Three hundred and sixty-five days.

A year has gone by.

A year ago tomorrow I was praying about going to Virginia.
A year ago the day after tomorrow I signed up.

But I never expected this. 

I planned and had expectations, but what God did this year was amazing.

The truth is that this year has been the hardest, most wonderful year of my life.  To face sickness, tragedy, and depression.  To stand before God at a loss of what to even say to Him and to have Him love me in the midst of it.  To learn the hard way that His arms are strong and capable of carrying me home.  Words don't cover things like this.  And then to leap- to go to Virginia.  My time there was sweet and shaking and purposeful.  To learn about eternity.  To fall in love with people from every other nation other than my own.  To tell people about our God- to care about them and the smallest details of their lives- it felt like flying.  To have that kind of a summer follow that kind of a winter felt like a promise coming true.  And then, to come back to campus with a new job and a different perspective.  To relearn faithfulness in the small things.  To grow again.  I never expected my life to change so much in one year.  My goals, my dreams, my heart, my approach to God, to people, to life, even.  To redefine success.  To redefine love.  To redefine friendship.  To watch all of these things change and shift before my eyes has been incredible; it's all too much to wrap my mind around.

I can't help but imagine fifty years from now tracing back through my memories and saying- I remember that year.  That was when everything changed.

To remember loss and the sound of the ocean.  jet noise and a room full of students.  guitar strings.  pencil meets paper.  bright smiles.  salt and rain and bright stars on sandy beaches.  snow and anchors and breaking.  That year was the beginning.

I don't know what comes next, friends.  I face pages yet to be written.  There's a sad sweetness for the past and exciting anticipation for the future, and a deep rooted faitfulness for what's right now.  I'm excited and ready for risking and jumping and flying again- whatever that looks like, whenever it comes.  whatever the next three hundred and sixty-five days may hold. selah.

Like freedom in the spring

Merry Christmas.  I caught myself today saying it so many different ways to so many different people.  Sometimes I say it like a statement.  Sometimes I say it emphatically!  Some moments it's more like a question?

Sometimes Christmas feels like a question.  I don't know what kind of family you have or what kind of life you come from, but my guess is that it's not perfect.  It has flaws and scars and maybe wounds.  Maybe deep, empty silence.  Maybe things you wish were different and people you make wishes for.

Yet that's not what today is about-

That's what occurred to me today as I sat around my own table, with my own family, with my own self, with my own flaws.  We are imperfect people who were rescued by a perfect love.  That's what it's about.  It's about the redemption plan created to buy back our hearts from darkness to light.

It's about this idea that if the whole Bible is true- radically, emphatically, undeniably true- then redemption is possible for us.  Light is possible for us.  Love is possible for us- even out of our flaws and scars.  That because of this child born of a virgin, in a manger, to a rough and broken world, we can have a relationship with God.

And that feels like a miracle to me.

No matter what else feels wrong, that's right.  That is a reason to celebrate today. With the sunrise and with the sunset.  With my flaws and with my family.   Redemption- through a child in a manger, through a God big enough to rescue, and through a king who will make all things right again, like freedom in the spring.

Merry Christmas, dear friend.  I hope you spent it with people who know you, people who remember what has been but have hope for what can be.  May you never run out of reasons to celebrate.

"Love with reason, love without reason, and love with reason not to."

In all honesty, I sucked at that today.

I write these things not because I have everything together, but because I don't.  Sometimes I'm unloving and argumentative and completely awful.
And that's exactly the point.   To examine our flaws together, to trace every knick and every fissure.  To work on them, piece by piece, day by day, moment by moment.  To put goodness back together again.

 love joy  peace  patience  kindness  gentleness  self-control

Let us set our compass north and head in the true direction of home
[even when we feel lost]
Let's try to make peace where there isn't any
[and be honest when we fall short]
Let's attempt to right the wrongs
[and admit that sometimes we don't have all the answers]

Let us try again tomorrow
[and thank God for the grace to begin again]

(Here's sharing, with permission, an actual letter written to an actual friend many years ago.  When I write letters, I put my heart into them.  Here's hoping you'll understand that.  Here's hoping this might be for you this winter.)

Dear friend,

Hey there.  I've missed you.  I hope your life is filled to the brim with good people and things that bring you joy.  Reasons that wake you up in the morning, that make you feel alive.  I know that has not always been the case.  Winter is the coldest season, and it feels like the longest.  The days get shorter and darker and it's much easier to lose your purpose and sense of direction.  To have light, to have enough to see by, to live by, to live in is not always the easiest thing.  Sometimes the easiest thing is to get tangled in negativity and pessimism.  The world says that the person that doesn't expect anything won't be disappointed.  To just take what you're given.  I used to believe that and it kept me from getting hurt.  But it also kept me from truly living.

Sometimes winter is a fight.  To expect good things.  To trust that God is in control, that we're safely in the palm of His hand.  To feel alive.  To remember our sense of purpose.

Don't let the cold steal your sense of wonder.  You are an incredible human being, and the world needs people who have come alive like you, who have a reason to believe.  Don't lose that.  Don't let anyone take it.  Don't listen when they tell you that you're wrong for having wild dreams.  Wild dreams and steadfast hope in our God are the only way to live.  If winter is a fight, I'm fighting right alongside you.  Until I get to see you again- love with reason, love without reason, and love with reason not to.

"And miles to go before I sleep"
-Elizabeth

To be like a child again

Finally finishing the semester has left me with extra time.  It feels like magic.  I've been spending most of my extra time these days with my nieces and nephews.  They're wild kids who I am deeply in love with and fiercely protective over.  They have brought a depth and a richness to my life that I can't explain and sometimes don't understand.  Hanging out with them has made me think about what it means to be like a child.

Kids are unabashedly honest.  They don't know any differently.  They say what mean without thinking about how it sounds or how it makes them seem.  While some of what they say is embarrassing or down right mean, it's refreshingly honest--something my speech could sometimes use a little more of.  Kids also aren't ashamed to love what they love.  If they love climbing trees, they'll run around covered in grass stains.  They don't care what they look like or how them seem to other people.  What other people think isn't important.  They're doing what they love.

One of my favorite things about kids is that they know how to dream with abandon.  My nieces and nephews want to be doctors and lawyers and ballerinas.  And who am I to tell them differently?  When I was little I wanted to be a lion tamer, a teacher, and the first woman president.  When I was 10, I was convinced I was going to be Jane Austen.  Kids naturally have reckless dreams.  They don't know phrases like "You can't do that," or "that's not practical."  We're the ones who tell them that.  They have the courage to dream with freedom and to believe good things can come true.  To be like that again, to be so convinced that what lives in your heart is possible, is beautiful to me.

I remember trying to explain the concept of money to one of my nieces.  After a few minutes of frustration, I kept telling her "It pays for things.  It buys stuff."  I just repeated phrases like that thinking, eventually she'll get it.  After ten more minutes, I remember insisting, "It's important."  She smiled at me and said, "Why?  It's just green pieces of paper."

Whenever the power went out as a kid, I fell in love with life all over again.  There was a magic and a simplicity in how everything simply stopped.  Responsibilities seemed temporarily suspended, like life was hanging in midair so that we could have a day to really live in each other's company.  The TV was broken, the radio didn't work, phones ran out of battery, and everything that seemed to normally fill our days was exposed as useless.  As a kid, it seemed weird to me that every day held things that didn't seem to matter, while rare days like these held the only thing that did- loving people.

I tell you all of this because I've been trying to be more like a child lately.  It's not something you'll hear most adults say.  But there's a beauty in dreaming with reckless abandon, in speaking truth, in loving without prerequisite, and in trusting that you'll be taken care of.  Now, I'm going to frolic in the snow and in the outside cold and in the warmth of people I love.  I dare you to do something child-like today.

It's finals week.  My brain is mush, but I'm leaving you with a November memory:

I got to help lead a discussion today, but it was so much more than that.

I got to stand in front of a class today and say that we matter.  Your story matters, and what you have to say is unique and important.  There are things in your life worth fighting for, worth writing about, and worth sharing with other people.

I got to ask questions and grapple with answers.  I got to be a part of a discussion about need, poverty, community, isolation, richness of spirit, individual struggle, and sweet victory.

There's no way this is going on my resume.  Take a breath and reach deep down in that part of the heart that aches every time it feels like none of your dreams are possible or even close to coming true.  That's where I'm tucking today away- do you feel it, right there?  Today is wrapped in a blue-cloud cloth, tucked away from cynicism and pessimism and all the other -isms that try to tell you to stay silent when you feel like singing.

For all of the moments that have felt insignificant, today, this day, was for you.

walking next to you

There's something about sharing a story.  Being in the company of one of the greatest families I've ever known was refreshing and beautiful.  We're not blood related.  We don't look alike.  We don't share DNA.  Yet we're family, in our weird way.  Our stories are all different, yet the song is the same.  We've known redemption.  There's a love that made a way for us.

A friend and I were talking tonight, and it was weird how similar bits of my past and her present were.  Tonight, I am thankful for each story, and each person behind it.  Our lives interconnect, every road, every experience, serving a purpose all its own.  I can't believe the absolute light that comes with sharing what's in our past with others who are confronted with it in their present.  I'm thankful for the fact that we can sit face to face with another human being and words can come up from the heart of who we are.  I've been there too, and there's a way out.  I know what it feels like to be where you are, and it gets better.  We are rooting for you, cheering for you, and believing the best in you.  We're for you.  We'll run alongside you when you're strong and hold you up when you're weak, because that is just what love does.

I'm thankful for the people who have taken the time and grace to tell me things like this, and I'm privileged to pass it on to others.  There's a breathtaking beauty that comes when we link arms with each other and stand together, through hardship and lightness, joy and pain, tragedy and blessing.  We're in this together.

Your victory is my victory.
Your sadness is my sadness.
Your joy is my joy.

It is truly an honor to walk alongside you, whatever the path may bring.

cat·a·lyst

/ˈkætlɪst/ Show Spe[kat-l-ist]

–noun

1. Chemistry- a substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected.

2. Something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected.

3. A person or thing that precipitates an event or change.

4. A person whose talk, enthusiasm, or energy causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic, or energetic.

 

"Outside the fences of convention lies an untamed wilderness awaiting the reckless souls who have the nerve to cut their own path. Are you daring enough to defy the dictatorship of the critics? Are you strong enough to wander outside the lines? To dance to your own drum? To thrill to the ecstasy of unrepentant, unabashed euphoria?

Dare enough to raise your head above the crowd."  -Jon Foreman

Read more of his column for The Huffington Post.

You matter.

A man on my campus took his life last week.  My brain can't decide if I should call him a boy or a man, because he was too old to be one and too young to be the other.  He didn't even have enough time to decide.  I didn't know him.  I wasn't friends with him, but my heart is broken.  He was a person.  We, we are just people.  None of us are perfect.  And none of us, for any reason, should be made to feel like we don't matter.
Because we do matter.
You matter.

You're precious and valuable.  You get one life.  One, and only one.

And you are not replaceable.

be. known.

That's it.  Don't go through today without telling someone how you really are.  Not a cute anecdote about your day, or laundry list of how busy you are.  Tell someone about you.  Invite them into your head, into your mess.  Let someone walk next to you- in the dirt, in the sun, through all the crap and all the goodness.  It's these moments and this transparency with one another that makes community come alive.  We each have a story- things in our lives that we've experienced, places we've come from and things that have happened.  We've all walked a million miles in lives have been given to us, down roads no one else knows.  The truth is that your story is unique and important.  So start by letting someone in on it, even if it feels like you don't have everything together.  Don't worry.  I don't have everything together either.  Maybe the idea is that none of that matters.  The idea is that maybe we're more loved then we'll ever really know.

I want to dance in the palm of your hand.

It's that point in the semester.

The halfway mark.

The mark where I start to get really ridiculously tired.
The mark where I start questioning what I'm doing here.

It's still weird not living in Virginia.  I know that was 3 months ago, but it's still in my head.  When I think of recovering, I think of illness, accident, tragedy.  But how do you recover from something wonderful?  I know part of me will always want to relive this summer a million times over.  But I don't feel like it should be this odd for me to be "home".  It still doesn't feel like I fit here.  Like a plane in the sunset, with nowhere to land.

I know that this is where I need to be right now,
but why does it feel like I'm in the wrong skin?

I guess my point is, I'm wrestling with things.  With my life.  With my sense of purpose.  With everything.  And I realize that that's the "thing" to do when you're in your twenties, but I am tired.  And yet even with all this wrestling and questioning, I still have hope.  Even in all this, I can't shake the feeling that I'm on the brink of something wonderful.  I'm on the last step, with my toes curled over the edge.  Waiting, praying, ready for whatever leap is going to come next.

So I keep going.  I keep reading, studying, and writing until it feels like my brains will explode.  I keep working and caring until I run out of strength.  I keep praying and believing until I'm all out of faith.  Yet I keep waking up and finding myself renewed again.

P.S.- I hope this finds you well.  And if for some reason it doesn't, I pray you have the courage to keep going.  Tomorrow is a brand new day.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithful
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer

"If a woman does not keep pace with her companions, perhaps it is because she hears a different drummer. Let her step to the music which she hears, however measured or far away." -Walden, Thoreau

Quite a bit on my mind, with no way to open up my brain and let you all in.
What I want to do is sit here and pour out all of my thoughts.
What I will do is study for midterms, which are next week.

Rain check?

PS-  I went to this concert last night.  SO glorious.

without you I'm just water and dust

Tonight I left my house and just drove.  Usually, I don't have the luxury of not having a destination, but tonight I rolled all of my windows down and turned my music up.  And then I sang.  It felt like freedom.  Watching the cars and the lights and listening to the symphonies of all our lives going on at once makes me breathless.  We each have a story, a puzzle piece of a bigger and more beautiful picture.

I stopped for coffee and ended up reading in Philippians.  Paul is in jail and he tells the people of Philippi that it's a good thing.  I tremble at the thought of having joy in jail.  In all honestly, I'm not that selfless.  No struggle I've ever experienced has ever come close to being thrown in prison for what I believe.  He even goes on to say that being thrown in jail was worth it because of one jailer who sought faith.  And I just sat there with my overpriced yuppie coffee and let my mind tilt backwards on its axis.  Joy.  Patience.  Struggle.  Running a race that doesn't seem like it has an end.  Endurance.  Encouragement.  People.  Perspective.  Value.  Pain.  Triumph.  Finish line.  It hit me that sometimes the things that happen to us aren't about us.  Maybe there is more purpose in our story than we'll ever really know.

Would you go to jail just for the jailer?

If something that you're doing only effects one person, would you still do it?  Sometimes in my life it seems like I pour myself into things and nothing happens.  At least not that I can see.  And so I give up a little.  I lose heart.  But if my effort makes a difference in one person, is it worth it?  Some people would say no.  But I say YES.  I shout it, I laugh around it, I dance to it.  I think so.  I think one person matters just as much as ten thousand.  One life, one story, one song, could be changed by you.  Your diligence.  Your hopefulness.  Your love.  Your willingness to be inconvenienced.  Your story.

"Sometimes when you're in the middle of something, it feels like you're in the middle of race.  You're sweaty and tired and you want to go home.  You forget that there are people at the finish line waiting for you, cheering for you, and expecting you to finish.  And for a split second, you almost buy into the lie that you're the only one running, when nothing is further from the truth.  We are six billion people with six billion finish lines.  And the truth is, we're all in this together in ways we'll never understand."

This week has stolen the words
from my throat
I thought that at some point
the hole that goes from
my heart to my mouth
would make a noise
but it hasn't.
it doesn't.
it won't.
This week has stolen my voice.

My words will come back eventually,
floating up from wherever they're stuck.
But until then, we'll have to go in reverse:

8.27.10

They lay there, old and worn, something that had disappeared for so long I'd forgotten when I lost them in the first place. An old pair of sneakers. I'd bought them my freshman year of high school and wore them everywhere. Every adventure from my younger years shows in the soles of these shoes. Tennessee. California. Mexico. Colorado. Mississippi. Downtowns, dusty roads, coffee shops, rocky cliffs, record stores--rhythms of the place I've been that have led me to where I am. I was so young. I had so many dreams wrapped up in this deep and aching desire to change the world, or at least take away some of its pain. That unparalleled passion- I want that back.

So, feeling a bit lonely, I put on my adventure shoes and headed to the library. I am a book person. I've always found a peace there, surrounded by so many stories with so many different endings, each unique and yet equally important. In the heart of the silence, I feel challenged and inspired by the idea that my story isn't over yet. That there is more that lies ahead than I could ever dream of.

After I'd gathered most of my books, I bumped into an older gentleman in one of the aisles. Instantly he reminded me of my grandfather. He laughed at the giant stack of books in my arms and asked me what I was reading. I wasn't in a hurry, so I set down my books and talked with him. In that moment, there was no other place I had to be. There was nothing pressing I had to do, nothing to prove. It's funny what people will share with you about their lives when you're actually willing to listen. He mentioned he was a retired high school history teacher. I watched his face light up as he told stories about his students, his life, his favorite play, his wife's knee replacement surgery. His brow folded and unfolded, his hands motioning as he explained details, while pausing every once in awhile to throw his head back and laugh. As he was talking, I realized how much we need people; connections, stories, someone to share our lives with. He went on, telling me about theater and the lights in Paris in 1976. I loved listening to him because you could tell he loved what he had to say. Sometimes you have to watch someone fall in love with something before you love it yourself. There was this entire life history wrapped up in this precious man I normally would have walked right on past.

As we parted ways, he turned and said one last thing. "I know the economy is bad and things are rough all over. But don't be afraid to dig in your heels. I'd hate to think you missed out on doing what you love." He chuckled, folded his newspaper under his arm, and left. Something sparked in me as he walked away. This crazy desire to live a life so full of life that I don't just "get by". That my days don't just fall through the cracks. When I'm older, I want to get so excited to tell people about my life that I talk with my hands flailing and my heart in my eyes. Maybe in fifty years, I will be walking by myself down an aisle. And I can tell someone in half-library whispers, between all the stories with endings that I'll never know, that they must dig in their heels.  They must find it in them to live the best kind of story.

I'm removing the word "busy" from my vocabulary.

Yep.

I know I say it too much.  It carries the connotation that I have so much to do, and that in the grand scheme of my life, doing stuff is more important than being with people.  And that is so untrue.  The truth is that school takes up the majority of my time and energy, probably more than I'd like to admit.  But the day that I find I care more about what I'm doing than who's with me for the journey...is not a day I want to face.  Sometimes I find myself stressed out by classes and the future and the overall state of my life and I take a breath and remind myself that it's not a race.  It's not about who can finish first or how many medals you have at the end.  No one is keeping score.  So do what matters to you.  Find what you're passionate about.  Be around people who know you and are known by you.  Be relentlessly loving.  Try something you never thought possible.  You might be surprised.

There's a canvas in front of me with brushes beside it.  There's a church service tonight with a dear friend.  There's a script I need to finish writing and there's a creator that's still writing my story.

You can't hear me, but I'm singing this song-

I should be studying, but my mind is on overload.
Sometimes I just need to be silly.

Theretofore, a pause from my normal contemplations to bring you:

wafflestand!

mist

  Sometimes I feel cheated by time and distance, the way life moves so fast.  In the grand scheme of things, we're only here for a second.  a moment.  a breath.  a vapor.  There have been people here before us, and there will probably be people here after us.  If we don't stop and really open our eyes, life slips through our grasp like a fistful of sand.

Go.  It's a whisper and a whirlwind, a wish and a daydream.  These past few years have planted a deep desire in me for adventure.  There is something in me that yearns to go somewhere new and unexplored and to throw off the expected and venture deep into the heart of the unknown, even if it seems scary.  There is a reason why I never unpack my suitcase, why I don't get homesick.  It's easy for me to trade in the well-worn feel of the familiar and take off to someplace I've never been before.  But I can't do that here.  Including this semester, I've got a solid 2 years left of school to finish.  I can't just wander off into the wilderness, or chase the neon city lights.  But maybe, just maybe, there's a quiet contentedness in being where right where you're at.  So out of all of these things, I am trying to find the beauty in staying.  I want to wake up every day and find the extraordinary even in what seems mundane; the way the light pours crookedly through my blinds in the morning, the way the 3rd step in the staircase in Varner is chipped at the end, the faces the I see everyday but don't know their names.  Every single moment, every single day, met with gratefulness and passion, seen through the beauty of brand new eyes.

Walkers with the dawn

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness--
Being walkers with the sun and morning.
-Langston Hughes

stories

"No, no this just doesn't work."  She tapped the pencil against the desk and sighed.  My first draft was not going well.  I squirmed in my seat like a toddler.

"What does this character want?  What makes her get out of bed in the morning?  What is the driving force of her life?"

"I...I don't know."

"You have to find out.  Because until you find what's at the heart of this person, what makes her who she is, she's not going to live a story that anyone wants to read.  Give her something to fight for."

She was right.  The stories people are drawn to stories with action and conflict- this idea that something needs to change.  We like stories with purpose and passion; the character has to do something, or risk something, or take some sort of chance.  Apply for the job, run the marathon, kiss the girl, capture the villain.  My favorite stories involve challenges, courage, hope, and anything that seems impossible.  In literature, you need action to make a story- but so often in life, in our stories, we settle for being half asleep.  My wish is that our lives, our stories, would be filled with challenges and courage and hope, and purpose and passion.  That we would take a risk.  That we would try to do something we don't think we can.  That we would turn and face things instead of running from them.  I want to live a story like that, and I want to write stories like that.  This is my attempt to write more, to find my voice, and to share more of my thoughts with other people.  I want to live like I know what I'm fighting for- passionately, freely, and full of grace.

"No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath... We get one story, you and I, and one story alone.  It would be a shame for us not to venture out and truly live."

- Donald Miller