my least favorite word

I can tell you with full assurance that I am better at writing than I am at living.  Sometimes I wrap up an entry and feel somewhat decent about what meaning it held for me and the meaning I hope you glean from it.  In spite of that momentary impact, it does not take me long to move on, to forget the momentum beginning in my heart, and to jump with two feet fully back in to the world writing takes me out of for a brief time.  I realize stating up front that I am a hypocrite in every way is not the best way to open this— shattering any credibility I may have built.  But it needed to be said.  I needed to say it to myself.  I am incapable of consistency- in my actions, thoughts, emotions, and disciplines.  What I tell you not to worry about, I will find myself worrying about the very same thing shortly after.  What I think is a silly argument you are having with your husband, I will have an even more ridiculous one within 48 hours- count on it.      

My mind can be a cacophony of thoughts.  And cacophony is my least favorite word, so that is not a good thing.  The whole word is ugly and sounds gross both as I say it and hear it.  And it really is tough to pull any positive meaning out of cacophony: loudness, harshness, disharmony, unmelodiousness.  When is any of that good?  Certainly not when you feel like it is happening in your life. 

I tend to want to blame all of this noise on the fact that I can just be too high-strung, energetic and opinionated, and that if I lighten up a bit the noise will settle.  But I don’t think that’s the answer.  To be perfectly honest, I have no answer.  I do have some ideas about where to find peace and I am betting they have to do with Jesus- but I would be totally lying and insincere if I ended this entry by pretending I know something will change simply by writing down what I think needs to change.

But I don’t think I am alone in this.  I think chances are if you are a living, breathing human being, you hear a lot of noise in your life.  Pray more.  Read your Bible today.  Get a workout in.  Are we being generous enough with our time and money? Don’t buy that magazine, you’ll only compare yourself to who is inside.  Did you call her back yet?  Oh, wow, that woman should not be wearing that skirt.  Shoot, the towels are still in the washing machine.  Why didn’t I volunteer for that?  Am I enough?  Does my life—my heart—make Jesus proud?  (That can be about thirty-five seconds in my brain, and this is without kids.  Please stay my friend when I actually do have one—it is likely to get real ugly then).

I wish I knew where all the noise comes from.  I wish I could control the switch that turns it on and off.  I wish the anxiety, guilt, and that paralyzing sense of feeling misunderstood that comes with it would just go away.  But life is not that simple.  This is the noise that echoes in our hearts all the time: should we have another child?  Did the doctor figure anything out?  Should I support my husband when to my core I disagree?  Did you hear about the accusation against the pastor?  Can we afford it?  Were you able to find a job? Is their marriage ok?  Should I be at home with my baby or continue working?

And what does God say in response: be still.  And in even the shortest moment of quiet you can manage, remember who I am.  I am before time and beyond it.  I formed the ground you stand on, the legs you walk on, and the arms you carry all of the things you love in.  I know your heart, your fears and your dreams more intimately than even you do.  And when things are the most confusing, just remember it is finished, everything you could not do, I did.  Your condemnation went to the cross with me, and I left it there.  Be still.  I want only your heart, you can’t bring me anything else more lovely.  And I’m waiting for you.    

I can only manage today and the noise I hear right now.  I won't be able to change the fact that every day will bring a new noise, and that I will continue to wrestle with the tension of it.  But I can be still.  And maybe all the quiet moments we slowly but surely carve out for our hearts will become the sweetest parts of our walk with Jesus, and maybe we will simply live our way into the melody that brings rest, not confusion.  Maybe the sum of a lifetime's worth of stillness is how we drown out the noise in order to hear the music God is playing: sounds of justice, of burdens being lifted, oppression being broken, slaves being set free, orphans given a home, the hungry being fed, hope being offered to the broken.  Those things we should listen for... I wonder if all the other noise would drown out if we did...

two words that changed everything

The other day I asked Austin what he thought of the name, Autumn. I think it’s just lovely due in large to the fact that its synonymous with fall. I haven’t gotten to experience the crisp bites of autumn air in it’s season’s entirety for years, so I get soft butterflies in my stomach when I can smell the changes and feel the shift in my bones. I’ve noticed the orangey hues are beginning to pop in our neighborhood’s oak trees, and today I slipped on my tan boots, more to look the part of fall than to participate in the practicality of it. It’s a glorious time of year, filled with a bittersweet feeling of what’s to come and a heavy heart of gratitude for the satisfyingly- sweaty summer months.

So in the name of fall I thought I’d share a pre-pumpkin, pre-turkey disclosure of what God has been doing in and through my own heart. Simplicity at it’s finest, but challenge at it’s most profound.

Two words. Thank (and) you.

Everybody has his or her ‘thing’ and mine is my back. It’s testy and moody and decides for itself when it’s going to rock a yoga class and when it’s necessary to wake me up in the middle of the night. Lately, there have been spasms and episodes that have taken me back to the pain I felt right before my back surgery in 2006. I get scared; not as much for the pain but for the process of the pain… the unknown, the setbacks, the yatta, yatta, yatta.

Because there are people out there that love me, I was able to get a massage this past weekend. It was then that it dawned on me that I have been living in a discontented, self-pity trap when it comes to my back. There is no room for God when I’m too busy picking at, fussing about, or criticizing what he created. So, I chose to do something radical. I chose to thank God for my back. I thanked him for the years I’ve been able to be active, I thanked him for doctors that have made it better, I thanked him for the pain that causes me to rest, and above all, I thanked him for my back's incredible limitation. ONLY in the limits of my back am I reminded I’m not invincible, I’m desperately broken and I’m unavoidably needy. I'm the desire of an invincible Lord, broken by my fallen nature and needy for his renewing mercy. All while I was lying there, prayers of thanks filled the room and brought a couple tears to my eyes, which, now that I think about it, probably deeply worried the technician.

I’m finding that with every passing thank you the discontentment I feel about myself, my relationships, and my life’s course, are gently being replaced with a pure and holy contentment for the life I’ve been trusted with, the people that surround me, and ultimately, the God that I pursue. This kind of contentment can only be found in gratitude and it can only last when I take the time to audibly, repeatedly say… thanks... that was a gift.

Often, I find myself being consumed by my past or feeling anxious for the future. And usually, when these thoughts are prevalent, God feels distant, my days seem to blend together and I second guess myself or my worth.  Freedom comes from finding something (anything!) to be sincerely thankful for in every moment. IE: the colorwheel of the flowers bunched together at Trader Joes, the book of Psalms, the work God's done through past wounds, Oreo cookies, quiet moments, or that crazy feeling of knowing I'm living and walking out an answered prayer. 

Thanksgiving is still yet to come, but thanks is giving me much to dwell on until then.  So, as I thank God for readers that somehow deem me worthy of being heard, I invite you to pray your first, second, or 7000^th prayer of thanksgiving to a God from whom all blessings flow.


For now, pass the pie.   

one conversation- two perspectives- one desire

“for to me, to live is Christ…”
philippians 1:21

{kristin}

Every once in awhile, a slight stroke of brilliance comes sweeping across our minds. It's rare, inspired, and often the result of living in the moment just long enough to hear clearly from heaven. It is even more of a rarity when we’re able to experience one of these dazzling breakthroughs in the presence of another human being. Having a partner in crime gives an instant sense of credibility, a shared longing to act, and a common dream tangible enough to recollect and put into motion.

I was able to have one of those moments a few months ago on the telephone with my best friend. One friend on the campus of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, the other in her car driving north on the 101 in the middle of a scorching Phoenix day.  

As we glued our phones to our ears, we spoke of written words. Words we’ve read and the words we write ourselves. We spoke meaningfully and transparently about how we came upon this love of the written word. We agreed that writing makes us better, makes us feel like ourselves, makes us present, makes us real. And we began to discover the reason our writing makes us feel such powerful things is because it’s oozing, dripping and saturated in the good news of Jesus.

_________________________

{katie}

It is easy for life to feel routine, monotonous, and insignificant.  Way too easy.  If you’re not careful, weeks go by, then months, and then it is years before you notice everything that has happened around you—the changes in yourself, the changes in the people you love, the growth, the lessons learned.  And without ever intending to be, we are stuck in the trap of believing our life is trivial.  And it is a trap.

For more reasons than I can say, Kristin is my best friend.  But if you had heard the conversation we recently had, well, it would just be even more obvious why.  We were talking about writing: about the highs and the lows (there are lots), about why we do it (which is an invaluable question I think we should consistently ask ourselves), about how the delete button is always following closely behind insincerity (because it just doesn’t work to fake it), and about what it does to our soul to be real, and to create something that expresses what we really mean.  And then Kristin adds this:

{You know, Kate, I’ve been thinking a lot about what our writing is and what it means, and it’s like everything always comes back to the gospel.  All we write about has this way of landing back on Jesus; and, just how everything in our lives makes the most sense when we talk about it through that lens.  And that’s exactly how it should be} 

Kristin hit the heart of everything with that statement.  That is exactly what we want our writing to be about: how every day, everything that happens is a part of what God always intended, a reflection of what it means to live in light of the gospel.  There are no meaningless relationships, no unimportant jobs, no pointless discussions.  The good things are gifts to be treasured.  The people we love are but glimpses of what it means to be loved by a Savior.  And the painful moments are longings for our true home. 

_________________________

{kristin}

The gospel is more than 4 laws. It’s more than a one-time prayer. It’s more than church, than memorization. It’s even more than good news. It’s the unshakable foundation of our every move and the electric source of our every thought.  Suddenly, when we shine the light of Jesus on our everyday thoughts and musings, colors are more vibrant, people look more like miracles, and a life we once classified as mundane spins and twists into fruitful motion.

Katie and I refuse the mundane. And that’s because beyond our simple commonalties, we share a deep-sea, sky-high love of Jesus Christ. We believe in his power and choose to see him in all things. He doesn’t promise it’ll be easy or flowing in prosperity, but he does promise perfect love and endless grace, and that’s what we want to rest in.  

We write imperfectly to showcase a perfect God.

_________________________

{katie}

Life is a lot of things, but it is never trivial.  And as much as anything, that is what we want to remind you of when we write.  God is a good, good God.  And the world is full of reflections of this goodness in so many places: early morning quiet, a baby’s laugh, a genuine friendship, a good pizza, the ocean, the first flowers after a long winter, a cozy blanket and just-can’t-put-it-down-book, the hand of your soul mate, sunsets… But all of us know there are plenty of hard things, too: sickness, injustice, scary doctor appointments, arguments, corrupt leaders, poverty, earthquakes, divorce, losing a job—or a leg, or a loved one… And it is all real.

So we write about what is real, and about how everything begins and ends with the Gospel.  And it is our most sincere prayer that you find in our words some evidence that your life matters so deeply, and that for everyone, our joy, our hope, our saving grace, and the deepest longings of our hearts are met in a man named Jesus.        

_________________________

lesson plans

I think I was born wanting to be a teacher.  I once (or twice, maybe more) set up a classroom with my stuffed animals and dolls, then read Little House on the Prairie out loud to them.  In high school I created pretend lesson plans for The House on Mango Street, not as a class assignment but just because I was on a long airplane ride home and could not sleep.  I declared my major as English Education no more than three weeks in to my college career, and I never looked back, never changed my mind, never stopped dreaming of the classroom I would call my own.  True story: I shopped for posters for my future classroom at 17 years old.  My mom still has them.

I loved college partly because I absolutely loved what I was learning.  If I was not taking classes on how to be a teacher, I was reading and writing about the very things I might someday teach: Twain and Stein and Shakespeare and Chaucer, prepositions and adverbs and gerunds and antonyms.  I learned as much from Huck Finn and Scout Finch as I did from Dr. Blassingame and Dr. Kelleher—and I could not wait to introduce my own students to characters who they would relate to more than me.  I was so set on being a teacher, so taken by the idea of impacting lives and imparting knowledge.  In a lot of ways, I still am.

But somewhere along the way, I began only wanting to be the teacher and neglected the learner, as it became more important to me to know the answer—and get credit for it— than to really listen to the question.  My husband gently pointed this out to me yesterday.  As we discussed a really great sermon we had just heard at church, I stepped right in and interrupted his thoughts on what he was learning with my interpretation of them.  He was not asking me for my analysis, he really was not even asking for my opinion.  But for some reason I cannot justify or explain, I felt compelled to give him both of those things.  And I do this much.too.often.  (side note: marry someone who will do this for you- let you know when you are not as right as you think you are, but still love you more than life)

I really don’t love being around people who don’t know what they don’t know.  But I can be that person.  I have always admired people who can answer my questions with a deeper question.  But I seem to answer others with my version of the right answer.  I respect the characteristic of humility more than any other in people.  But I have a tendency to be over-impressed with how hard I am trying to be humble myself. 

As much as I have always wanted to be a teacher, and still want to be, my deepest, strongest desire right now is to be a learner…

I want to learn how to sit across the table from you and hear how hard your relationship is without saying, “Have you read this, or done that, or been to this…”

I want to learn what you are most passionate about, what the dream of your life is, and I want to marvel at it and get excited about it with you, not comment on it and certainly not criticize it behind your back.

I want to learn what you are most afraid of, what makes you anxious or wakes you up at night, and I want to pray with you, not tell you that story of how one time I was afraid of the same thing and it all turned out ok so you will be just fine, too. 

I want to learn more about my real-self, about the things that I am ok at and the (many) areas I need refining.  And I want to learn how to embrace those things so that I am always aware of how little I can do on my own.

I want to learn more about God, His story, and my place in it.  I want to remember to use pencil as I write down the theories of my life, knowing that I will inevitably have to erase many things I thought I knew and tried to tell you were correct.  

If God has a lesson plan for us every day, it might be to teach us something like this:  “You are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe.  You are more accepted and loved than you ever dared hope.”  (thanks, Tim Keller).  What a beautiful, humbling and yet hopeful paradox.  Let’s learn to live in that today.