Real

I wrote this about 4 weeks ago but it feels like its the right time to share it now; 

It’s Christmas time. I look at pictures from back home and winter has captured and wrapped all of Michigan in beautiful, magic snow. Arizona has allowed the expected heat to be replaces with a chilling air that fills my lungs on my nightly walks around campus. Houses all around me are covered in glorious lights and trees are displayed from windows welcoming friends and family to come in. And here I sit in a local Starbucks with my winter red cup with mint tea in it wanting to name truth for me. I love Christmas, I love the chill in the air, I love the candles being lite and hymns that are being sung in church every week, I love lights, I love the smell of garland and Christmas trees, I love thinking about giving people I love gifts, I love walking up Christmas morning to my family tackling me because I’m always the last one up, I love that we take turns reading the Christmas story from the book of Luke on Christmas morning. So there are many things that I love about Christmas.

But as much as I love this time I know that there is a constant hesitance that takes root in my heart around this time.  For some reason I always feel lonely and like the outcast in many ways during Christmas. I know that I have grown up in a family that adores Christmas. And I have always felt a little like the odd ball out because I was not on the same level as them. Christmas is hard and holds lost of mixed emotions. And I always felt like if I owned this I would be seen as ungrateful or bring everyone else down with me because I was not like everyone else. But three weeks ago I was talking to a couple who I consider both to be incredible friends and I vocalized my ambivalence about Christmas and where I did not totally know what to do with myself in the midst of that. In the moments that followed one of them turned to me and justified everything that I said and spoke kindness over me to just own what I was feeling. That it was ok that I’m not my family and that just because I don’t get as excited about it as they do doesn’t mean that I don’t love it in my own way. Since this interaction I have tried to stay present to my heart.

Right now I am taking the chance to engage in being more real than I have in my life. This last month I’ve found my self in more vulnerable places than in a long time but specifically in the last week I have been in the spotlight of that vulnerability. Last Friday I invited my closest friends into my story in a really new way. I also hosted a Red Tent dinner with the theme of being “present” during December, I had my first counseling session, and owned my brokenness yet that I still have hope that things could be different.

Sharing my story is always challenging with the pastor kids code of protecting your pastor dad no matter what it cost you, and when you have been told you’re so much of a social reject as I have been there is always a fear that those who are listening will wake from there delusional state and leave like so many have before. I knew this would never be the case with my friends but there are some wounds and wrongs that I don’t know that they will ever fully heal.

My Red Tent Dinner was so lovely and held beautiful moments that I wont forget. In thinking and planning for the event I thought about the theme of being present and what I wanted to say about that. I asked the women at the table that throughout the evening I would love if they would share a story from their life where their presences was a gift to those around them, and then afterwards to take the ribbon that was used to wrap the napkins at their place setting and to use it to make a accessory to their outfits so that for the rest of the evening when they saw it they would remember that they are a gift and their presences is welcome. I purposely choose not to come up with a answer before hand so that I could be present as well, and as I thought in the moment about what I wanted to share I was overwhelmed with the fact that I struggle to believe that my presence is welcome and a gift if I am not composed and together or I’m not being the oracle (a very name given to me by a friend that is descriptive of me seeing and speaking truth into the life of whoever is in front of me). I struggle to believe that I am not a burden to people, and that if I own just how broken, messy, or scared I am I would not be welcome.

With counseling, the risk of admitting that I need help and that if I truly am going to be all of the goodness of who I could be I need to going to counseling is a unnerving thought to being with, but then adding the work of researching, contact, setting up a appointment and then going is 7 times past unnerving. However, I was not as afraid of it as I was more aware of something deeper that left me being tearful all day. I knew that I was very tenderly holding the hope that things could be different. That I could be different, that healing, beauty and goodness could be on the other side of this, and that just maybe some of the things I was holding I would not be holding at the end of this journey. I don’t know how longing I will be in counseling, and really at the beginning of the day I did not know if I would stick with this counselor. But I knew that as much as I question if I am a coward or if I have courage, that in this moment this was my courage and gumption fighting for me. And I’m still scared but also excited and hopeful on this end of Monday.

And finally I named truth about the messiness of how I really am, and owning that I feel scared, lost, and broken and it was hard. But I then was asked what I do or believe that keeps me coming back every day and for the first time I realized that my answer is that I choose hope. Everyday I go back into the fight because I have people who need me and I because I want to believe that better things can come today. I choose hope and speak truth because I want to believe that there is goodness for me and because my God has promised me that better times are ahead and that may mean on this earth but I know for a fact that it means eternity with him so no matter what I have something better waiting for me. Before that moment I had never thought or owned that. I know where I struggle to believe truth, and I know that I feel tired and that I don’t know if that will ever go away. But I know that I am Christ’s and that until he comes back or calls me home I have something I need to do hear, and maybe things could be different. I feel like a child when I say that but maybe that’s what life is all about. To flip your perspective and think the opposite of what is expected, either way I know that I have more fun and breath a little better when I choose to let go and be messy.

I all of this may leave someone thinking that I have a terrible self-image or idea of who I am. And in truth have fought really hard to believe truth about myself and I really do believe that goodness about myself and what I offer but I am still human and I still struggle. I have come a long way but all of these events left be feeling rather raw and like I had the biggest vulnerability hangover of all time.

However, My Jesus lets me be real. He knows the last week of my life, he also knows the last year. He knows my brokenness, he knows my ambivalence, and yet he allows me to be real. Part of my day-to-day struggle is knowing how often my heart cry’s out “Jesus where the hell are you? ” I have a really sharp memory that is an enormous gift in many ways but it also means I am painfully aware of how often I’m reminded of where Jesus has felt distant and silent. Yet every time I say it now there is something really tender and incredibly fragile about my heart because in this season I know that Christmas is all about celebrating that Christ did come. Even if it doesn’t feel like his showing up in my life right now, once a year I have to face the glorious truth that no matter how far away he feels, he still came for us…………… for me.   

The moment I first realized this was a few years ago when I researched what advent was really about. Thinking about Advent has become a significant tradition for me. Every year I make an Advent calendar for my RA’s (and also my self) that invites them to rest and take a moment everyday to reflect on Christ’s coming, to not become overwhelmed by the chaos that Christmas has become but to put themselves back into the reality and truth of what Christmas is about. Advent is a time where we as Christian’s prepare a space in our hearts for Christ’s coming. It’s where we can connect with the longing and the ache that exists in our broken world because we need a savoir. I connect best with Christmas in the ache, in the longing, and in the hope. My joy comes from holding the tension of all of these things (and I know I probably am unique in that aspect), however I am left being real in it too.

I want to be real this Christmas, not only to my own story but also to the reality of what the Christmas story means. My Jesus lets me be messy because everything about the Christmas story is messy. We needed a savoir, so Jesus took on the messiness of being fully man and fully God to save us. He picked Mary to be his mother who was a virgin and who no one would believe her story of the conception of Christ. He picked Joseph be his earthy father who would be shamed for taking Mary as his wife. He picked to grow up with messiness and shame marking him and his parents because of their story and his birth. Jesus came to save messy humanity in the most horrifying way possible so that we could be made complete in him. My Jesus does not mind my messy, he doesn’t mind my apprehension, he doesn’t mind my sin or mistakes, he does not mind my story, and he does not mind my brokenness. He says come, and reminded me that just because he feels far away that doesn’t mean that he does not have goodness for me. He came for me, and he will always come for me.

In the midst of this messy week I found this song and it’s what helped this truth find this page tonight.

It still makes me tear up every time.

I ‘m going to be real this season. And I promise to think about the Christmas story in it’s real and true from. Jesus, I pray that you help me be real, to own my life, and to be real as I celebrate your birth. Thank you for coming for me, thank you for loving me in every minute, of every hour, of every day. Thank you for always coming after me because you know how often I run. And even when I can’t feel you I know you have me. Thank you for letting me be real and loving me regardless. Thank you for coming because you loved me, not because I did anything.  You came for just me.

24

This morning I woke up knowing that there was a song I needed to listen to. There was a memory that brought this realization to the forefront to f my mind, which is that when I was about 16 I heard a song that felt sad and solemn to listen to and I remember telling my self that I wonder if I would understand it more when the time came. That time came this morning; the song was 24 by Switchfoot.

Twenty-four. I turned twenty-four today and I feel like I’m in twenty fourth place. Life is hard right now. My family and I are in a really hard season. One that I have found looking at disbelief at some of the rubble and say “We can’t catch a break, this is not normal…” I have found more of my tears this week that I have had the last couple months. Yet there is hope. I can choose hope.

I have never been the hopeful person in a crowd; in fact I usually am the one waiting for the other foot to drop. Hope required risking; it requires courage and my heart.

24 encapsulates the tension of today. Life feels hard, and 23 was a rough year. I am left with two choices as I go into this new year of my life. I can expect the absolute worst and give up now or I can choose to live new life. 24 is a time where college is now gone and the year after college has passed so what’s next? For some it’s a disillusionment of choices, but for others it’s a change for new life.

I want to see miracles and wrestle an angel for more than a name.

I want to know that my life is going to be lived to the fullest each and every day. Part of what I started teaching myself and owning is that there is not just good and bad, life is found in the tension of the both/and. You must acknowledge the hurt and the bad to understand the good. If I don’t that I miss out on the opportunities to experience all the good.

I wrote this the day of my 24th birthday, a year ago tomorrow. 24 was not what I thought it was going to be. I am so different…. I am so broken; I feel exceptionally lost, scared, and wrecked; yet I know that I am more alive and rooted then ever before.

What I hoped for a year ago is so different yet so similar to what I am hoping for now. I think I am just more real and more ready to live into it then I was a year ago.

I am more aware of certain things in my life. So much of what I live out of is the tension that life keeps holding and the acknowledgment of the scarcity that has lurked over my life for so long. I lived waiting to be invisible, hurt, left, mocked, put down, called stupid and naive, failed, disappointed, rejected, taken advantage of, and a number of other things but that is not all my story will hold. These things have happened and I am sure they will continue to happen but I’m tired of living out of scarcity and fear. I was so afraid for so long but I learned to hide it really well. I started to allow my self to be seen but as a rather fierce force. Allowing just enough transparency to be there but a lot of the story I told or the things I said did not hold very much weight any more. It was the past.

 I have done a lot of work in my life but in the last year I think more changed for me than I expected. 24 by Switchfoot feel like it says everything about my year. I understand now that my 16-year-old self was right, I understand this song in a way that I never could have before. I cant even put complete thought’s to all of what has changed in me because I am still in the midst of it, but "He's raising the dead in me". I know this because I can look at pictures of my self from growing up and not feel disappointed or like I have to shut down completely because shame is overtaking me. Because this year I went back and found the little girl who was so kind, she was quiet, passionate, innocent, unapologetic, and so whimsical. I found her and allowed my self to let everything she is become part of me again. I stopped being afraid of what I was capable of because I am not dangerous. I will make mistakes but at the root of me I want to be kind and I don’t want to hurt people. I can speak truth about my story in full and still love what my life has been. I am more ok with the messy because there are certain things that I am not ok with loosing. I know that I don’t want to have 6 escape-roots in every part of my life where I know how to keep my self-alive with whatever life sends my way.

I know that I have welcomed the heartache even thought it makes it excruciatingly hard to breath because each time I intake air it reminds me that I am still alive, that means that I have more to do here. I own my brokenness, fear, anger, mistakes, hurt, hope and my story because I want to say at the end that I dared greatly in all I did.

I have 24 hours left to be 24. I want it to count, but I’m also ready for 25. I am ready for hope. I know it’s going to hurt like hell, I know that I’m scared about loosing myself but maybe the truth is that I finally found myself. Maybe God does have good in store for me, and maybe I’m not just a puzzle piece in everyone else’s story but that there is something in story for me. I was asked by a lovely friend this weekend what is something I did that I’m proud of myself for that reflects who I want to be. My answer what that I had hoped for so many thing in the last few months for my life but there was some disappointment that had come because of that hope. I named that hope is really hard for me and that I know that I am ok but really I was struggling in the midst of the disappointment with the fact that I like hoping, that it feels “really becoming on me”. I choose hope and what better time to choose it than Fall because everyone knows that Fall feels like hope to me.

This is a picture that a good friend of mine took a month or so ago that I love. It's one of me that shows who I am today, but it also shows a women that i'm excited to be and that i'm proud of most of the time..............

Ok God, here’s to hoping.  Please be with me when it’s hard, but please let me stay kind and lovely in you. Thank you for 24 and here’s to 25.

His Wild

Red Tent Livings theme for this month is called "Be Brave". I find is so sweet of God to make that the theme for this month. The words that I type here are words that I am not ready to share with the entire Red Tent community but they are words that need to be named. They are words that tell the story of where I need or want to choose to be brave. 

This summer has reached its last month of fruition. Its July and with that means that my heart is preparing for the last little bit of life that this summer will hold before the school year starts. What is interesting is that this summer has been anything but ordinary, which intern has made it extraordinary.  Hope and disappointment have both existed but in very different ways than I had prepared myself for. 

Earlier this summer while I was in Michigan on vacation I went to stay with Katy for a couple of days. During this time our hearts connected in a way that was so life giving after a hard year. We got sushi, watched movies, had many drinks, went to a tattoo shop, went shopping, and just lived life beside one another. It was a sweet time where the two of us were fully present in the ambivalence of our lives but the goodness that we bring out the best in each other. 

One night while Katy was at worship practice I went to kill sometime at Anthorpoligie. While I was there I found a perfume that caught my eye. 

I was so struck by this title; She Found Quiet in His Wild. Naturally while I pondered this name I found a perfume card and spayed the scent on it. There was something really lovely about the smell as I breathed it in. It was not overly flowery or sugary; for me it felt warm and like some golden liquor that just felt settling (I can't fully describe it but I did love it) and the name felt very appropriate. 

I feel a little bit of heat go to my cheeks and my breath catch in my chest as I think about this perfume. I love that it makes me think of my dad and how I have grown up watching my Dad's wild pull my mom into a fuller, richer part of their lives. I love that it makes me think of the men who I have seen let their wild be a part of their lives and where their wives are invited to be alive to the goodness that this wild brings. And I take note of these men because they are not as common as one might think. Wild means holding the tension of staying present in one’s reality but pursuing their dreams at the same time. It requires courage and strength, and a real risk of failure. But what it beings is glorious and I hope its part of my story. So the idea of “She” finding quiets in the midst of his wild feels both unsetting and wonderful. 

The deepest questions that my heart asked were-Who is she and how do I become her? In the last few years I have become more aware of what I want in life but in my man. I want wild, I want an unsetting that he is his own person but  who will settle and strengthen me. I was to find an anchor of hope that I can quite the voices in my head and just be alive. Quiet is not a very common descriptive word for me but I know that there are moment that I want to experience the quiet and that I can invite me to be my best self. Quiet makes me take a moment and choose who I truly want to be. And it lets my heart rest and just be present as all of who I am and sometimes that’s staying still and sometimes that is laughing loudly, and dancing often. 

I want a wild that takes me on adventures for the rest of my life. I want to see the world and change it one little bit at a time, and that may mean just in the conversations and people we get to know around the world. I want to feel safe and like I can fall apart and sit in the quiet of that brokenness but that wild fiercely loves me regardless and protects me in those moments. I want a wild that I can’t control and figure out but that invites me to a deeper understanding of who God is and who I can be. Wild is risky, its disruptive, and it will unsettle but it is life. 

I want to get to be quiet, it’s felt like a long time since I felt like I could be quiet and see what was waiting for me in those moments. I should also say that when I think about quiet in this context its not thought of as being little or mousy, quiet in my mind is a security and steadiness. It’s a space that allows my lungs to fully inhale; to fully be me in the space that I am fully welcomed, loved, and safe. 

So where does this fall in the midst of being brave? 

To choose to be the women who finds quiet in the wild I have to walk toward the wild. 

Where I choose not to run, and to not stand still but to walk towards a man who is all of himself. In the last couple years I have learned that I have walked towards some rather boring men. They are safe and I know exactly what I would get if I was with them. I would be a pastor’s wife in a very small part of Michigan, or California. I would probably travel very little, and would just learn how to live while there but I know that I would loose parts of my heart. I would miss out on aspects of my life that I don’t want to loose. And I am grateful that is not what God let my life look like. 

I have found that I don’t want safe, I want wild. 

So I want to be a woman who walks towards the wild when I see it. Who dose not waver and but who embraces the risk of being hurt to embrace the goodness of a man who is not going to take the safe road but who will be all of the wild that he is. 

I hope I will be able to bless the wild, and I hope that I will choose to be brave in the moments that I see the wild. I do not know when all of these moments will take place but I know that I am in,