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,  

New Space

Two years ago I wrote about the women I wanted to be with the men in my life. I wrote about wanted to step into the messiness of being in relationships and where I was going to choose hope.  

This last week I was invited into a new space. This space is a response to the decision that I made two years ago to hope and it’s hard. A man in my life made a mistake and my love for this person is still ever present, but this is also a man that I had started to hope in and that hope is now gone. So I am left knowing that I need to walk away from a certain aspect for this relationship. This fact is good and healthy in light of what was hoped for but that does not mean that I am not left feeling disappointed. In light of this encounter I went back thought quotes that impact me and came across this one…

This quote was one that I found a while ago yet if feels more alive and real to me these days.

This quote along with the song from my post two years ago shakes me deep down to my core with both hesitation and hope.

I don’t believe I am ordinary if I am quite frank. There is a part of me that knows I see my reality differently than most people would. And I am no more unique than the next girl but different all the same…

So as I read this quote I am left unsure. There is a longing to believe that this man steps into the chaos and messiness of such a love however there is not end story just his raw and wonderstruck reality. 

And what feels more daunting is the life that says,

“I was afraid to fail, like the others.”

I have been failed in my life by some of the men who have walked into it. Men who I took chances to invite in. Men who I poured truth into, I fought for, and who I chose to hope in. And I wonder if and when the man who I hope for most will say these words and if he will take him self out of the game like so many have before him. I hope he wont and I also have the experience of watching my sister hold that the man she was going to marry walked away.

But just as I wonder about him I wonder about failing him. What about not hoping enough because I know I hold back in some ways. I fear that I will be too much or not enough. I wonder, but in the midst of walking into new relationship and new possibility of being hurt or loved, or seen, or left I have the chance to hope. To continue to know that probably all of my fears and wonderings will come to pass but I hear Aslan voice saying “Courage, Dear One.” And somewhere in my heart I know that I will be enough. That I will give all and that deep down I believe someone else will as well.

So tonight I sit in the tension of feeling disappointed and hurt but that hope is still alive within me, and that it’s worth fighting for.

The words in my soul tonight

Today is the end to my first week at GCU and I'm left in somewhat shock as to all that has changed in the last week. A week ago today I left my home in Michigan to move 8 states away to Arizona. And I have lots of words that are residing inside my heart; Words of gratitude, loss, joy, celebration, disappointment, curiosity, hope and others. But I don't know if I am ready to say all these words so I'm going to share words that are a few of my favorite quotes that I found thanks to pinterest and they all resonated with me tonight.

I am sure that there is a blog post that I could give for each of these and one day I may, but tonight I'm just letting them stir my soul and my desires for life. 

Grace for the worst in me.....

I am a Bitch.

Now I type that knowing that I have just started off this blog on a very harsh, and rather shocking manor. Please let me expand on this statement by saying I am not in a place of self-harm nor am I in a state where I am spiraling in an unhealthy way. This stamen was prompted by a beautiful piece of literature by Jan Meyers Proett. Jan is one of my new favorite authors. What started my respect and enjoyment of her writing was with her contributing to an online magazine called Red Tent Living. Jan's words of honesty and truth are utterly refreshing and hopeful. Through these posts I found my self-picking up her book called Beauty and the Bitch- Grace for the worst in me.

This book expands on the fact that each woman holds two realties in her that she chooses to live out of. One is based in beauty where each woman allows her self to be impactful and impacted in beautiful and vulnerable ways. The other is a state of self-protection that is know as the bitch. This part of the women seeks to protect and control in the worst ways. This is where past hurts and disappoints reside. Women have the opportunity to choose one or the other, however there are very different outcomes to each choice.

As I was reading today I found an excerpt that left me.... well just read for your self…

"God wants your heart. The bitch wants you protected. God is not concerned that you clean up your lavish spending habits or bringing in secrets as much as he longs for you to bring to him your tender ache, confusion, and pain over your unmet desires. The bitch will make sure you never let the tender ache surface"

I have chosen to be the bitch in a few places this summer. She has fought to suppress the ache and pain that has come throughout these warm summer days. This realization was hard to come to grips with, and you can somewhat see it in my last blog post. I had a plan however it is no longer my plan and my unfortunate need for control is freaking out underneath my surface because I cannot control over what is next. As I kept reading I found my pencil underling most of the content located on the next few pages.

Jan continues by speaks about dreaming and how there is no guarantee. She talks about how the bitch "sneers at our desperate longing and mocks it calling it weak and foolish". She then quotes Sharon Hersh who says, "Redemption does not mean that God meets out needs and then our souls stop longing. No, redemption dose not eradicate desperation. Instead, redemption allows us to surrender." To surrender means letting go of our plans and control. We surrender our plans and our longing to alter the really that we are in. "We are asking the bitch to step aside, telling her we understand why she is so scared, hurt and anger, but that her service of self- protection are no longer needed. We open our grip and allow both desire and the suffering from unmet desires to be real." Our longings do not leave however we make a choice to follow after God. To let him lead us to the places he has for us. And we rest in the fact that there is nothing God wants for us to do except to just come. To bring all of who we are to him.

My longing to have a master's in bible and theology, my longing to be in a relationship, my longing to have fellowship with my amazing friends, my longing to keep discovering Chicago, my longing to only be a few hours away from my home, my love and wonder of snow that dances in the winter, my heart for Moody and Chicago, these are all so glorious and i find that my heart is holding all of them.

Gerald May says-

"If our choice of God is to be made with integrity we must first have felt other attractions and chosen, painfully, not to make them our gods. True love then, is not only born of freedom; it is also born of difficult choice. A mature and meaningful love must say something like, ' I have experienced other goddesses, and they are beautiful, but it is You, my true heart's desire, whom I choose above all."

I have found that my love for my God and the deep desire to glorify him in all I say and do is so much greater than those listed about. However, with that understanding I am left feeling vulnerable and afraid that he is not going to be who he says he is, what he does not care enough and there in disappointment is waiting for me if I let go of my longing listed about and fully live out of God love for me.  God loves all the desires I have listed and those that I have held back from writing on this page, but redemption does not mean that what I long for will stop existing, my redemption means that God will provide and love me. I can be curious about what those longing will turn into or hold for me.

For the first time I am finally saying that I want to be in Arizona, I want to work at the college that I am interviewing with, I want to be part of that amazing community and the life giving attester that exists there. This feels huge to me, because by vocalizing the desire of my heart I am opening up my self to the possibility of being very disappointed if rejection comes. It feels risky to have this much hope, especially with the knowledge that I could be doing the exact job that I want to be doing my first year out of college. This possibility would put me in like a 5% grouping of college graduates.

I need redemption. I need to stay present in remembering that God has a plan. And yet I am so unsure as to what is next. So the bitch and the beauty are battling everyday for control but tonight I am choosing beauty.