry for the foolish youth and young ones walking away. I am sorry they are believing the enemy's lies. I am sorry they are abandoning ship when their arms were the ones needed to man the mainsail. I am sorry they are not brave. I am sorry they no longer want to be soldiers.

I am sorry that my generation is not a generation of storm-weatherers.

We are not only failing you, but we are failing the greatest commission and denying ourselves the imperative calling. But please do not lose heart.
Do not lose heart.
Do not lose heart.
Do not lose heart.
There are some of us who see that the fields are white + ripe + ready for the harvest. We are small in number, but equipped with hope. So don't give up. Keep extending your hands. Keep mopping the blood up from your floors. Keep singing. Keep assuring those who crawl through the oak doors. Keep embracing. Keep loving.

Continue battling.

I will meet you there, in the field. I promise. I vow. I swear. And I will bring with me the few who are willing. I will continue the work you have continued. I will board the ship with you. I will ride into the thick of things. I will carry you to the infirmary. I am determined that my generation will not rob you of seeing the finish line. We will drag you across it, even if the bullets hit us harder and it seems like there are not enough of us. We will go back for you. Again and again and again. We will forge ahead of you, and discover and cut trails and make paths. We will run our forces into the most dangerous forest with you, and you will be stunned at our ferocity and perseverance and boldness.
We may be the smallest warriors that you have ever seen, but we will have the biggest hearts.

You have saved me. I will save you too.

We will not leave the church. I will not leave you church. I will fight the good fight and wage the war. I will build onto what you have already built onto.
This will be the fiercest generation you have ever laid eyes on.
Fear not.

I am coming. 

We are coming. 

From a daughter of the carpenter, a storm-weatherer.