stretch.

All day long, I pray that I would be a womb for Jesus. 
On my way to school this morning, I whispered it to the Father. 
Come dwell in me, Jesus. Come dwell in me. 
When I walk in the door from the hospital or errands, to laughter and music and toys strewn everywhere... I remember. 
And I pray it earnestly, as I greet and pick up and prepare and study. The words come breathless like a woman made heavy, "A womb, Jesus. A womb. Just make me a dwelling place for You." 
When I come home irritated and frustrated by disorganization, when I get another teary phone call of confusion and try to help sort through the muck, when yet.another.person gets diagnosed with cancer, when stories are filled with drugs and anger and unfair outcomes. That's when my prayer seems to miscarry. 
I don't even remember that I've forgotten until afterward. 
When I take the time to just breathe. and remember that Hope came. and remember the figure of Mary all those years ago, swollen with the Savior, lumbering ever close to delivery. 
Doing advent activity with the kids today, baby girl counts the holes of the wreath.
"All these nights of waiting..." She methodically counts the remaining carved cups. "... we have... 1, 2, 3, 4 (and so on) more nights and Mary will be in Bethlehem!" 
She clenches her hand in giddy glee and it's not about waiting for the gifts, but waiting for the Child. 
She turns and says to me knowingly, her head slightly tilted, her nod and smile so certain, "I know it didn't take her 24 nights to really go to Bethlehem. It's just the way we count the waiting." 
She reaches for the wooden figure of Mary, and I remember. 
I see the swelling silhouette of Mary there on the back of the donkey and the starkness of it strikes me, what it really means to be a womb. 
Mary's distended. Her skin pulled taut. Her belly swells round and her abdomen bulges and she is drawn to the outer rim of herself. 
Mary, in every sense of the word, is stretched. 
To be a dwelling place of God, a womb for Jesus, means to be extended, taken to the outer edges... stretched. 
To be a womb means there will be stretch marks. 
This season of Advent may hurt. It may hurt a whole, whole lot. You may feel weary. I may feel weary. These days may not be easy. This may be God growing me, growing you. 
I reach out and touch Mary full with child and I hurt a bit in the knowing: A Christmas, one that God indwells, may very well experience pain and heartache. 
Kids will cry and siblings will bicker and relationships with grow taut. Divorce will still take place, cancer will still be brutally treated, fear and anxiety will still rear their ugly heads. There will be days where nothing seems to go right and the season feels like it's dissolving into one sloppy, muddy, impossible puddle. 
This Christmas, I'll be stretched thin. I will feel myself asked to love to the furthest edges of myself, asked to extend grace to the outermost reaches... because how else can I grow full and large and round with Christ?
To be a womb, I must feel my inner walls, my boundaries, stretch. 
and stretching the shape of a soul hurts. 
Little one waits long before she blows out the candles on this peaceful night of advent waiting. 
I linger with her in the flickering light. 
and I pray. 
I pray for those carrying Jesus this Christmas. 
For those who will extend themselves, those who will see God take them to utmost extremity of selflessness. 
For those who will yearn for Home and those who will dry tears. 
For those who will be heavy with the weight of routine or chaos. 
I pray for the stretching. when we're in the midst and feel utterly discouraged and helpless. when we're tired and overwhelmed and searching. I pray that we will give way and let God enlarge us. 
I pray for the willingness to return a phone call and try again, to let go of the stiff sides of the heart that God can rejuvenate. I pray for the grace to wash another crusty dish and fold another load of the laundry, for God can stretch even in the most mundane. I pray for the relinquishing of this season to the Father, knowing that nothing is wasted and this stretching piece of the story will be used for good.  
I pray for the soul stretch marks. 
She leans over the figurine of Mary and blows out the candles. 
We sit a moment longer, her and I. 
Expecting Jesus in all this dark... 

dear women.

Honest moment: 
Do you want to know what really (and I mean really) grinds my gears? 
Watching women battle women. FOR ABSOLUTELY NO VALID REASON.
We've all experienced it, probably over and over. We've gotten good at it, us women. It's become sneaky and abrasive and uglier and uglier. 
The publicizing of sacrifices to impress others, using oneself as the standard for others' performance, professing love but acting in cruelty, delighting in debate rather than dialogue, loving to impose opinions on others as absolute truth, wounding with words and wounding with passive action.
The whole thing makes me cringe, and I am just over it. On all levels. 
I expressed my frustration yesterday to several mommas, and the discussions that ensued were some of my favorites. Conversations of vulnerability, of eternal riches and rewards, of grace. 
And I have some thoughts about it all. 
See, here's the thing: I'm surrounded by a plethora of people day in and day out with all kinds of issues. Some of them physical, some of them emotional, some of them spiritual, some of them on a level I can't even begin to understand. 
and I'm sick and tired of so many women falling victim to the "women war." 
I'm sick and tired of hearing that women feel rejected because of the size of their pants, the size of their house, the size of their family, the size of their callings, the size of their work. 
I see it, hear it, feel it... all.the.time.
Women that are brushed off because they can't or don't or won't fit into someone else's box. 
Women who can't make their faith fit neatly and nicely into their heads and into bullet points on Sunday mornings, but let their Jesus-life roll over into their exposed closets and messy stories. 
Women who feel like they have to fit into an "appropriate" category: mommy blogger, size small, housewife, career woman, mother, retiree. 
I hear all of this, and my heart hurts. We were created in the image of God, and we are so much more than the tasks we perform every day, the number on our jeans, and the size of the mortgage check sent out every month. 
I look around at women, scarred and banged up and brave and still standing, and I have a burning and pressing desire to see them sing their song a little louder. Because they sing it well. 
We have this incredible opportunity to sing out an uncontainable song showcasing the sisterhood of women, saying NO to insecurity and NO to comparisons and NO to neat little boxes. Our lives have the opportunity to break the mundane refrain and see the world reverberate with a truth that rolls like thunder. 
Our God is the God of Hagar. He is the One who sees. 
Our God is the God who told countless stories about women, stories that were messy and large and full of color. Stories about the woman who is trampled to get a glimpse of His face, about the woman in her house seeking and finding the Kingdom of God, of the prostitute being fiercely protected and assured. 
Our God is the God who fights for us, fights for the woman who won't walk away from the unjust judge, who will not walk away from the call, the plea, the women who never give up- and He says she is honored and His, the woman who continues, who gives, who believes in grace. 
Our God is the God who loves and wants our best, no matter the sacrifice. Just like the woman, the widow, who walked into the temple, and gave the very smallest of coins. and it was enough. 
Our God. He praises the woman who did what she could. The woman who gave everything she had in the small and the sacrificed, and He said it was everything and He deems it large. 
This is who we are. It's who are meant to be. 
We are women who want the things that God wants. More than we are afraid of it. 
We are the women who know and respond when the love of Jesus motivates, pressing into the Holy Spirit and releasing all fear. 
We are the women who know real joy is not found in having the best of everything, but rather in trusting that God's making the best of everything. 
We are the women who make our lives about the cause of Christ, not the applause of man. 
We are the women who live to shout out truth, not to impress our FB/insta/twitter friends. 
We are women whose hearts beat not to make our presence known, but to make Christ's presence tangible. 
We are the women who know it's not all about us. but it IS all about Jesus. 
We are the women who can have dirty hair and messy floors, the women who can have perfect hair and vacuum lines, the women who are a size two and the women who are a size twenty-two, the women who work full-time at home or full time at the office, the women who are soft-spoken and women who are, well, not. 
We can break this mold of cruelty and battle among women. 
We can claim belonging, and let that belonging spill over into shocking, radiant love. 
We are women, and it's time to stop acting like girls. 
Girls rival. Women revive.  Girls empale. Women empower.  Girls compare. Women champion. 
We were made to peace makers and freedom shakers. 
So you can take your glossy little Vogue covers and go ahead and use them for window washing because our standard of beauty far exceeds what is painted as perfection. Our standard of beauty is raw, real, and genuine, and has absolutely nothing to do with the pant size or hair color. 
So, today, I am asking. Asking that as women, we begin to stand and sing an anthem with breaking free abandon. An anthem that binds us together instead of pins us against one another. 
A simple anthem, one that starts in the hidden corners of each brain and in the deep places of each heart. 
Jesus takes all of me. 
Maybe when we get to that place in our own lives, we will begin to pour it back out on others. 
Believing with great hope today that I will see this in my day. An army of mighty warriors coming together with one purpose, and one heart. 

puke buckets and destiny.

I have a momma's heart. 

I'm writing from the playroom oversized chair. The boys are vomiting in turn, sitting up sad in bed and crib. Big brother is silent and brave, almost like he knows the drill. He finishes and lies back down, and I wipe his lips with a wet cloth. 

"Nanny, will you bring me a bucket?" 

"Yes, baby, I will." 

Little brother is more distraught. This bug is vicious and mean, which explains why his feelings are so hurt by it all. 

"I want to make me feel better." 

"I want to make you feel better too, love." 

"Nanny, will you watch over me?" 

"Yes, buddy. I will." 

They (whoever "they" is) say that motherhood is sacred- that every day acts of diaper changing and feedings and laundry loads are somehow holy, anointed and appointed by Jesus. and I say I believe it. But then I hold his four year old little body up while he succumbs to the wicked virus and I feel his muscles wrench beneath my touch. and I feel it. 

I feel it in my hands all the way to my heart that this will forever and always be the most "right" thing I could ever hope to do. I just can't imagine my heart beating stronger. 

It's strange to say, but this whole kid world? It fills me up. It always has. Folding towels and cleaning the lint trap again feels somehow like scraping out all that's clogging my soul. I don't expect these feelings of melodrama to last, and I'm not blind to the HARD of being a parent. But I'm soaking in these moments of belonging. I belong in this world, with puke buckets and sticky hands. 

I'm in nursing school. Almost done with nursing school, actually. and I love it. I really truly love it. I love problem-solving, and I love decision-making, and I love the pace and the conversation. 

But tonight, I'm remembering my first calling. My truest one. I feel God's favor on this destiny that he's set deep down in my bones. There are times, even now, when it wipes me out flat. But more often than not, it fills me up. to my core. Not physically- kids are alllll kinds of exhausting- but in an important, intangible way I'm not sure I could describe. 

I was made to be a mother. A fierce and powerful mother. 

And I'm not waiting to step into that identity. Because it matters now. 

I was made to stand alongside and raise them up tall, to hold them up when they're sad or scared or sick as a dog. 

So I will do that. Even now. For a few hours with the babies on weeknights and weekends, and for every moment in between with those beating hearts that crave belonging and hope. 

... They're asleep now, two sweet boys. 

and my heart is full. 

my momma's heart is full. 

he wins.

God wins. 
It's simple, really. 
We complicate it. 
We wonder. We fear. Then we try to simplify again. 
But really? That's it. 
God wins. 
He told is in red letter words, in prophets of old. and He tells us all the time in the untouchable hope we carry deep within our souls. 
God wins. 
God wins in each small battle. 
And He wins in the insurmountable odds. In the ugly. In the beginning of time, and the end of it too. 
In the unknown territory? God wins. 
Wondering how the story will end? God wins. 
Wondering how your story will end? God wins. 
You know Him?? Yeah. God won you. 
So when I seem to be in the worst of situations and I'm struggling for air, I will choose to see that every piece of my life is filtered and funneled through the perfect hands of Jesus. and I claim victory. 
Because He wins. 
So I win, too. 

rivers & wasteland.

The fan is whirring above my head and the boys are laughing as they play a video game. It's hot outside. REALLY hot outside. I'm sipping on ice water. I can see through the window the bees buzzing on the shrubs and the rays seem to be begging my less-than-tanned skin to pay them a visit. In this corner of the world, at this moment, everything is in its place. It's easy, predictable, routine. 

I open up my laptop and just stare at the screen, bright and blank. I don't type for a while, so the curser just blinks at me, waiting for my next move. I know I'm letting it down. 

I have no next move. I'm spent. Completely spent. Not a word to be found in my brain or my heart or my fingers. This last year has been the most wonderful and most difficult of my life. Beauty and suffering mingled together somehow revealing a deep, genuine love. I am finding myself stripped away and camped out in the throne room. I feel like my sleeping bag is just inches away from His feet. 

I have no next move. 

So I half-heartedly poke at these keys, flailing wildly for some inkling of a thought that might make sense beyond my own head. I'm sure none of them do. I've always had words, always found a way to pen out my story and my season. But I just don't have it. I'm simply weary with the daily motion, the lies, the false assurance, the full squares on the calendar. 

I have no next move. 

And that scares me. Real life scares me sometimes. Because it's messy. and it's full of blinking cursors. But I'm reminded that when my soul is most dry, Jesus shines clear, ready to blow my mind. 

I read Isaiah 43:19 this morning, and just began to weep: 

"For I am about to do something new. 

See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness. 

I will create rivers in the dry wasteland." 

I literally shivered with anticipation. I can "be still and know", despite this. My heart feels covered in a thick coating of dust. I'm scared- to speak, to write, to be still. I'm aching to see the new works, the new pathways, the rivers flowing. I see the wasteland, from horizon to horizon. 

Even still, He is at work. He is creating. In me and for me, He is working. 

So for now, I'm just going to exist in the joy of the Lord. His joy for me. His joy over me and in me. and that will be my strength. I can't rely on myself or earthly beings, but the grace of God is more than enough. and that calls for joy. that is reason to march on. 

In spite of the blinking cursor and the volume of real life, I can be still. I can know truth. 

And the truth is that He loves me. and the pathways and rivers will be worth the wait. 

#thisistheyear

I turned 22 on Thursday. 
I always get a little sentimental on my birthday. 22 years. It's a lot of years. and it's not a lot of years at all. Connecting the dots on the timeline of my life between birth and this very moment would look very multi-dimensional. I could make you a map, code it, and show you a landscape similar to that of good old California. A long state, fertile bottom land, rich hills, white water, mountains, deep riverbeds, and low black caves. If there was a soundtrack attached, you'd hear some country, some classical, some rap, some broadway, some complete silence. Even in high school, when the soundtrack could mostly be akin to sappy, pathetic Taylor Swift songs, I knew that God was about shaping me. I knew He was my friend. 
My younger years were full of identity crises, going from arm to arm desperately looking for approval and acceptance. I pushed myself hard in school, and made grades and achievement my idol. I put on costumes twice a year for twelve years and stepped onto a stage and fit there. I made sense when I got to be someone else for a little while. I went to college and began to discover that life was beautiful. I turned myself inside out, the Spirit moving and shaking. There's been hospital visits. Lots and lots of hospital visits. I've sat in both seats there, and found that one is supremely more comfortable than the other. I've learned that shifting in and out of community can let you know rather quickly where your identity stands. I've learned the hard way that my identity has rested too much on the ebb and flow of relationships and roles. As I lost my ground through periods of heartache and confusion, fear and anger... I watched my friends struggle more and more to know me. 
This isn't to say that it's all been negative. Because it sure sure hasn't. It's been wildly beautiful. I am transforming and growing and resting in freedom now more than ever before. Through this season I am learning a good deal about my giftings and how to obey as a steward of Holy Spirit peace and hope. I'm learning what it means to accept grace, to respond to love. I'm learning what it means to be a powerful daughter, with the knowledge that I am destined to become a strong and fierce mother. I'm learning that I've always had the heart of a teacher, learning and digesting while also simultaneously pouring that back out and working that back out with others. I'm a go-tell-it-on-the-mountain girl, through and through. I'm learning that when I find myself in the sun, looking back at the valley below, with ragged breath and excitement I'm also whispering "let me tell you what I've learned." I've been through seasons of great boldness. Seasons where I have been surrounded by ears, clouds of witnesses, and an endless of amount of words to speak. These are my mountaintops. But we can't all stay there forever, can we? 
We just keep journeying. We embrace the ebb and flow of seasons and people and emotion. 
I'm not in the Valley of the Shadow anymore. Not in this season. 
I am happy. I am grateful. I am hopeful. I am free. I am loved. 
I have incredible heart friends who walk with me. Through the valleys and the peaks. And no matter the landscape, they call the beauty. They love me where I'm at, in the stage that I'm in. I'm convinced that the ones who will wait with us through the awkward and the unknown are a handful at best. The ones who won't give up and let you off into the silence yet won't coddle you or hold back the trusted wounds are truest rarities. Those are the ones who look like Jesus. Thank you to those of you who have been unendingly by my side. 
I jokingly stated the other night that this is the year that I'm going to meet my husband. 22 sounds like the perfect age, the perfect time. I said it to several friends, who joined along and decided to claim that with me. It was silly, really. But it took off quickly. Birthday pictures were posted, and attached was the hashtag "this is the year", in reference to my impending ficticious love story. 
I would love to meet my husband this year. But {WAY} more than that, I want to be a woman who stands on mountains and crawls in caves alongside the broken and hurting, the victorious and the triumphant. I want my identity to be deeply rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. Because I can completely trust Him with the landscape of my life. He loves me way before I love Him back. He knows way more about the caves than I do, and He stood on the mountain first. 
So, I stand by the original hashtag. 
#thisistheyear
It's the year to embrace the fact that the ground will be made level very, very soon. Old and young, rich and poor, healthy and sick, happy and sad. “Every valley will be raised up, and every mountain and hill will be flattened. Uneven ground will become level, and rough terrain a valley plain.” Isaiah 40:4. 
It's the year that I will journey with people like never before, in caves and on mountaintops. 
And it's the year that I will come to know the love that He has for me like never before. 
Cheers to 22. It's going to be the best year yet. 

because I love a good martini.

Sometimes, I wait to post on here until my thoughts are very clearly stated. I wait until I've read and re-read at least three times. I make sure it's polished.   Not today. 
Today, I've just gotta say this. and I hope it makes sense. I pray it makes sense. 
Normally, I would give a whole bunch of background to give you an idea of where these thoughts are originating from.   Not today. 
Today, there's no need. 
My theology has changed pretty drastically in the last several years. Not the fundamentals of what it means to walk with Jesus. No, not that. I fully believe the Bible is God-breathed and absolute truth. I believe God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins so that we might have eternal life. 
My people theology has changed. 
I lived for a long long time in a perfect little bubble. I said all the right things, attended church every Sunday, and had church-y friends. 
Cussing, drinking, smoking, partying? 
Yeah no. 
and God forbid you had a tattoo anywhere on your body. 
I did not associate myself with people of that nature. 
and then God flipped my world upside down. 
I stepped outside of the dangerous cliche, and starting really living with people.   People that partied hard on the weekends, people that don't blink an eye using four letter words, people with full sleeves of tattoos.
and I began to realize that we have something really beautiful in common. 
I am fully loved and fully known. 
and every single other person on this planet is fully loved and fully known. 
Whether you're crazy conservative or crazy charismatic, you are so loved. 
Here's the thing: you don't have to be "good". 
I mean it. 
You don't have to read through your Bible in 365 days. You don't have to keep a journal, join the prayer team, or volunteer in the kid's hall on Sundays. 
Honestly, guys, no one has it all together. At the end of the day, we're just thousands and thousands of beating hearts, broken and torn made whole only by His love. 
We get to take grace like a garment. But it's not equivalent to a girl scout vest. No patches to earn, no glittery gold pendants to pin on. 
You can take a hold of grace, and know that it is pure. No embellishments needed. You don't have to dress it up or bedazzle it or tie-dye it in the backyard.   It is enough, all by itself, to cover shame and fear and death. 
You don't have to listen to "christian" music or read "christian" fiction or answer all the questions in your fill-in-the-blank Bible study. 
You don't have to buy a juicer, eat organically, buy fair trade, or go to the other side of the world on a mission's trip. You don't have to adopt from a third world country, or go to medical school. 
You don't have to listen to sermons on your iPhone while you drive. You don't have to read the "right" books" or support the "right" political candidates. 
You don't even need a Jesus fish sticker on your car!
Prayer is deeply beautiful, and I love communicating with God. But dear friends, if you pray, let it be because your heart is drawn to the heart of God. There isn't a script, there's no magic words. You don't have to get up early and kneel on the floor by your bed. There's no formula. 
If you want to get up and pray in the morning, do it! There is something special there for you in the quiet. But if you can't- if you are beyond sleepy, if you push snooze again- you are not any less beloved. There is no grand, cosmic head-shaking going on in the sky. 
God is near when you push snooze and pull the sheets up around you. and He's near when you hop up and kneel next to the bed, too. 
He covers you with the quiet of His love. wherever you are. 
When you choose to acknowledge the sweet presence of Christ, know this: you cannot stifle His light with your darkness. You cannot possibly diminish it with your disobedience or diffuse it with your doubt. 
If you were to never read another Bible verse in your whole life, you will be loved just as endlessly, just as wildly, just as inexhaustibly. 
If you never step into a church building again, if you never join another Bible study, if you never sing another worship song... you are still enough. Because He is enough. Because nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. not even your own broken heart.   There will surely come a time when Jesus knocks, drawing you to Himself and calling you out of cynicism and fear. and oh my goodness, I sincerely hope you open the door and say "YES" to everything He has for you. 
But maybe you don't. Maybe over and over and over again, you say no. or "not yet." Maybe you are stubborn, choosing to take the long way around. Maybe you get on a ship headed in the total opposite direction.   EVEN STILL, you cannot outrun His love and His grace. It's bigger than the sky, closer than your ragged breath. 
What I'm trying to say is this: life with Jesus isn't some weird scientific equation. 
good behavior + prayer = God's love or God's presence or God's blessing. 
doesn't work that way. Not even close. 
At the end of the day, the good news of the Gospel is a shattering of all formulas. It is a God who walks through dirt and grime, whose Love is big enough to cover the broken, empty places of the whole wide world. Whose goodness is strong enough to cover every failure. 
It is a God who died to defeat death to give us life, and you don't have to be anyone's definition of "good." 
You just have to step into it. 
Step into His goodness and His grace and His love. 
And before some of you go and get your knickers in a twist, let me just say this: I KNOW this is a touchy subject. I'm not claiming to know everything. There is a ton of variables involved, and I recognize that. Sin is sin. 
But it's desperately time that we begin to meet people where they're at. 
When I decided to do that very thing, and check my standards for "what-it-means-to-be-a-good-christian" at the door... I started to really embrace the freedom that comes from life with Jesus.  Do you want the hard, honest truth?
I love Jesus. 
I also love a good martini or a spiked lemonade. 
I don't smoke, but honestly that's because I don't want to die of lung cancer. It's the nursing student in me. 
I have said "shit" and "damn" multiple times. like a lot of multiple times. 
I seriously appreciate the artistry of tattoos, and I have jokingly asked God multiple times to have me marry a man with at least one. 
I have piercings. No crazy, off-the-wall ones (although my mother did have a mini heart-attack when I got my second cartilage piercing). and guess what? I have dear friends (who I love to death) with belly button/lip/nipple/nose piercings. 
Did I mention I love Jesus?? 
I do. Oh, I love Jesus so much. 
With my whole heart and my whole life. 
and He loves me too. 

In which I write to Satan.

Satan, 
I am writing this blog post to inform you that your rebellion against God and His people isn't going so well. Granted, it may look like you're winning today. I just got off the phone with yet.another.person telling me about their crappy day. So I admit, there are casualties in our camp. 
However, I'd just like to let you know something. God is granted final victory. He's already won. 
Until He returns, I suppose you will continue to take joy in causing misery and pain your earthly kingdom. 
Therefore, since you will continue on with this disgusting rampage against God's warriors, I'd like to give you a little insight into how this all works. 
First of all. You can maim, torture, denounce, martyr, and rip apart my earthly body. You can play your role in cancer and in rape and in murder. Go right ahead. You will never touch my soul, though it may experience the darkest of nights. 
There are moments when I ache and I doubt, but hear me clearly: my allegiance is with Christ. It is steadfast and firm. It cannot be swayed. My King comes through as victor. When I am at my weakest, God is strong. The testing makes me stronger, mightier, and more powerful. 
Second, though I have been given a mission here on earth and I am living in your place of reign, I will not live here forever. My loyalty belongs to a passionate Father God with a heavenly kingdom that will not pass away. The more I learn about my kingdom of eternal residence, the less satisfied I am with earth. Oh, don't twist my words. There is so much beauty that God has created. Pink sunset skies, sticky kid kisses, and moments that take my breath away. But these things? They only prove that there is a Creator. My soul was made for eternity, and I cannot wait to see creation in its glorified, original state. You see, spring is upon us. You will not stop it. Nor will you hinder the fact that this season reminds me of the new life that awaits me. 
Third, the Bible clearly states that you masquerade as an angel of light. You were once the most beautiful. You choose to rebel against God, took a portion of angels with you, and were given the title "prince of the earth." Then Eve came, the signature of the divine, and you deceived her. Tragically, the earth and all that is in it, became cursed. I don't need to tell you the story. After all, you were there. Some are still deceived by your "beauty", but I want you to know I see you. I see that you are ugly, twisted, and dark. 
While some tragic events that we encounter during our time here are merely the unfortunate consequences of living in a fallen world (aka your temporary kingdom), others are a result of your evil. War, broken families, corruption, violence, confusion, abuse, and so on. I will say it again: God has my allegiance, and I will turn to Him with my heartache. While you hurt, injure, ruin, and deceive, you will not fool me. You WILL NOT fool me. You will not fool me into your dark chaos and faux loveliness. 
Fourth, to the very end of my days, no matter how long I have left, I will never stop giving God the glory. I know this means going to battle. While I am not thrilled with the prospect of dealing with you and your kind, I am fully equipped for this war. You will no doubt trip me up occasionally. I may even be a POW in your camp from time to time. I'm not blind to this. Just know this, the shackles you attempt to place on me will be miraculously, perfectly broken off and you will be left powerless once again. He will never leave me nor forsake me. 
In summary, it's been a shitty day. You may be winning a few small battles here and there. You may even get a trophy from time to time. But. You WILL lose the war. 
You will lose the war you've been fighting for years to burn bridges between my sister and I. I love my sister, and I love her dearly. YOU WILL LOSE. 
You will lose the war you've been fighting for years to make me believe that I am crazy and unworthy. I am intelligent, marked, and worthy. YOU WILL LOSE. 
You will the lose the war you've waged against my security. I am secure and I am free. YOU WILL LOSE. 
You will lose the war you've waged against belonging. I belong, and I will always belong. YOU WILL LOSE. 
You will lose the war. 
I pinky heart promise you. 
God's people will always rise up. We will always be made strong in our weakness. We will be ruthlessly defended by the ultimate Warrior, who rejoices over us with singing. 
I will sing, dance, and praise Jesus in my suffering. In my failing body, in my broken relationships, in my searching. I will take every bit of this, and turn it into gratitude. These ashes will be traded for crowns of beauty. 
At the end of the day, it's not about what I will do, but what God has already done. 
and He has won. 
So I win, too. 

because i'm just dying.

I spend my mornings handing out meds and smiling real big and hearing stories. 
Six hours of mingling with the people our culture have conveniently labeled "bottom-dwellers". The whole experience is messy and undignified and inappropriate. People spill coffee and shout expletives and clog toilets. It's a space stereo-typed by craziness. It's sometimes loud, and sometimes eerily silent. There have been moments where I'm positive things are going to get physically aggressive. 
Even though I have been practically spit on out of frustration, every morning I come and I have this inexplicable joy bubbling up from deep inside my belly. There truly is nowhere else in the whole wide world that I'd rather be on these mornings then with this squirrel-y group of ragtag people. 
They remind me of myself. Their exteriors are as poor and dirty as my sin, as all the things that have me real tangled up inside. 
And while my well is overflowing with joy, there is hopelessness spilling out their eyes and shame whirling off their skin. I'm standing close enough to inhale it right out of the air between us like second-hand narcotics. And breathe it deeply I must have... because there are slivers of time where I feel the hopelessness and shame too, and those aren't some of my more frequent emotions. I feel the shame of having too much, of being nicely dressed, of being healthy and loved. I feel the hopelessness of not having concrete solutions or answers or the ability to "fix it." 
As each man and woman shares their story and I hear their words, see the strain on their metaphorical spines... I know that I would do anything to cusp my clean palm to the backside of each stench-y neck and pull their foreheads up to mine. And with the pressing of our foreheads and a fist against my chest, my eyes searching theirs, I would whisper so fiercely, 
"You are loved. You are necessary. You are enough."
With the shame and hopelessness swirling in the halls like cloud tendrils riding the wind, I watch even the yoke of the most weary and heavy laden ease just a bit as someone takes the time to listen, to be present. 
______
A couple blocks away, and happening at the same time, is the grocery store and the mall and the coffee shops. All the hippies and hipsters and eco-conscience and wealthy people gather with their re-usable bags and bank-bucks to purchase the sweetest earth-foods the soil has to offer. They stroll the mall, children in tow, with bags upon bags. They sit with friends at the round table, carry on normal conversation about school, about work, about family. There's an abundance of happiness, of friendliness, of "normal". 
No one is spitting in anyone's faces or getting all knotted in anger. Civilized is the word and even the air seems to agree with it's hazy dark filter of beauty. You can't help but feel that the world must be a magical place, must be mostly good. 
I love it. I value it. 
I leave my mornings, and my afternoons are spent here. In coffee shops, in grocery stores, in my home. 
These people certainly don't eat canned goods on the edge of expiration or plan out ways to kill themselves. Or maybe they do. 
We all have our own brand of needs, and the contrast in our world has left me reflecting on my own brokenness. 
I'm home now. Home now from another day of learning, another day of fresh food and healthy relationships. Home now from another beautiful day, and my mind and my heart are having a meeting together and confirming what I've known for some time now: 
I am going to be a psychiatric nurse. 
Never in a million years would I have told you this a couple of years ago, but every day I feel the passion and the necessity growing a little bit more. 
Why? 
It's simple really. 
Because I'm dying for us all to be together. 
The dirty and the clean. The doctor-needing and the healthy. The depressed and the happy. The white and the color-full. The full of life and the barely surviving. The bed-less and the king-size mattress sleepers. I am dying for us to not feel lower or higher, more valuable or less valuable depending on where one sits in society's arena. I wish there were no cheap seats. 
I want to be a psychiatric nurse. 
Because my only solution for this incongruent world is to keep showing up to both segregated tables and hope that with Jesus inside me I can reach these cross-stretched arms wide enough to pull a few more of us around the same table. 
You are loved. You are necessary. You are enough. 
Will you believe it?
Excited for the future, 

to the lovers and the haters.

I have a tab on the blog that says "Let's Chat." People use it. A lot. I get emails daily. I love it. 

Most of the time. 

I got an email this week from a stranger who took it upon herself to tell me that I am disgustingly prideful. She talked and talked about my "hubris", my vanity, my self-importance, my self-promotion. 

A while back a reader told me that my hallmark is my humility and willingness to be transparent about weaknesses. 

Someone called me an "uppity" woman, like we're stuck in the middle of the 18th century. 

Others tell me I'm too nice, too flowery, too kind. That I should learn to take a stand for something. 

Yet some believe I'm too passionate, too fire-y, too motivated. 

I've had people straight up tell me I'm a terrible follower of Jesus. 

Then others come and pick up those pieces and tell me I'm doing just fine, that they're praying for me. 

Here's the thing, you guys: 

My identity can't be found in the accusations or the accolades. 

My best friends can attest to the fact that I have agonized over the emails, the comments. I have cried sad, angry, hurt tears over the mean ones and cried joyous, overwhelmed, encouraged tears over the sweet ones. 

I just can't do it anymore. I can't listen to the one who thinks I'm terribly wrong or the one who thinks I'm spot on. Both of them are right, and both of them are wrong. I am refusing to find my identity or my voice or my worth in the words and opinions of others. 

Don't get me wrong or misunderstand me. I am absolutely open to criticism. There are faithful friends and beloved leaders who I value and trust. I love hearing their thoughts- harsh or not. (and trust me, they hold my feet to the fire sometimes.) But there's a HUGE difference between someone who speaks from an earned place of love and trust in your life, and the drive-by critics with an ax to grind against you and no genuine investment in the outcome. 

Here is the thing about standing up against something, or FOR something: some people would just rather you sit back down. 

People prefer status quo. Boat-rockers make us incredibly nervous. 

But I will not sit down. I will not back down. I won't be silenced by imperfection or opposition. 

My prayer in the midst of this is that my weakness will showcase the strength and power of Christ and His Kingdom. 

I will call attention to my feet of clay and my own frailty over and over and over again because no one is more aware than me that I was born sinful and have been saved by the blood of the lamb. I carry a priceless treasure, and I will gladly boast in my weaknesses so that His power may rest on me (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

The depth and validity of my writing and work can't be dependant on my ability to please everyone. My list of failures and short-comings are real, and number FAR more than the ones my readers enjoy pin-pointing. 

I believe in being a student, a sister, a daughter, a friend the way Jesus would be all those things. I believe in justice, in vulnerability, in truth. I believe that our HOW matters just as much as our WHAT and our WHY. I want everything I do to reflect the heart of God. I want to walk faithfully in His footsteps and be a good vessel for His Kingdom. 

From the moment man was spoken into existence, we have been called to be warriors. The Bible is flooded with calls to battle and descriptions of the necessary armor. We have in no way been called to the people-pleasing life, the approval-seeking life, the shrink-back-and-give-up life. Instead, we've been called to the peace-making life, the truth-telling life, the he-who-the-Son-sets-free-is-free-indeed life (John 8:36). 

We've been called to the Spirit-filled and God-breathed life, living out the ways of the Kingdom and the love of Christ in every corner of our humanity. 

We've been called to the life of the beloved, the life of the disciple. And sometimes that means people love what we do, while sometimes it means they hate what we do. 

But friends, you and I can't engage in life from a place of worthiness without having a core belief about that worthiness: We are loved. We are redeemed. We are whole in Christ. Your true identity is beloved. Start there. And then we can live out our lives and our callings from a deep well of love and freedom and wholeness. 

Even- maybe even especially- our imperfect, filled-with-weaknesses lives are singing a beautiful song of invitation to the lost and the hurting: Come. It's beautiful, this life with Jesus. Breathe free. You are loved. 

So, stand up. Even when you feel like sitting down. 

I promise it will be worth it. 

bless the merciful.

We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Romans 12:-6-8

My junior high Bible teacher was amazing. I loved her. Still do, actually. She taught me more about grace and about boldness and about freedom in those two years than anyone ever before. Her classroom was inviting, safe, and always smelled good; I spent most days lunching on her corner couches. She was a rather unconventional teacher, focusing on heart and relationship much more than curriculum or agendas. 

We did a spiritual gifts unit one quarter. We came in the classroom, and she handed us a packet of questions to answer. You know the drill. I remember so vividly doing my best to pick answers that would lend a particular result: Leader. Evangelical culture values the hero, celebrates the leader, praises the head of the pack. In our weird little hierarchy of heroes, clearly the most spiritual among us would be the leaders, right? After repeated (and I mean repeated) multiple choice testings, my own results always came out NOT leadership. Of course. 

I was less than thrilled to say the least. 

So, the last several years have been an intentional pursuit of what it means to walk in my giftings, to represent Christ in the best possible way. 

Part of that journey has been a parallel intentionality to discover and appreciate the gifts of those around me. I am surrounded by helpers, encouragers, teachers and leaders. I am overwhelmed by others' wisdom and faith, and have been blessed time and time again by the givers. I'm grateful. 

But today, I'd like to say thank you to the Mercy people. To those of you that have been given such a sweet, yet often looked-over gift.

Bless the merciful. Those who refrain from giving us what we deserve.

Bless the hospital chaplains who cry and pray in trauma rooms with the scared and the hurting. Bless the elderly woman who folds the young mother's laundry. Bless the cookie bakers and the smoothie makers who deliver to the lonely or forgotten. Bless the father who scrapes puke up off the floor only after he's gently washes and dressed and comforted the sick child. 

Bless the ones who cry too much and feel too much. Bless the wounded healers. 

Bless the kind ones, who speak words of life and gentleness. Bless the benefit-of-the-doubt givers, the one-more-chance lavishers. Bless the holders and the kleenex-passers. Bless the walkers-in-another-shoes. Bless the wheelchair pushers. Bless the ones there waiting after the chips fall, and the edifice crumbles, and the truth comes out. Bless them for their grace for both the flyers and thud-ere, for the fury and for the glory. 

Bless the ones who pardon the unforgivable, and bandage wounds. Bless them for the dignity they somehow give the rest of us. Bless them for seeing us, and loving us anyway. 

Bless them for standing in our thin places between too-much and not-enough, the places where our hearts are breaking and our fears are manifesting and we are scared and alone. Bless them for showing up in the fault lines to hold our hands and pray. 

Bless them for weeping with those who weep. 

Bless them for their patience, for their supernatural ability to stop rolling their eyes, for their ability to be present. Bless them for their joy in the face of suffering, and their faith in our always-changing story. 

Bless them for their heart to smooth the edges and widen the roads. Bless them for their cups of cold water, their hot plates of food. Bless them for their prison visiting, their preemie-baby hat knitting, their nursery rocking so tired mommas can worship in community. Bless them when they smell of salty tears. 

Bless the merciful as they carry our own burdens with us, and we cannot know how low they are bowed with the grief of the whole world groaning for justice and peace. Bless the ones who love without fanfare or book deals or conference attention. Bless the ones running toward the hurting, instead of running away like the rest of us. 

Bless them because it takes more gut to be merciful, compassionate and kind than we could have ever imagined. 

Bless you, merciful ones. 

and dear Jesus, give me a more merciful heart.

you don't need to change the world.

It is the second and final night of the retreat, and the outside amphitheater is filled with crying junior highers and a passionate speaker. The battle cry is "Go!" because the lost souls are circling the earth and there are places where the name of Jesus is not known. 
"Please stand if you feel called to GO!" The music swells, the call is made, and suddenly dozens of student are clutching a 25 page, full-color Missions Trip Guide for the summer of 2005. Someone has grabbed you by the hands and is praying wildly over you, her brow sweaty, her eyebrows furrowed. 
In the worship choruses that follow, you are vowing to be a WorldChanger. You are carried by the crescendoes, hands lifted high above your head, asking to be used, asking for revival. 
There has been a LOT of talk lately about mediocrity. about settling. about being luke-warm, and you are learning to fear it all. You are learning to fear smallness and normalcy. 
At thirteen or fourteen, you have yet to taste alcohol, but you are determined to be "drunk" on all this passion. Your walk with God has taken on the wobbling, lurching quality of the intoxicated. You raise your arms higher, feel a wild hope rise in your heart, promise God that if He'll let you, you'll change the world for Him. 
_____
At 21 years old, my life feels very small. 
Most days, I stay within a fifteen mile radius of my suburban home, orbiting the boundaries of my world. School. Work. Church. Best friend's houses. Target. 
The battles I fight daily are small ones, not for souls but for her to please stop ignoring me or him to please take one bite of your vegetables. I believe that the work of Christ involves standing between the oppressor and the oppressed, but the truth of it is that it's all I can do some days to stand between the six year old and his big brother, who's trying to beat him with a matchbox car. 
I know full well that I have just this one beautiful life on earth and that the days are disappearing fast beneath me. I know what it feels like to ache for my life to mean something, to set the world ablaze. 
But here's the truth: I'm in the middle of working on eight loads of laundry. yep. eight. because the piles got high during this last brutally difficult semester of school. I'm sorting through papers and powerpoint notes and binders, attempting to get organized for the next semester of school. I drive to work and I see my sweet kid's faces, and I ask her again if she needs to go potty. I cut up strawberries, scrawl in my journal, open textbooks again and again, and it all feels so small. 
_____
There has been a shift in our culture and I feel it. Our collective conscience seems to have awakened to the reality of injustice. We are learning that that we can't simply speak about the living water, without also building wells; the good news to the hungry includes both the bread of life and actual, physical loaves. 
I love the ways that people and organizations and ministries are orienting themselves toward clean water and adoptions and food drives and making the world better. 
Remember the whole Kony 2012 thing?? Yeah, I sobbed through that whole video. All those children. All those signs. A generation coming together to change the world. Sex trafficking videos? I bawl my eyes out. Adoption stories? I weep. 
But then, there it is again. That quest for bigness. I feel it in my heart now in the same way I felt it as a fourteen year old. It is intoxicating and burdening and I am impassioned to do something great. Start an organization. Raise a billion dollars. Change. The. World. 
And then my phone chimes again to remind me that I have a pharmacology exam in two days, dinner needs to be made for the children, and I should probably keep working on those laundry loads. I feel the smallness close in on me again. 
_____
Here's the thing, though. As I step into this new year, I am reminding myself of something that I desperately need to remember. 
The usefulness of my life is God's concern. 
Not mine. 
My responsibility is not to change the world. It never has been, and it never will be. 
and it's not yours either. 
Our responsibility is to lean into the wild love of God. To be moved by it. To step humbly and obediently into it's bigness and find ourselves different there. 
Whether the things I do change the world is not my concern. My job is to let my heart expand in His mysterious, perfect love so that when I meet the orphan or the widow or my neighbor or my sister or my enemy, I have something to give them. 
God's love is power and hope and healing, and it has changed the world before. It will change it again. 
It will change the world every day of my small, big life. 
Praying that 2014 is marked by intentional love, radical grace, and the freedom to walk confidently in whatever we are called to.