engaged

My best friend and the most amazing match God could have ever given to me asked me to be his wife last week. It was the sweetest, most perfect (and emotional) moment I could have imagined: me and Alex, my living room, him on one knee, me totally surprised, a “yes” through tears, and a hug that took my breath away. I have never felt so happy in my life! Moments like the one I just got to have are moments girls dream about. I did not stop grinning until I went to sleep, and even then I think I dreamt with a smile on my face.

But what most people don’t know is that Alex and I might not have ever had this moment.

We are two very imperfect people. We met each other with parts of our past we wish we didn’t have and aspects of our personalities that still need refining. We have unintentionally hurt each other and our relationship has not been without its share of tears. But we are here, engaged, in love, wanting only each other for the rest of our lives.

Allow me to share how I believe we arrived at engaged…

~ Jesus. He is truly the only thing that gives meaning to the word grace. His life is the only perfect example of selflessness, humility, patience, and unconditional love that we will ever have. Jesus taught us what treasuring another person really means, and he gave up his life to show us what it looks like. Alex and I have needed our fair share of grace with one another, and I know we have only been able to give it because it was first given to us in a measure so much greater.

~ Prayer. At the toughest and scariest moments, there has been prayer: a straight line to the sustainer of the universe. And when we have reached out to him, he has yet to not answer, and sometimes in more amazingly big ways than I could have imagined. When we have neglected to talk to Jesus, our emotions often create a bigger mess than we started with. Prayer slows down our minds, refocuses our heart, and in some miraculous way allows us to hear a whisper that guides our steps.

~ Best friends. The one who answers the phone in the early hours of the morning or finds a way to multitask with her baby so she can listen to you cry uninterrupted for an hour. The very small group of people who you are not afraid to share the biggest mess with because you know they won’t judge, they will only encourage and counsel. Our best friends see things that we cannot possibly see through tears, and remind us of things we forget when our mind is in a fog. I don’t think any relationship survives on an island alone; I know mine certainly hasn’t.

~ Wise, godly mentors. If there was ever a moment when I thought I had this relationship thing down, I apologize here and now. I don’t have it down, I wonder if I ever will. But, God has placed people in our lives who have spoken truth to us at the perfect moments. People who have told us about the realities of being a couple that loves Jesus in a world that doesn’t. People that have prayed for us and with us. People that have laughed and said, “Oh I’ve been there.” People that have said: “There is nothing beyond God’s redemption. Nothing.” There is so much that can be learned from listening to the words of people who have spent their lives loving the Lord and are willing to share what their journey has taught them. Alex and I will forever be grateful and indebted to our mentors.

~ Humility. We have to constantly work on this, but I don’t think any trait has been more important to our relationship than the willingness to be the low man. Most of the time it is Alex who takes that role (because he is really good at it already), but the more he puts me first the more I want to put him first. And if there is any competition that is good for a relationship it is trying to out-serve each other. I am so thankful for a man who takes pleasure out of serving, affirming, and loving me.

~ Individual walks with the Lord. If we had not been seeking the Lord as an individual daughter and son of Christ, Alex and I would not be getting married. Without cultivating the most important relationship in our lives, I do not see how we could love each other, forgive each other, or even have the motivation to fight for one another. Our hearts were made for Jesus, and they will only be fully alive and whole in Jesus. And we have learned that we can only love each other when we are madly in love with Jesus first. The minute Alex becomes my savior I am setting him up for failure- because no human being can live up to the standard of savior. But the good news is no human being has to, Jesus already did.

Before I met Alex, I had the illusion of perfection: I would be the perfect Christian girl who met the perfect Christian guy, and we would stay pure until we were married and I would never be lonely and I would always feel pretty and we would have daily devotional time together and someday our kids would be perfect Jesus-loving men and women. Perfect.

Every bit of that picture is false, but reality is so much better. I am a big, insecure mess, but God gave me someone who loves the mess. Alex is like every guy who does his best to understand the inconsistency of women but just sometimes can’t- and I love every bit of him for it. Purity is a daily battle for us, but one that we take seriously because we wholeheartedly want to begin our lives as a married couple having waited for what God always intended. We don’t always make time for couples devotions, sometimes we watch Sportscenter instead. And while children are not in the immediate future, we have learned enough about our imperfections that we realize it will only be by the grace of God that our kids end up loving Him. Reality is much more of a daily reliance on Jesus than I ever thought it would be, but that is what has made it so much better!

Being engaged is fun. We get to talk about a wedding and think about our lives in the future together. But it has also made me reflect on the road that we’ve taken here. Far from perfect, not always easy, but without a doubt wonderful. And God is bigger to me today than he has ever been.

I hope that every day Alex and I can stop, reflect, and say that God is bigger today than he ever has been.

rain and the ugly truth

It rained today in Arizona. Rain, to me, used to mean a regrettable lack of sunshine, but oh how perspectives change when landscapes do. Now, living in the middle of the desert, I will stop whatever I’m doing to be quiet and listen to rain. I watch it dance on my windshield in an unrehearsed frenzy and take in deep breaths of its refreshing smell. Rain in the desert smells better than rain anywhere else because you can sense just how quenched the earth was before it fell. Desert rain is so cherished, so invigorating and so needed. It washes away the old with one, fluid swoop, and brings scents of promise and renewal. Dry land becomes moist, parched plants- vibrant, wiper blades- used! All in an effort to wash away what’s no longer needed.

Have you ever noticed how God can use creation to speak a truth into your life even more profoundly? Whether that’s with rainbows, mustard seeds, or rain, I love how God can reveal himself in everyday experiences. He knew that I needed to be washed of something weighty in my life. Something hard to comes to grips with. Something painfully true. This rain today felt even more for me than it was for you. So even though I hope you enjoyed it, I felt like God sent the rain for my benefit. (Apparently pride will be my next issue he works on.)

The ugly truth is… I care entirely too much of what you think of me. You, my friends, even complete strangers… I care. A lot. And the constant pursuit of perception, approval, and pleasing is a treadmill. It’s hard work. I sweat through it and feel like I’m gaining ground and then I step off to find myself exactly where I started.  This got me to thinking about what God would have to say about the treadmill of the world’s approval. I think it might sound something like this:

If you spent half of the time with ME that you spend washing, waxing, comparing, applying, re-applying, plucking, exfoliating, trying on, taking off, conditioning, analyzing, brushing, admiring, criticizing, manicuring, obsessing, questioning, and worrying about YOU- you would begin to feel less and less bondage and more and more freedom.

If I spent HALF the amount of time, I may begin to glimpse what liberating, God-centered living truly is. I may open my eyes to the fact that there was purpose in every inch of how I was created. I may forfeit the lies that others’ approval matters more than my creator’s. I may begin to look at people as the uniquely, perfected handiwork they are instead of perceiving in constant judgment. I may learn to quiet the made up thoughts I think others think in order to make room for the thoughts of my God. And I may even discover how to replace a life of temporary happiness with THE life founded in immovable joy.

So maybe you can relate. Maybe you’re tired of running on this treadmill. Maybe the rain actually was for you today too. One thing I know for sure is that this trap of perception-driving, people-pleasing, approval-addict living is normal. It’s sad, but it's true. It’s so natural of a response that we often fail to notice. And even though the treadmill speeds seem to be increasing and the desert has never been dryer… I’m choosing today to step off the endlessly worthless track and go dance- worshiping the one who brought the rain- without caring AT ALL if you approve or not. 

Galations 1:10 says

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of God.”

alpha and omega

~ the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, tantamount to A to Z in the English alphabet

~ the beginning and the end

~ the first and the last

~ alpha was derived from the meaning of the phrase “to invent”—thus the first invented letter

~ omega is used to denote the ultimate limit of something

In the book of Revelation, the Lord calls himself the alpha and omega. I recently was listening to a song that uses this description in the lyrics and since then I cannot get the incredible vastness of the phrase out of my head!

The beginning and the end… of everything…

That means he is the beginning of the world and the end of it; on his time and in line with his purposes, he started everything and he will finish everything.

He is the beginning of my life and the end of it. He determined the day I was born and already knows the day I will go home to be with him.

He is the beginning and the end of my loved ones lives. He set out a day for them to come into this world and planned the exact time they will leave it. And he has designed the course of our lives to begin and sometimes end friendships with one another, leaving each other a bit more encouraged along the way.

He is the beginning and end of the seasons. He makes the sun to rise, the rain to fall, the winters to come and flowers to bloom again. He knows that everything in this world needs a rest, so he thought up the perfect plan to allow it, and everything in nature lives and breathes and moves and grows because he begins and ends the seasons.

He is the beginning and the end of the details. He knows when I wake and when I lay down. He knows when I start and finish something. He knows when my life will be hard and when it will be more joyful, and when each of those seasons will come to an end.

How distorted my view of God becomes when I think of him as anything less than the beginning and the end… anything less than everything. But that is our God: everything. No detail escapes his notice, no prayer goes unheard, no thought unseen, no action missed. There is a tremendous peace that comes with believing He is the beginning and the end, that the world revolves around Him and not me; that I live in His story line, on His time, not mine.

Let the alpha and omega change the way you see you life.

life's a bench

In the span of a regular day, I come across a number of everyday objects. Most of the things that occupy my vision are passerby’s- normal and insignificant. However, some things I come across have the uncanny ability to remind me of a loved one. For example, anytime I look at the clock and notice it’s 6:11 I think of my sister. June 11^th is her birthday. I can’t go to a MAC counter without thinking of Emily Love. I will forever associate David’s sunflower seeds with Julie Watt and think of Jessie Connell every time I hear a Jimmy Buffett song.

These days, whenever I see a bench of some kind, I think of me. My story. My life. Without sounding too much like Princess Kristin whom only thinks and cares of herself, I’d say the bench of life has a semi-permanent imprint of my own bottom.

When I played volleyball at ASU I saw a lot of the bench. Following a couple years of inconsistent playing time, I found myself twenty years old, dressed up on Halloween night as a hospital patient, being rolled out of my back surgery. After a rigorous blur of physical therapy, a new mastered art of keeping score in practice, and some haunting scares of re-injury I was back on the court and ready to rock. Four days into my new season I dove for a ball and popped my shoulder out of its socket. Torn Labrum. More blur. More scorekeeping.

 My anticipated second return to the court was greeted by a perpendicular broken thumb- the result of blocking my teammate’s monster hit with one single finger. I remember the sobs that day. Not because I was drenched in pain from my thumb deciding to take a left turn, but because I didn’t think I could return once again to the bench. The place that felt so regrettably familiar; so eerily home-like.

Here’s the thing about the bench… you wait. You wait and you wait and you wait.

Despite feeling helpless and completely invisible, the bench, in all its cruel familiarity, began to teach me things. 

-The bench forced me to process my thoughts at a tenderly sluggish rate; slowing down MY life, MY ambitions, MY perfect timing. The bench was not about me.

-The bench allowed me to celebrate the little things. Like sitting at a 90 degree angle, getting to run, my first game dressed in full uniform, and finally lifting my shoulder high enough to shave my under arm! (seriously- it gets a little sketchy after a couple months- just sayin)

-The bench opened my eyes to my fellow benchwarmers; those involuntary castaways that had real lives, real problems, and real hurt from enduring their own season of wait.

-The bench made weakness beautiful for the first time. It created freedom out of words like surrender, yield, submission. My strength no longer only depended on how far I, myself, could go. However lonely, the bench made me realize… I’m not alone.

So maybe you find yourself on the bench. You’re waiting on a guy, a job, a loan, a baby, a sign, or maybe even on God himself. Here’s what I would say to you… Relish in this wait. Lean back on the bench. Sit in silence. Pray. Listen. And wait some more. Even though the swirling action and speed of a life in constant motion looks attractive, God is found on the bench. For it is here that we can sit still long enough for him to prune, refine and perfect- making us look a lot more like him.

<3

Isaiah 40:31 says:

But they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

my sometimes confessions

If you spend a little time around the church, or so-called religious people, you start to hear a lot of semi-foreign lingo (words, phrases, and terminology that makes little sense outside the context of religion); something we people in the church like to call Christianese— side note: I find it somewhat ironic that the religious people have a religious term to describe words foreign to people who do not consider themselves religious—but that is not the point I am making.

If you spend a lot of time around the church, it becomes tempting to drop these Christianese words into causal conversation, usually in an attempt to sound more religious and gain more respect from your fellow religious people. Justification, sanctification, transgressions, predestination, substitutionary atonement, reconciliation, regeneration, propitiation… to name a few. And to be sure, if you can use the words correctly, you do sound more religious. Bravo.

I think I have spent too much of my life trying to be religious. I want people to respect me, to admire me, to want my advice and to think it is worth heeding. And I want people, a lot of people, to like me. So, sometimes I pretend I am smarter than I am.

And sometimes I pretend I am more together than I am.

And sometimes I make up little lies to make myself look better.

And sometimes I tell people I never got their text when I absolutely, positively did get it.

And sometimes I get mad at my boyfriend when he did nothing wrong.

And sometimes I skip church.

And sometimes I feel like life would be so much better if I had someone else’s life.

And sometimes I’m insecure.

And sometimes I go to Starbucks to have quite time and have facebook time instead.

And sometimes I get annoyed with people who drop those Christianese words.

And sometimes I try to drop the Christianese words.

And sometimes I just get tired of trying so hard to be a Christian.

When I look at my life in detail, sometimes I don’t really like it. I could be so much better for a God who deserves so much more. I am a complicated, inconsistent mess— not sometimes, but pretty much all of the time.

And then sometimes I have moments where I remember that God loves every part of me. And I think about the cross, and how I did nothing to earn that grace. Sometimes I really begin to understand that it is in the not trying that grace and peace are truly characteristics of my life. And then I smile, and do my best to make decisions every day that reflect a woman not trying to be anything other than a daughter of Christ.

Tomorrow I will forget that God does not want me to try so dang hard, especially for the sake of other people. But later on I will remember it again. And tomorrow I will have more things to confess. And soon after I will remember grace. And the cycle will continue. My hope is that as I learn more and love my Savior more, that maybe I will at least forget a little less often. I can promise I won’t be perfect, but I can remember that Jesus already was and always will be.

And He’s not just perfect sometimes, but all the time.

Seasons.

(Written at the end of August, 2010)

This season of my life has been so strange. When you live by yourself and come home to… well, yourself there are so many conversations you have in your own head. There are so many more chances to think, wonder, analyze and dream because there aren’t constantly other conversations being had- out loud. Some people may say to this: I’ve lived by myself for years. After awhile there’s nothing too strange about it anymore. And that’s just it. It’s not strange anymore for me.

I grew up in a family of 6 people. Beyond that, these 6 people all were very tall, lively, funny and present. I remember locking the door to my bedroom growing up (even though my sister shared the room with me) just to retreat to a quiet place to think, write in my journal, or just be. I went straight from a life surrounded by the busyness and bustle of a brady-bunch home to the constantly moving lifestyle of a big college- and not just any college- ASU. I still remember the look on my dad’s face when he found out my next door neighbors were four, rowdy, freshman boys. He still says that his real prayer life started the day I was left at ASU. People would come and go, lives would blend, and everything was shared; space, showers, swigs of milk, always in a constant rotation. I’m sure if I had taped my life as a college freshman for just one day and watched it now- the sheer speed of my life would seem impossibly foreign.

I had roommates all my life until my new roommate became the man I married. I was constantly surrounded, conversing, and just in the presence of other people. Other stories. Other heartbeats.


Now I live the oddest life of a single newlywed. I brush my teeth using one sink and will occasionally glance over at the sink next to mine, pristinely white and unused. I get dressed in a closet half-full of perfectly-pressed men’s dress shirts and wonder if I should just throw one on with a belt and some leggings so they don’t get jealous of the girly side of the closet. I pass countless pictures and photo books revealing the man that once occupied this space with me and wish I could be transported back into those still frames- like the chalk drawings in Mary Poppins. I go through my day and see so many faces I love. I work, converse, problem solve, encourage. I hurry, explain, learn new things, and pray a lot and when the garage door slowly goes up after a people-packed day in ministry, I park my car right down the middle and scoop up my day full of water bottles, receipts and contact info and shuffle into the house.  In that split second as I smell the faintly lingering new-house smell, I try my hardest to remember what it was like to be greeted when I came home. There’s no sharing of space, showers, or swigs of milk and suddenly my own thoughts become extraordinarily audible. 

I’ve found, in those painfully quiet moments, I am greeted by an equal force of fear and peace- each rushing in on me from both sides, giving new, personal meaning to the words spiritual warfare. On the fear side my thoughts are in a frenzy: questioning, confused, hurt and alone. But the peace side brings out a version of myself I’ve come to love very much.  Someone confident- more in God than in herself, someone wise enough to block out the noise of the evil one, and someone persistently looking for ways to bring more color into this wonderful dance called life. I love the days when I choose peace, when I choose God, when I choose color because those days are the ones worth writing about.

And even though I’m tired, I’m often sad, and when I go to sleep at night I only take half of the décor pillows off of our king-size bed, I kind of love this season because it is exactly that. A season. A season that has stretched me, lengthening spiritual muscles I didn’t even know I had. A season that has forced me to deal with some of my deepest fears head-on. A season I’ve learned the value of still… of quiet… of being. And a season wrapped up in so many failures that have shaped me into the woman God has created me to be at 24. But it is a season. Temporary and almost done.

Since this has been written, Austin has come home. His sink has been used, his shirts have been worn, I’ve been greeted when I step foot inside our house, and all of our bedroom décor pillows now sleep on the floor. Thank you God for seasons. For the current becoming the past, for the future becoming the current, and for being a current, faithful God.

theories

I have a lot of theories about life. From big, important things like God to trivial but still fun things like the best cookie recipe in the world… I have spent twenty-five years formulating, testing, thinking-I-am-perfecting, and letting others in on my theories— the things I believe make life beautiful, meaningful, a little more understandable.

Allow me to share a few that have been heavily on my heart during this season of life:

~ Love Jesus. Because he is perfect. His arms are strong enough to hold our burdens and his heart is big enough to love the messiness we have created in our own. And because he never changes. I change, my tastes changes, the weather changes, emotions change, styles change, everything else around me changes. But not my Savior. There is no other person, no other love I could plant the roots of my life in but the perfect thing that never changes.

~ Keep in touch. Because friends are not just important, they are essential; and it is entirely too easy to forget that the world does not spin around you and your life, but around God and his story. Call her, don’t wait for her to call you. Fight the urge to think you are more important than anyone else. Entitlement, resentment, pride, and look-at-me-point-of-views are dangerous things and serve only to keep us struggling instead of loving. Write a note, send a text, start fresh.

~ Take slow walks. The pace of life can be blinding sometimes. We work, meet, do business, pay bills, join groups, head to the gym, plan events, cook meals, watch tv, and a fill our days with a million other things. Slow down and walk in the fresh air. Give yourself a few minutes to just move the miracle that is your body in a rhythmic, comfortable pace, and thank God for creating you with every detail that he made; including the legs you think are too short, the arms you think are too big, and the skin you wish was just a little more clear. Think about all the things you do with your hands, all the things you carry with your arms, all the places you go with your legs, and the encouraging things you say to others with your mouth and hear from others with your ears. Take a deep breath, and smile because you are exactly who you are supposed to be, and God loves every detail that adds up to you.

~ Forgive. You are not perfect, they are not perfect, and there is absolutely nothing in the world God cannot fix. Forgiveness does not hinge on anything other than the grace of Jesus, which is there no matter what wrong was done to you. You were forgiven well beyond what you will ever need to forgive another person for… really, you were and are. Wake up and thank God for the cross and see how that changes your reaction to other people. Forgive the person who cut you off in traffic and the waiter who messed up your order. Forgive the person in your life who has hurt you the most. Forgive yourself for doing all of these to other people every day. Forgive often and without expecting anything in return.

~ Read. Because words are powerful, and some of the greatest and most beautiful things ever spoken are permanent because they were written down. Read these things. Memoirs and fiction and magazine articles and newspapers. Read and agree, read and disagree, read and learn, read and discuss. Challenge your mind and broaden your perspective, see the world in more dimensions than you did yesterday. I think God wants us to pursue to the best of our ability an understanding of the complexities we live in and see around us every day. So buy the Barnes and Noble membership, get a library card, and fill your bookshelf with all the words you can.

~ Never be satisfied with your humility. We could never out-humble Jesus, and yet the humble are the ones he will make more like him—which is what we should all be wanting anyway, right? The humility paradox is something I believe we should wrestle with every day: put others before yourself, use your God-given abilities to make the world better, have the confidence that God wants you to love him through your actions and work in the world, and yet never be satisfied that you’ve done a good enough job to merit his blessing. We don’t deserve his love, he just gives it to us. So be grateful and accept it and let it motivate you to passionately love this broken world; but please, don’t believe you’ve earned it. You are special and loved and cared for, but no more so than any other person in the world. Without Jesus right next to us, without him willing to stand before the father on our behalf, we all look exactly the same. Let humility be the defining characteristic of your life.

~ Remember your theories on life are just that: theories. I love the definition of a theory—a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation; contemplation or conjecture; a guess or speculation. If you start thinking that everything you believe or feel about life is anything more than your best attempt at a theory, you are likely over-estimating your ability and under-estimating the ability of others. We can always be learning, always be gleaning some lesson from what we see, hear, experience and discuss. Let your theories be moldable, malleable, flexible. Our theories on life will shape the way we live every day, so give them room to mature and grow with you.

~ There is one exception to my theory on theories. God is big, Jesus is alive and real, the Holy Spirit dwells within each of us, and the Bible is the perfect, true, breathing word of God. These things remain true in a world that fights against them relentlessly, they are the only theories that get the distinction of fact. But I have found that the more I try to understand life, culture, other people and purpose, the more I need those facts. I cannot make sense of anything else if God is not our Creator and if Jesus did not do what he said he came to do.

My prayer for you is that every theory you ever have stems from the Truth, the only Truth. And don't waste your definitions on God, he has always been too big for them.