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,