Birthday Month Announcement!

It’s my birthday month and that means YOU get a present! I’m launching a podcast!!!

Okay it was very docuhey of me to suggest that that’s a present for you, it probably more of a present for me, but the present isn’t that I’m starting a podcast, the present is that I’m releasing myself from my own expectations of perfection, even if polish. I’m launching a podcast but I make no promises that it’ll be good and I’m okay with that.

I’ve talked in the past about starting a podcast and haven’t actually gotten it off the ground for two main reasons, I was tired and I was scared. And by scared I mean suffering from debilitating imposter syndrome. What if it’s bad? What if I’m not good at it or the quality doesn’t sound podcasty enough? What if I can’t get compelling guests or I say the wrong thing? What if it’s stupid of me to even consider this? What if I’m just not good enough.

And by tired I mean grieving. After my mom died I greatly overestimated myself, even when I thought I was having grace with myself. And every time I felt confident that I had the capacity to invest more in my online spaces and build up those communities and carve out a spot for myself in your podcast rotation I was hit with the undeniable reality that I was still operating on reserve power and that that power was a dwindling resource.

I don’t know what shifted but I think I’m just sick of doubting myself. And I think that, while I’m still grieving, I’m also entering a broader season of reclamation as part of that grief. See it wasn’t just my mom passing that I was grieving. I was also grieving the loss of a certain hope where my relationship with my mother was concerned. I’ve also been grieving what was taken from us by our years in Kentucky and the pastors who spent that time mentally and spiritually abusing us. I’ve been grieving the loss of a friendship, the loss of my faith, the loss of my sense of self, and honestly so many other things that I couldn’t see  individually for a long time because they all got swept under the big banner of LOSS. And after having been able to identify a lot of these griefs and begin working through them, I want to talk about them.

No I’m not starting a podcast about grief, I’m starting a podcast about life and growth and discovery. The format will be very conversational, the idea behind the podcast is that so much love, and growth, and discovery happen in authentic, vulnerable conversation. The times I have felt the strongest sense of that way we’re supposed to feel in church, I have felt in that sort of conversation, over a meal or over a fire or a car ride. I think we all come to the table with something to offer and something to gain and I love that richness in conversation! So I want to have those conversations with people who have something to teach me and who hopefully will learn something from me too, and I hope that by listening you’ll also get something.

The podcast is coming but in the meantime here are some ways to help make my birthday month a little happier!

One - follow me across platforms. Lord knows when tiktok will go and that’s currently my biggest platform, so if you want to keep up with me follow me on the Bird App and the Picture App

Two: sign up for my newsletter! It’s once a month (right now) and this month it’s all about reclaiming what made me a manic pixie dream girl.

And three, this one is optional: birthday wishlist

I can’t wait to show you everything I’ve been working on, and hey if you have ideas for guests let me know!!

Easy Answers on Birds and Flowers

The thing that can make me most weary in church life is our penchant for standard answers. Sometimes when we talk about the Bible and pose questions it can feel like all we’re doing is engaging in a call and response. That the answers are on the tip of everyone’s tongues because we’ve heard these answers a hundred times and we all know what the “right” answers are. And even if they ring hollow for us personally we say them because they are the “right” answers. As someone who more often feels the weight of the hard questions than the ease of the “right” answers it can be hard to engage. 

This past weekend I was teaching a group of students out of Luke 12, the verses about worry, verses which for me, a sufferer of chronic post traumatic anxiety and panic attacks, are fraught with condescension and hypocrisy. The reassurances of God caring for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field always felt empty for me in the darkest times of my life when I was uncared for in so many vital earthly ways. The study guide asked questions like “what’s this passage saying about worry”, and “how can we obey Jesus in giving up our anxieties to him” and one or two students actually listening dutifully answered “it says we shouldn’t worry about anything”, and “because God will take care of everything we need”. 

And I was weary. 

I laid the study guide down and I looked around the room at a handful of students half listening or not listening at all, and I asked “What would you say to someone who heard these verses and felt hurt by them?” And they sat up, the kids who’s hands had shot up as I’d started the question slowly lowered them. I looked into a dozen attentive eyes. “What would you say to someone who’s brain chemistry doesn’t let them stop worrying? What would you say to someone who told you that their family was poor and that they don’t eat regularly, that they don’t have clothes to wear except what’s currently on their back, or who told you they were homeless? What biblical truth could you extract for them?”

And they sat in silence for a few minutes, all of them staring at me. And then one kid finally raised his hand and said “I don’t know, that’s a really hard question,” and a dozen faces nodded in agreement.

So we talked about what that passage could mean when taken in the context of the verses around it, about why it’s important to know a verse’s context because without it we can apply the verse in ways that don’t see many people even though when Jesus spoke he saw everyone. We talked about how those verses go on to give a directive to us listening about giving away possessions to the needy, how sometimes we are the answer to someone else’s need, that our abundance isn’t for us but for them. We talked about what it means to live in line with disease process and to submit yourself to regiments that can keep you as healthy as possible, even if that means you can never fully “give your worries to God”. We talked about how to live a life that is ethically in line with sustainability and how ultimately feeding into longevity in every area of our life gives us more to pass on to those in need. And we talked about treasure, how it can mean something really valuable but how it can also mean something we make valuable even if it isn’t, even if it’s bad for us. How treasure can be the thing we pour ourselves into the most, and how that can mean treasure can even be giving in to unhealthy thoughts and patterns of behavior. 

I also made a dead on point using Gollum and Schmeagal as an illustration which scored me points cause apparently kids still love Lord of The Rings. 

And as we were closing one of the students raised their hand again and said “I think if someone heard those verses and was hurt by them I wouldn’t say anything to them, maybe it isn’t about giving them a biblical truth but, like, getting one for ourselves. I think the biblical truth for us is that I should ask them why they were hurt by these verses and I would just listen because they’re probably hurt by them because of not having those things themself but I won’t know that if I don’t listen, then after they were done I would try and see if there was a way I could help them get those things. And if there wasn’t I would ask someone else to help. And if there still wasn’t I think maybe I would just be their friend, because maybe even if that’s all I can do for them that’s still something.”

Amen. 

And I wasn’t weary anymore. 

The easy answers, the call and response, it’s a learned behavior. Oh Church. Your people want to know, they want to talk about the hard things, the messy things, the broken spaces. And we can raise kids who aren’t afraid to not know some answers, who understand that sometimes the only answer available to us is to love someone with our presence and our silent, attentive listening. We can be a people who live and lead with authenticity and who aren’t afraid of our doubts, who don’t worry that our God isn’t big enough for the hard conversations. We can be a people who are honest about these things from stages and from teaching platforms and in small group circles and in every day conversations.

We can be a people of more substance than platitudes, who climb mountains when we can, and sit in valleys when we can’t.

We can be a people who find Jesus in both places.

Where Things Are

My husband told me to write here more because we’re paying for it and if we’re going to pay for it we should use it. And he’s not wrong. But the truth is I set this site up when I felt like I had something important to say and I’m just not sure that’s true anymore. Mostly because this year has kicked my ass. 

Here’s what I’m learning. Our most archaic, base level false understandings of ourselves can be the hardest to disentangle from and will be the first ones to resurface in times of stress or darkness. Their persistence doesn’t make them true, no matter what false lenses we’re seeing through. We have to fight them. 

In the course of the last year I have regressed to some of my most emotionally risky, spiritually dangerous thought patterns and its wreaked havoc on me. The trippiest part for me has been the fact that I have spent ten years building up the arsenal to combat these things, these beliefs and thoughts. And when pressed I didn’t lean into them, I couldn’t lean into them.

Mental and spiritual health is a journey, one that requires that we are rigorously honest with the people around us and with ourselves. One that demands that whatever shame and embarrassment we feel at having laid down in front of life as it steamrolls us, we still choose honesty. So this is me, choosing honesty. I’ve let life steam roll over me, I bent my neck to it time and time again and I wasn’t honest about where my heart was for the fear of being perceived as weak, as less than. And the first step in fighting back is being honest. I don’t know what else I might have to say as I fight my way back, but I know that holding what I’ve had to say in is not just part of the problem, it’s a root of at least one of them. 

God knows where I’m at and he is not ashamed of me. I’m not ashamed of me either. 

Of Anniversaries and Redemption

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Its been three years since I took this picture, a picture I’ve never shown anyone except for the people the very closest to me. A picture I took to send my best friend who I was supposed to be attending a conference with the next day. I sent it to her because I was trying to get out of going because I looked like Sloth from Goonies. My entire body was at war with itself, at war with my mind, with the denial I’d been trying to live under. My body was angry, demanding that I deal with 30 years of trauma and childhood abuse that I’d been stuffing into the bottom of my spirit. My body had gotten tired of the constant tension it was living in, the constant fear, the constant preparing for a blow or being scared in my own skin, trying to be accommodating to ward off what could be coming, so my body stopped moving forward and demanded I deal with the past. I went to the conference the next day with my broken body, my jacked up face, my heart so full of unacknowledged hurts bubbling to the surface I thought I would have a heart attack. I sat in the back row and I listened for two days as person after person stood on that stage and talked about the importance of honoring our history, of the cost of not redeeming our story. I listened and wept and felt exposed and raw, my trauma literally seared across my face. And after two days of trying harder and harder to fight it I stopped. I let the dam break and I felt every single thing I had been trying not to feel for 30 years. It’s an unimaginable three years (a lifetime?) later, three years of hard work, of sitting with my story, of creating practices around healing and health, of recognizing and naming my feelings and their origins, of recognizing which things I carry with me through the world and which things I lay down, three years of asking God to redeem my story and to use it if it could be used, and of watching for the opportunities. It’s been three years of learning to be obedient and to trust God enough so that when someone holds open their hands to say “here is my hurt”, I’m able to take their hands and say “mine too.” The redemption of my story means I’m not scared to admit it, to name it, and that simple act makes someone else feel less alone. After three years of intense healing I can tell you the bottom line is that the redemption of my story serves one purpose: it shows someone else that their story can be redeemed too. And isn’t that alone worth it? Whatever your story, whatever your trauma or hurt that you are still carrying, it can be redeemed, not just healed but it can blossom into something beautiful because it can serve as a beacon of hope to someone else. It’s hard work and sometimes the healing is more painful than the trauma but the other side, OH!!! The other side!!!!!! On the other side of that mountain is the River of Life, abundant, beautiful, life. I’m so thankful for that day, three years ago, the day that started my road across the mountain I’d been living beneath. I’m so thankful for this life on the other side, this beautiful, abundant life, and for a God gracious and loving enough to walk with me over the mountain, and lay down with me in the pasture. Happy anniversary sweet girl. You’ve done so well.

On Grief and Mourning

What do you have to say?

That is the pinnacle question for anyone looking to start a blog or wanting to write. Why do you want that, what is it you have to say? I have had a blog since the inception of blogging. You'd be hard pressed to find a vintage blogging platform I don't have some archaic profile on (it's all really bad, angsty poetry so don't go digging it up). I have always had a lot to say. Something would shift in my life and I would think, “I need to write about that.” A thing would happen in our world; a big emotion would over take me; a question would eat at me for days and I would think to myself, “I need to write about that.” But in recent years, certainly since the inception of this site, whenever I felt the need to write about something mostly I didn’t.

For the most part this blog has been defined by fear, by all the things not said for fear of not knowing how to extricate my story from the stories of those that shaped me, how to lay out the truth while sparing the starring players of that truth, how to share my opinions without being mistaken as an emissary for my pastor or church (both of whom I love but would never claim to speak for nor whom I necessarily agree with over every last minutia of scripture and culture because never will we agree with someone on everything).

Over the last year and a half I’ve been on an unexpected road, one that began in an auditorium listening to Donald Miller tell me we would grieve our stories together, and learn to tell them through that grief. I shared about that and about this crippling fear in a blog a little over a year ago. As I wrote it then I thought that post marked the end of that fear and journey of grief, and a turn onto a new, bolder road. I was super, super wrong.

Here’s what I’ve learned since publishing that blog: grief is a holy and brutal tool of the Lord, and it will not be mastered or cut short by any man. It is it’s own living and breathing thing, and as with any gift of God, used correctly, in it's intended manner, it brings about blessing. Since publishing that blog I’ve learned that grief is a tool of freedom. To grieve is to take a sacred and treacherous path to a new life, it is the bridge from tragedy to healing. When scripture says that He binds up the broken hearted, grief is the bandage He uses. When grief is abused, when relied on outside of the Lord, when clung to, grief takes on a malevolent color, as with any abused gift of God, it becomes distorted, all encompassing. When we try to force grief into our time table, into our own terms of success, when we try to push through it without accepting it we become a slave to the grief instead of a recipient of the gift of freedom and healing. After I published that blog I became a slave to the grief instead of a recipient of the gift. And in my fear of talking about my grief, it mastered me until I gave in to it and was led by Jesus straight onto the precarious, broken path called mourning.

So if you read that blog all those months ago, if you read how I said I was going to start being honest and open in all the ways I hadn’t been, please know that when I wrote that I really thought I was. I was trying to shortcut my way through grieving and I had step into the life that comes after grief. I recognize now that I wasn't done with grief. And quite honestly I’m still here, on the path of mourning, I don’t know how long this season of grieving will last, and I think maybe a piece of me will always be here? Maybe at the end of the road of mourning we dig up some of the dirt and carry it with us forever. We live a life full of laughter and wonder and beauty and peace, but there is always the understanding that something was lost at one point, that in the timeline of our life this is the AFTER. Maybe there will always be a catch in our throats at the memory of what once was. But we are not a slave to it. That is the power of grief.

So here is what I want to say, what I haven't said for fear of how I would be perceived: I'm still coming into the power and blessing of grief, still winding my way down the path of mourning. But I know what's at the end of it, I know what comes after, and for the first time I am humbly submitting myself to the process. And if you're here too, if you're grieving and you've tried to make it fit into a mold of your own design or you've tried to shortcut it, if it's lasted longer than you'd wanted it to, know that you're not alone, and there is healing on the other side of it, if only we will submit ourselves and be led by Jesus straight through it.

Psalm 151: #LEMONADE

You [Lord] have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions of the dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. || Psalm 88:6,7

I remember these nights when I was teenager, it would be late enough on a summer night that it was completely dark. Armed with a couple cigarettes stolen from a friend's parents and a discman (google that if you need to), I walked the four or five blocks to a small private cemetery near my house. At this cemetery there was a large brick and marble table off to the side of the gravestones. I would come here late at night in my angstiest of teen days, sit on top of this table and I would listen to sad music, I would suffer through a couple Newports, stare at the moon and talk to God.  

Correction. I would rail at God, rage at him, question him, blame him. I can remember the first time I cursed up into the sky, quietly at first, waiting for a lightening bolt to drop and end me right then and there. And when it didn’t I did it a little louder and then louder and then louder. An angry, brokenhearted girl throwing f-bombs up into the sky.

The Psalms are such an interesting place in scripture. They are the only large collection of verses that are solely someone talking TO God, there are didactic, instructive elements mixed in, there are also verses that seem to contradict the instructions Christ taught. It’s part poetry, part hymnal, part oral history; it is full of worship and awe, full of pain and anger, full of despair and hope. At its core the book of Psalms is a work of art, an unflinching exploration of what it means to be a flawed human and to love the God who created us, who knows the intimate workings of our flawed hearts.

Last week Beyonce released a stunning new album. Lemonade is a visceral experience both visually and musically. Artistically it is beautiful, emotionally it is overwhelming, and culturally it is so important. But I’m seeing this strange trend among Christians of negating all the importance and staggering beauty of the album because of her flagrant expressions of pain. She curses, she’s vulnerable and honest in depictions of her broken relationship, her anger. She is ferocious in describing her emotional process. In particular one conservative male evangelical blogger who I will not name nor link to referred to Beyonce’s music as “bile”, calling it “weird, aggressive, sullen, whorish, egomaniacal, vaguely satanic and deeply stupid”.

There is so much to say about Beyonce’s album Lemonade, most of it, nearly all of it, is not mine to say. I’m not equipped to analyze or unpack a lot of the album’s imagery and meaning. In this conversation it is not my voice that matters, there are epic and beautiful voices doing the hard work of dissecting Lemonade, voices like Austin Channing, Janet Mock, Zakiya Jackson (or her piece here), and Ashleigh Shackelford. I'm humbly listening to them and I would encourage you to as well.

That being said, I won’t be quiet when it comes to the conversation of honesty and transparency in art, transparency in life. I won’t be quiet and let go unopposed the misguided notion that good Christians don’t ever have or tolerate messy, complicated and ugly emotions. I straight up refuse to be silent while someone says that we shouldn’t ever find solace and comfort in art that mirrors our brashest, most crass pain. The truth is that we as Christians often put up boundaries around our ugly, unappealing emotions. We are a sitcom culture, we like testimonies that resolve easily and neatly, bow tied and in place. We like to believe that once a testimony is told it is over, that it’s never an ongoing battle. We like instant deliverance, not the daily act of laying our burdens down at the cross. We don’t like the rawness of pain, we prefer the happy ending. We too often believe and perpetuate the lie that our most terrifying and painful emotions are too much for God. Especially as women, we’re told in Christian culture that our negative emotions are dishonoring to the Lord.

Those nights spent crying in the moonlight, angry and raging, I was nursing bruises, and wading through the emotional bog of two God fearing parents knowingly abandoning me to physical abuse. At 13 I was incapable of separating the voluntary neglect of earthly parents from the posture of a Heavenly Father. And I was angry. I burned with it. And to this day I stand firmly in the belief that the reconciliation of my relationship to my abuser, the healing I have experienced began on those very nights that I screamed into the black. God did not look at me those nights and find me sinful, his heart broke for me, he cried with me, he scooped me into his arms and let me go until I wore myself out, like a little girl pounding her fists on the chest of a father. He built my brain and heart, he designed the process by which I internalize my experiences and transcribe them within myself, he engineered my emotional responses, how could it ever be too much for him? The Psalms are full of beautiful wisdom and Godly insight but I would argue that their greatest contribution to our faith is the instruction that forms them: the principle that God can take whatever we got, that we can honestly and angrily and tearfully and joyfully bring our every thought and emotion before the King of Heaven. Not only that we can but that we should. Was there a safer space than God for David to rage about dashing the little ones of his enemies against rocks, or beg for shame and horror to fall on his oppressors? Was there a safer space for him to put music to his grief and remorse and anger and let it play out so he could move through it on to the next stage? Exploring our emotional process with God is the healthiest, safest way to do it. And the evangelical world’s response to Beyonce doing just that is astounding and sad.  

In a recent video Bono sits down to discuss the Psalms with one of his personal inspirations, Eugene Peterson, the man who wrote The Message translation. Bono lauds the brutal honesty of the joy and pain in the Psalms. “The only way we can approach God,” he says, “is if we’re honest.” Honest in our joy, honest in our struggle, honest in our worship, honest in our pain, honest in our anger. He asks why church music isn't more like this? Why don't the Christians write songs about their bad marriages? Their fear? Their anger with the government? He says that his suspicion of Christians stems from this unwillingness to be emotionally real. And I whisper “Amen” as I think of the angsty songs I listened to sitting in that dark cemetery. Secular songs because there was no Christian music that mirrored back at me my grief and confusion and pain, no Christian soundtrack to make me feel seen and known and safe in my process from heartbroken to healed.

At its most basic interpretation Lemonade is the story of a broken marriage, a woman so deeply hurt and still so in love that she is buried in anger and sadness. She progresses through a healthy emotional cycle that includes both raw pain and callous apathy, multiple times calling out to God. She ends in a place of redemption, reconciliation and hope. If that’s not psalmic, I don’t know what is. The Psalms are a mirror of the human condition, as is contemporary art. To dismiss art as unchristian, to ignore, for this same reason, the layers of meaning and importance in art because it’s too brashly emotional at the top is to say that our God can’t handle our emotions, to box him into a weak and easily offended deity incapable of navigating his own creation.

If you need to hear it today, if you’re experiencing bruises and emotional bogs and raw pain, then hear this: it is not too much for God. You and your emotional process and reactions are not too much for God. He can take it, anything you got, he can take it. He will swoop you up in his arms and let you rage till you are tired, till your anger dissipates to sobs and you grow weary of your rage and are ready to move into the vulnerability healing demands. There is no sin in our emotional process, in our pain, even in our anger.

If you haven’t listened to Beyonce’s new album you should, anger and cursing and all. Like the Psalms it is reflective of the human condition, raw and beautiful in its depiction of pain and growth and redemption. And like the Psalms there are many deeper meanings built into the very melodies, meanings and truths that we need to hear.

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Selah

First things first, prepare yourself, this is going to be long. I’m doing my best to organize my thoughts chronologically and cohesively but it’s all still mostly wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. Partly because the things I want to share have been happening in me for a while so it can be hard to organize all the moments into a timeline. And partly because, for me, it’s so big that I want to talk about all of it at once. And partly because it’s humiliating, I’m embarrassed of myself and my failings, it’s taking time to just lay them bare and not try to justify them or explain them. So if you’re reading this, be patient. Grab some coffee, and settle in. 

In February 2015, on a whim, I watched the IF:Gathering, the session videos were available for a few hours between when the conference happened and when you had to buy them. I watched it on my iPad in my living room into the middle of the night. I marathon watched almost all four sessions, I cried and worshipped and was so moved. The theme running through the whole thing was the idea of stepping into the Jordan River, that first step is in water, before the waves part, it’s a step of faith saying “I believe that the Lord has this for me and I will step out in faith toward that.” The months leading up to this moment I’d been on a journey of giving up something I’d held dear. Writing has always been in me, writing has always been my favorite form of therapy, my best shot at expressing myself clearly, the expression of my truest self, it’s always been the thing that made me calm and helped me process. I can remember heading down to our basement as a 6th grader, with notebooks and clipboards and fake glasses in my hands, telling my mom I was sitting down to get some writing done. Writing was always THE PLAN. In the months leading up to that IF:Gathering 2015 the Lord had asked me to give up THE PLAN. He asked me to be okay with never having anything to say to anyone, with not having a platform or an audience. He told me that I needed to let my dream die and there was no promise that he would ever revive it again. And after months of struggling and fighting and learning new ways to process and feel calm, after dismantling my dreams for myself and laying them at the feet of Jesus and being okay with my life never looking like that, I sat in front of my iPad and listened as Jennie Allen asked us to take a rock and write what our next step would be. What's the thing God is asking of you, what faith step is he asking you to take into what looks like an impassable river? I closed my eyes and sat in silence and asked God to show me what he wanted my step to be. 

“Write.”

The thing about God is that he can be a real jerk sometimes. The only way to explain how I felt in that moment is that it was like getting an “I love you” text from an ex boyfriend you were FINALLY over.

In the weeks that came after that I took more steps that the Lord pushed me toward: “Buy an actual website”, so I did; “print business cards”, so I have; “start writing a book”, so I am; “submit articles”, so I did. I was ecstatic that the love of my life was back a part of me and it all felt so right, so commissioned and so holy because I was doing it under the direct instruction of God!

That was a year ago. To date I have published two articles, written 12 blog posts, and gotten five pages of this so called “book” written out (in case you’re confused, this is not me bragging, this is me confessing that that’s all I did in 12 freaking months). 

Guys I started so strong. I started with a fire in my belly, not a fire to write and be known, but a fire to obey. And then this thing happened. See I think we can all agree that a fire to obey is a target for the enemy. So I guarded that fire and every time I felt the Lord urge me toward something I said yes and went after it with everything I had. But it turns out Satan is sneakier than we think. He didn’t go after my fire, not in the way I was anticipating. Instead of hitting burnout or frustration or having my will to obey be attacked, I simply got helpful. If I’m meant to write a book, it will be easier to pitch it if I have a built in audience, I should grow my platform, I told myself. So I created a Facebook page, I started calculatedly Instagramming. I posted at optimal times, I used all the relevant and popular hashtags, I engaged with the people who came through and liked my pictures. I started to do the branding equivalent of dressing for the job you want. I started to focus my efforts on enacting the plan God had for me instead of just doing the next thing God told me to do. I was trying to force God’s hand except I honestly didn’t see it that way. In my head if God wanted A and B would help A, then I could help God by making B a thing. 

I COULD HELP GOD.

Cause ya know, that’s something we all have to do from time to time, he can be a bit helpless.  

Worse than trying to help God by doing things he hadn’t asked me to do, I also stopped doing the things he did ask me to do, more specifically I stopped saying things he asked me to say. I started to live in fear. My biggest anxiety, the thing I struggle with the most is being misunderstood. I hate when someone misunderstands my heart, when they take something I’ve said wrong and internalize it negatively and believe something untrue about me or my intentions. I can’t say this, I would worry, people will misunderstand me. I can’t say that, I’m Facebook friends with too many people who disagree with that, they’ll be so offended, I thought. I can’t say that, I worried, my husband is on staff at a church and that could really rock some of our people, I don’t want my husband to lose his job. I told myself, I can’t say that, my family will be so angry with me if I put that out into the world. But again I didn’t see what I was doing, I didn’t set out to argue with God or disobey, I convinced myself that he wasn’t really asking me to say those things, it was just my own opinions, I actually managed to convince myself that by holding my tongue as often as I did I was honoring God, having self control, honoring my family and my church.

Now listen, don’t go looking back through my blog and dismissing everything I’ve said in the last year, I still believe a lot of it, most of it. In fact all of it. Me not believing what I said isn’t the issue. The issue was there was so much more to say that I refused to say because it wouldn’t get me more hits, it wouldn’t grow my platform, it would make someone mad, challenge them too much, people wouldn’t like it, they wouldn’t like me and no one wants to hear about Jesus from someone they don’t like so I kept my mouth shut and I said things that were middle of the road at best. I challenged no one, not even myself. I played nice for the sake of my potential readership and my husband's potential job security and I tried to force God’s plan into a mold that I was more comfortable with and I honestly didn’t realize I was doing any of it.

In October I bought two tickets for IF:Gathering 2016 and asked a friend to come with me, I was so excited, I knew God would do good things there, but if I’m honest I mostly looked at it like a girls weekend in Austin with a sprinkle of Jesus. In exchange she asked me to go to Donald Miller’s Storyline conference in November. In the weeks leading up to Storyline I had a family member, with a complicated history, who was on the verge of making a decision I didn’t agree with. My hesitancy was born in love and concern, a desire to see this person thrive. But it was received as judgement and bitterness, a demand for my own way. People that I loved dearly and valued my relationship to and valued their opinion of me called me immature and selfish. The anxiety I felt at being misunderstood, the frustration I felt at not being able to effectively communicate my intentions and feelings was literally written all over my face. I attended Storyline broken hearted, with eyes nearly swollen shut from stress, and almost zero understanding of what this conference was or what I would get out of it. It turns out that it was an orchestrated by God, defining moment in my life. I walked into Storyline with almost no idea that I was living in bondage to fear of being honest, fear of being disloyal. How much can you say when the Lord tells you to tell your story? How far is too far? What am I allowed to tell without making the other people involved in my story mad? How can I tell my story while protecting them? How can I tell my story while protecting me from them?

Guys, it turns out you can’t tell your story or speak the truth and also protect yourself or anyone else from the truth. That’s the incredibly radical thing about total honesty, it leaves you totally vulnerable, vulnerable to anger, to misunderstanding, to pain. But it also leaves you totally vulnerable to the Holy Spirit, to encounters with people who needed to hear what you said, to know what you now know. I walked into Storyline afraid of my own story but I walked out (okay I actually sort of stumbled out blindly because I was crying so hard I couldn’t see) with the resolve to handle being misunderstood. It sounds so small, so small. But it was huge. And I remember thinking, Okay, now, now I’m ready to really live this mission for the Lord.

I’m so dumb. 

Despite my new found theoretical freedom in telling my story I was still too busy helping God build my platform for it to happen. I sponsored a post on Facebook (meaning I paid to get it seen by more people - BLECH, I feel dirty just saying that). I hosted a giveaway on this blog, not because I was so keen to give something away, but because free stuff attracts people and people attracted to my site equals an audience, an audience equals a readership, a readership equals THE LORD’S PLAN FOR MY LIFE (man, so simple, so lucky God had me to help him).  

Through November my pastor did a series called More, the idea being getting more of God, more of the Holy Spirit, of doing things WITH God instead of FOR God (and no I didn’t catch that God was trying to get my attention with that because as I’ve mentioned I am dumb). Then In January my church hosted a weekend conference with Gary Best (author of Naturally Supernatural and all around best Canadian ever) to further that idea of more of God. As a church our direction has been shifting for a while, from one of a more seeker friendly area to a more Spirit led and directed place. It’s been incredible to watch. Having grown up in the 1990’s boom of borderline Pentecostalism this was not new territory for me, this was my home turf and man did I sit haughtily in my chair and applaud as the people around me finally got with the program.

Guys. I’m so, SO dumb.

The Lord moved in incredible ways at this conference, it was awesome to see. I cheerfully went through it thinking Yay, what a good thing for our church and the people in our church who really need this, I’m so glad this could happen for them, I should Instagram something about this! I want to be really clear here, I’m being super transparent, I know how I come off right now, I’m not worried about being misunderstood, you’re all understanding me just fine, I sound like a horse’s rear end and I ABSOLUTELY was being one. I could water it down, soften it with all the other things happening in my life where I was being obedient and honoring God (because yes, we can be acing some things and tanking others simultaneously) and make myself sound better but the truth is this post is as much confession as it is exposition. I am as much confessing my sins to you all as I am telling you the story of how God changed me. So I sat in that conference, moved by other people being moved, thanking God for showing up for those other people that needed Him. Towards the end of the conference there was a time where Gary Best encouraged the people in the room to let the Lord lead us to someone and to pray for them, to minister God’s presence and power and love to them. As he commissioned us to do this I saw, out of the corner of my eye, my pastor’s wife basically sprinting toward me. I’m sure that’s not true, I’m sure she was just walking, but I knew that out of the 600 people in this room she was coming for me and so it felt like she was sprinting. Just as she got close, out of the corner of my eye I saw someone approach her and ask to pray for her, she took a few steps back and while she was occupied I almost bolted. In that moment all the seeds from the past couple days, from the More series in November, from the Storyline conference, they all sprouted, the first blooms began to ease open the tiniest bit, and all at once and I realized I’M DOING ALL THE THINGS WRONG. And I was terrified. And I knew that whatever my pastor’s wife was about to say to me was only going to be confirmation that I was doing all the things wrong. Before I could decide to leave she ended her prayer with the other person and came and stood next to me, “I was on my way to you,” she told me and I wanted to be like “YES I KNOW.”

She stood with me for a minute, she prayed quickly and gently. She said, “Lord I pray that you would give Abbey words, that you show her what to say so that she would stop trying, that your power and timing would be in control.” 

Have you ever been stabbed? Because now I’m pretty sure I know what it feels like. I was totally exposed. She knew that I had been trying, I hate to use this over used cliche but it was a total Wizard of Oz moment. She knew I was standing behind the curtain manufacturing something instead of it just happening. I wanted to run. The truth is I have no idea if I was quite as exposed as I believed, she maybe had no idea just how much those words stung or how deeply I needed to be told to stop trying. Just a week before I’d said to my friend “I feel like when I write fluff it’s always better received than anything truly, deeply challenging and I don’t know how to balance fluff with actually directing people towards God, I think I have to write fluff to hook them, I can’t direct them to God if they’re not listening, right?.” Just the day before she’d prayed this prayer I’d written in my notes from the conference that I didn’t know where the line was between hustling for my dream job of being a writer and waiting on God’s timing and maybe, was it at all possible, could I perhaps be trying to push God’s timing into my own? 

After that prayer my pastor’s wife walked away and I sat down. I felt like I had gotten the wind knocked out of me. Literally. I kept trying to sing the worship song being played and every time I opened my mouth I couldn’t form words, I couldn’t even breathe. I got the distinct impression that the Lord was ever so lovingly saying “Shut up”. A few minutes later a young girl came over to me, probably about 13 or 14. She sat down and asked if she could pray for me. I smiled and nodded, and she prayed exactly how I anticipated she would. She was sweet and unsure, she prayed that my difficult time of hardships and problems would pass and that I would, like, maybe, like, find Jesus. When she was done I hugged her and thanked her and waited for her to stand up and go so I could get back to the misery of having the crap kicked out of me by God. But it didn’t happen. Instead she stayed sitting next to me. I will never forget what God said to me as we awkwardly sat next to each other, this little girl and me. He said: 

“You think that you’ve done something for her by hugging her and thanking her, you think you’ve encouraged her. You haven’t. You are not the lesson to her, she is the lesson to you. I said speak and she spoke, I said pray and she prayed, I said stay and she’s still there. The win here wasn’t going to be that she did it perfectly or that she changed your life, the win here was only ever going to be that she obeyed. Why won’t you just obey? Stop making it about you. If I have something for you to do it is not to be clever, it is not to be insightful for the sake of stirring the pot, it is not to be sharp or divisive, it is not to be fluffy and trivial. If I have something for you it is to simply show people that you’ve tasted of the sweetest of love, it is to simply obey. Your words are not the gift, I AM THE GIFT. The thing you have to share will never be words, it will always be me and you’ll never get to do that if you don’t shut up and stop TRYING and be silent and listen! I WILL give you words, but they will never be yours, they will always be mine. Your job will only ever be to be a conduit, never the source. Stop living in fear of what YOUR words will do, they’re not your words, they’re mine and I’m not afraid of their impact. Stop being defensive and judgemental, it’s my decision who I will use and how I will use them and it’s your choice to rejoice in the furthering of my kingdom or judge who I pick in prideful arrogance. You are beloved, but you are not special. I WANT to do this with you, I want to use you, but I don’t need you, I can do it with anyone, I can use anyone, and if you won’t do it my way I will go find someone who will. Seek me, not an audience.”

Have you ever been punched in the gut by the Holy Spirit?

If you have little kids you know that when they do something wrong there’s almost this sort of formula to how we as parents handle it. Depending on the severity and danger of what they’ve done, you react (sometimes well, sometimes not), after you react you discipline, they get a time out or a spanking or a toy taken away or some kind of consequence and you explain WHY, you tell them what they’ve done wrong and why it’s not okay and why this is the consequence. Once they’ve lived in that consequence you bring it in for a hug, you reassure them that you know they can do better, that they can obey better, and you tell them that you still love them, still value them. I spent about two weeks living in the consequence. The Lord took something from me that he had shown me I value almost more than anything. I kid you not that within a few days of that conference I had completely lost my voice, not only that but I’d completely lost my capacity to think. I mixed up words and blanked when I was trying to say something, I forgot what I was saying and lost my train of thought. As I packed to go to the IF:Gathering I started to laugh at the circumstances. The friend I was supposed to attend with had backed out, I hadn’t found someone to share a room with so I’d booked a room by myself, and I couldn’t speak or think anyway, so I most likely wasn’t going to actually make friends while I was there. God had systematically broken down everything I was planning for the weekend of IF. I kept jokingly praying “okay God, anytime you want to bring closure to this thing happening between us, I’m in, I totally pick up what you’re putting down and I am absolutely going to change but can we please get to the hug it out part??” And I did get it, he’d made himself clear and I really did want to be different, but there was also this part of me that wanted the reassurance that my call hadn’t changed, that I would still get to write, heck that I would still get to use my vocal chords! It’s no joke man, I have a friend who lost her voice for nearly six years for literally no reason at all, it was medically astounding. I’m packing for IF and I’m having panic attacks that I’m never going to be able to say another word louder than a whisper.  

In an effort to try and force some kind of closure moment I started trying to read through the Psalms, if David knew about anything it was how to regain footing with God after having screwed up royally. I only made it through three verses of one single Psalm before my fuzzy, broken brain stopped focusing:

“Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:12-14

Every time I tried to venture off this passage all I could focus on was one single, inconsequential, overlooked word that shows up over and over in the Psalms - selah.  

No one is entirely sure what “selah” means, but the possible meanings all fit into the same vein. Whatever the specific meaning, the idea is that it adds emphasis, it’s meant for us to pause before jumping straight into the next thing so that we can sit in the space we’re in, uncomfortable or painful or joyful as it may be. Selah - the writer's instruction to the reader to pause and exalt the Lord, to measure what's just been said; a term used to stress the truth and importance of the preceding passage. Selah: direction to stop and listen. 

And so I prepared for IF, living in the consequence of prideful disobedience, terrified of how the Lord had set it up that I would be alone and at his mercy as he continued to put me through the ringer. After almost a week and a half of not having a voice, the day before I left for IF, I resigned myself to silence and obedience (those of you who know me well just hit the floor cause truly, not my strong suits). That night I attended a Bible study at my church and for the first time in what truly felt like years, was able to think clearly and speak above a whisper.

My husband and I left for the airport Friday morning at about 3am. We talked a little on the way there, me mostly just to double check that I was still able to. I anxiously boarded my plane and prayed the whole way to Houston. I got to my gate in Houston and sat down and anxiously prayed some more. I don’t totally remember what I was praying, I just knew that whatever work the Lord had begun in me was going to reach maximum impact in Austin and I think I was just praying for peace, pledging my obedience, and pleading for mercy. As I sat in the Houston airport I looked down the row from me and nearly laughed my head off. There, sitting by the window, was Ann Voskamp, one of IF’s leading ladies. I am as familiar with Ann Voskamp as the next girl, but I confess, I have never read her book and save a few random visits, I don’t follow her blog (sorry Ann!!!). It’s just one of those things. She’s in good company, I have a whole book shelf devoted to well known evangelical teachers and authors I want to read and follow and just have yet to make it happen. Because I haven’t read her book or followed her blog I didn’t see any reason for the growing, burning push inside me to go speak to her. It made zero sense. I text a friend of mine who said “Go talk to her!” and I responded, “Yeah I’ll just go say ‘Hi Ann, I’m not really familiar with much of your work, but I know you’re a Godly woman and I just thought I’d come say hey,’ that sounds like a good interaction.” But still the push and burn were there. As the gate attendant began preboarding calls the Lord said “I thought we agreed you were going to just obey?” and I felt myself stand to my feet and walk down to where she was sitting. I made awkward small talk, told her I appreciated all the work she and others were putting into IF, and how much I was looking forward to the weekend (I left out the part about my paralyzing fear of being clobbered by the hammer of God). We boarded the plane talking about the weather back in Chicago and our gold bar necklaces. She was seated in the row directly in front of me, the window seat whereas I was aisle. The flight from Houston to Austin is short and sweet and I settled in to plead for mercy some more, and even began to feel a twinge of pride. Hey look God, I said. You said to do something and I did it! I could almost feel the pat on my head as the Lord of all creation whispered “Aw that’s cute”.  

I’m so dumb.

About five minutes into the flight God nudged me again, “Share your blog with her, give her a way to get in touch with you.”

YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT LORD???????? Ann Voskamp has zero interest in my blog or my contact info! This is NOT how to get exposure!! I’d be better off sharing my blog with the actual women I talk to at IF then to pass it off to Ann Voskamp in some cockimany hope of it going somewhere!! 

Mind you I am having this conversation with the Lord while the Crossfit coach next to me is showing me videos of para-athletes performing mind boggling Crossfit workouts and telling me how people call him The Pitbull and growling, and talking about his “mega babe” wife who’s a few rows back.  

“I didn’t say anything about your blog going anywhere, not everything is about exposure. I said share it with her. That’s all. Zero expectations, zero agenda. Simple obedience.”

I don’t have a pen Lord, I don’t have any paper to write this all down on, what do you want me to do? Write my web address in coffee on my napkin? ON MY NAPKIN LORD???  

Have you ever experienced the Lord getting sassy? Sometimes we have this image of him as Darth Vader James Earl Jones, deep voiced and powerful and sovereign and serious. But sometimes he’s totally Sandlot James Earl Jones, snarky and agitated at our immaturity as we're doing something the hard way when all he wants to do is help us and talk with us. 

“If only there was something I’d asked you to have made that already had your contact info and website written on it that you could just hand people when I tell you to.” 

...like a business card?

“Like a business card.”

So with shaking fingers I took a business card out of my bag and when the plane landed and I ended up out the walkway and in through the gate before Ann Voskamp, I stopped, I rehearsed what I would say as I waited. And when she walked towards me I said “Mrs. Voskamp, I’m so sorry, but can I do something really obnoxious? I’m sure you get this all time and just know I do it with zero expectation or agenda, but can I give you my card? I’m sort of kind of a “writer” and just if you ever wanted to stop in to see it, I would love your feedback.”

And Ann Voskamp took my card and hugged me and said “You did so good, good job.” 

Now listen, I have no idea if she knew what she was saying to me. I have no idea if the Lord had like pregamed with her and told her he was going to make me do this. But I immediately felt the tension of living in the consequences crumble inside me. If she knew it or not, in those few words she spoke a fathers reassurance over me, “I still love you, I still value you, I know you can do this better than you have been, I know you can obey me.”

I didn’t see Ann in person again through the weekend, and I have no idea if she’ll come here. I hope she does but mostly only so she can know what she did for me in that moment. 

At this point I was feeling pretty good, not prideful good, just lighter and ready for whatever God would do through the weekend. And yes, maybe I felt like I was finally out of the woods. As I’ve mentioned, I’m really dumb. I know this is long, and you’re now like “WHAT?! You’re not done yet???????????” I’m so sorry, I’m not. Feel free to come back in a while and finish it up, or don’t, whatever. It’ll be here either way because the next part is important. 

The IF:Gathering was incredible. There were hundreds of tiny ways that the Lord took care of me and reinforced that I was meant to be in that room this weekend and I would love to go into all of them but I honestly am trying to keep this under novel length, so those stories can be for another time.

The thing that amazed me most of all about my time at IF was that God addressed every single thing I’ve been struggling with, and many times using language that had already been used in those previous God moments. It was like one giant affirmation after another. My fear of other people being offended because we believe differently: “Jesus wasn’t worried about if people thought he agreed with what they believed.” - Jo Saxton. My constant TRYING and taking over: “When you have nothing to lose and nothing to protect you will so dangerous. If you want to experience freedom STOP TRYING SO HARD. Stop doing things FOR God and start doing things WITH God.” - Jennie Allen. Being envious of other people’s platforms and audience: “The grass is always greener on the other side, it’s true! Someone else's relationship is greener, someone else's church is greener, someone else's platform is greener, but maybe when you think that someone else’s grass is greener it’s the Holy Spirit telling you to water the grass you’re standing on.” - Eugene Cho; “The cost of following Jesus is that we have to leave our water jar at the well.” - Lindsey Chandler. My belief that my words were the thing that would bless people and that to bless anyone I needed an audience, without it I wouldn’t know if I was blessing anyone: “The fruit is not the blessing, the fruit is a byproduct of the blessing, the blessing is abiding in Christ.” - Vivian Mabuni; “What would happen if our generation didn’t care about being known and just cared about making Jesus known.” - Esther Havens. My concerns about what I say being too much for people, being misunderstood or disliked: “Being criticized and not liked is the most powerful deterrent to being like Jesus.” - Jen Hatmaker. My misunderstanding of what it means to be called by God: “You don’t have to start a big ministry, you don’t have to have a great blog, you don’t have to write a book, JUST MAKE A DISCIPLE.” - David Platt

There’s so much more, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but the whole weekend was like living inside an echo of what God had planted in my heart in the months leading up to it. And again, all weekend, this small word etched in my mind, selah, stop and listen, take this in, measure the weight of what you’re being told.  

Undoubtedly the best part of the weekend for me was Friday afternoon. In the very first session, Jennie Allen, the second speaker and founder of IF, initiated a time of confession, even as she laughed that smarter people would say it was too early in the conference to do this. As the band played, different phrases of confession and repentance were read and displayed and we were asked to bring into the light the shame we held in secret by holding up our lit phones each time a confession we identified with was read. It was big and scary and powerful. The thing about confession is that it breaks down every defense you’ve built against being vulnerable. You cannot confess without being vulnerable, without trusting people with your mess, risking being misunderstood or disliked. And you cannot repent without confession. As I sat at that table on Friday and weighed out the things I needed to confess and repent of the Lord made one more ask for obedience, “Share these. Whatever “audience” you have, whoever is listening, they deserve to hear your confession, you need to repent to them.” In my great wisdom and obedience, and after all that I had learned and been through, I responded with an exceedingly mature “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!” Because at the end of the day I don’t believe that God can use me if I’m not perfect. And since I am so clearly NOT perfect, I have to portray that image so that God can use me. Makes perfect sense, right. If I confess to you you will see just how imperfect I am and I'll lose all credibility. 

But the thing is, before she led in confession, Jennie Allen talked about Peter. “He was the best of them and the worst of them,” she said. She talked about his hesitancy to expose his muddy feet for Jesus to wash and how Jesus longs for us, longs to cleanse us and use us and it’s up to us to turn in to that, to expose our mess, our dirt, to repent and believe that we are enough but ONLY because Jesus is enough. She read, “Jesus says ‘I wash your performance that you think you must produce. I wash your striving for your own name,” and asked us to lean in to confession, to repentance, and tho she was speaking to half a million women, she was speaking to directly to me.

So to any of you who have been around a while (although if you’ve never been to my blog before but you’ve read this post all the way from the beginning that counts as a while cause this sucker’s long!) here are the things that I confessed and repented of over the weekend, the things that I need to confess to you: 

I confess that I have clung to the opinions of others instead of God’s opinion of me. I have built my identity on the applause and acceptance of the world instead of the grace and forgiveness of Jesus.  

I confess that I mask my pain with anger, humor, sarcasm and isolation.

I confess that I carry a spirit of judgement into my relationships. Even if I don’t say it - I let it live in my mind and it controls my thoughts.

I confess that I choose pride as my normal mode of operation.

And this one, from my own heart: I confess that I have tried to do God’s job and force his hand and mold his plan and timing into my own.

Of these things I repent, and ask that you would all pray for me as I give these things over to God EVERY DAY, and battle against these sins EVERY DAY.

Gosh, if you’ve made it this far you deserve a cookie. We’re almost to the end, I promise. Saturday night I wandered around downtown Austin, looking for a place to get a tattoo, something to commemorate my commitment to change, something to remind me of all the ways I’d been failing, of God’s immeasurable grace, of my need to obey, unquestioningly and of the ways God was faithful to me, even as I failed him. It’s simple and small and perfect and beautiful. It hurt and I cried, but it came out exactly what I wanted it to be. Hopefully God can say the same about me someday.

Dear Lula - a letter to my daughter about friendship

Today I am thinking about friendship, like big deep friendship thoughts. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's me already missing my close friend that is moving so very far away this weekend, or knowing how much my kids will miss her kids and the dear friendship they've made. Maybe I'm thinking about friendships because of the kind friend who let us use her car while our was in the shop, or maybe it's the sweet anonymous package I got in the mail today, a generous gift from a generous friend. Or maybe it's the friend I made not long ago, who I granted access to my whole life, and how that turned out to be a mistake. 

Whatever it is I'm thinking about friendships and the good friends I have and the long journey it took to get here, the bad friendship choices I've made at times and the wisdom and intuition I've ignored. I've cheated myself out of many good experiences because of fear of rejection or just plain insecurity or pride. There's a lot I wish I could tell my younger self about what I missed because of what I didn't know. But I can't go back. I can however look forward and share all these things I wish I could tell my younger self with my own daughter. So here it is, my dear Tallulah Marie, a letter from your momma to you, may you learn from my mistakes, and find the blessing of true friends earlier than I did. 

Lesson 1: Have girl friends. Don't be the girl who doesn't like girls. There was a time in my life when, I'm ashamed to say, I thought I was too good for female friendships. I believed myself to be "above the drama" and more of a "guys girl". I prided myself on not having girl friends because I believed all girls eventually got catty and mean and I believed if I kept myself apart from other girls I could keep myself from being hurt by them or from acting like them. My darling daughter I can't tell you how much I missed out on by waiting so long to develop female friends. I didn't protect myself, I got hurt anyway because that's just life, and I probably would have experienced the hurt I feared if I'd pursued female friends, but I know now that it would have been worth wading through some of the catty girls to find the right girl friends. Don't hide yourself away from girls for fear of being hurt or because it's cooler to have guy friends or because whatever. Be brave, there will maybe be pain sometimes but there's no reward without that risk. You won't regret the friends you made but you will always regret the friends you missed. (Also I didn't mean to make that rhyme so don't mock your poor mother.)

Lesson 2: Be yourself. You're wonderful. You're curious and opinionated and adventurous and kind and loud and silly and any friend worth having will want to know the real you. Don't ever pretend to be something you're not for the sake of getting someone else to like you. When you are yourself all kinds of people will be drawn to you, people just like you and people wildly different. Being different from a friend is one of the best parts of having friends, you learn and grow so much from each other. And having a friend just like you is a precious gift, it means having someone who understands you in a specific and unique way. But to find these friendships you have to be yourself. Don't cheat others out of knowing you and don't cheat yourself out of being known. 

Lesson 3: Check your behavior. In an honest and critical way ask yourself this question: Would you want you as a friend? The kind of friend you are is the kind of friend you will have. Be loyal and kind and selfless, give more than you take, cheer your friends on, be happy for them when they are happy and be sad with them when they are sad. Be strong, I'm not telling you to be a doormat or be taken advantage of, but I am telling you to be a humble and servant hearted friend. 

Lesson 4: Apologize easily and forgive easily. Many friendships are trampled beneath prideful steps. Don't be too stubborn to forgive someone who's hurt you, or to stubborn to apologize when you've hurt them. You are many wonderful things sweet girl, but perfect isn't one of them. Seek grace when you've made a mistake and extend grace when your friend has. I have lost a few good friends because one or both of us made these mistakes. Don't let being right become more valuable than your friendships. Apologize when you need to (and even sometimes when you don't), and forgive every single time. 

Lesson 5: Have integrity and have standards. Give everyone a chance, allow everyone the opportunity to be a good friend, the right kind of friend. But never allow someone into your heart who is only there to cause destruction. I know I said don't operate from a fear of getting hurt and to forgive every single time, but here is the key to both those things: it's okay to kindly and respectfully release toxic people. Be friends with everyone, but use wisdom and discernment when giving out intimate access to your heart. Don't trust your heart to someone who tries to talk about other people with you (they'll talk about you with other people guaranteed, and while we're on the subject, don't you be that kind of friend either); don't trust your heart to someone who is manipulating you or wants something from you. The Bible tells us to run from the company of fools, and my darling daughter, obey that command. Jesus may have ministered to everyone but even he had an inner circle, a group that he allowed access to that not just everyone got. Jesus' qualifier for his inner circle should be your qualifier for your inner circle: a devotion to and desire to please Jesus himself.  

And finally, the lynchpin lesson, the thing I wish I had understood so much earlier than I did, Lesson 6: Any one of us can only have or be one of two kinds of friends - the kind of friend who leads people toward God, or the kind of friend who leads people away from God. The world wants you to believe the lie that you can have or be a neutral friend but the truth is there is no in between. This doesn't mean you badger or push people, it simply means you lead toward God in an active way. You speak when your fear tells you to be silent, you walk away when your desire to be included tells you to stay, you bring truth when you're surrounded by lies. I think we both know what kind of friend I want you to be and have, but in case you need it spelled out (you are my daughter), be someone who leads toward God, have friends who lead you toward God. The regret of missed opportunities or bad influences can be unbearable, especially when we didn't realize that's what they were at the time. 

I know how much it sucks to have a parent say "learn from my mistakes" but my prayer and hope is that in this instance, if only in this instance, you learn from my mistakes. I can't wait to watch you walk this journey and meet all the wonderful people who will impact you and those you will impact. You're wonderful Lulabug, don't ever forget that!  

Love, Mom

 

Just a few of the incredible friendships I've made since learning some of these lessons.  

Just a few of the incredible friendships I've made since learning some of these lessons.  

A Valentine Poem

oh the way you look 
at a man.
the kind of man
who brings sunflowers, 
too many to fit in a vase;
the kind of man
who picks out which
lipstick 
he'd like to kiss off you; 
the kind of man
who makes your coffee 
every morning 
(caramel colored and
and not quite sweet enough 
but it's the best part 
of every day); 
the kind of man 
who sleeps next to you
in your high school 
bedroom, 
chasing old demons 
to blaze new paths; 
the kind of man
with a baby 
on his hip, 
reading a bedtime story,
kissing scraped knees 
and fixing broken toys;
the kind of man 
with hard worked hands,
integrity and loyalty 
made flesh; 
the kind of man 
who has heard your 
worst words
and seen your
worst face; 
the kind of man 
that takes your hand
in the car
for no reason;
the kind of man 
who has fought 
with you 
and for you;
the kind of man
who has sat through 
sunrises
for the sake of 
sick babies
and pregnancy cravings;
the kind of man 
who calls you beautiful 
first 
thing
in the morning.
oh how you look at 
that kind of man.
you look at him 
like he is the last one
on earth;
the only one ever.

oh that man. 



The Problem With Your Problem With Christian Cleavage

{written 1.24.15 at 1:30am}

Oh. Man. It's past midnight, it's gonna be a long weekend, and I should be asleep. But there's a trending topic on twitter that is haunting me, just absolutely haunting me. 

#christiancleavage

A (male) Christian author and pastor wrote a blog post yesterday entitled "The Problem With Christian Cleavage". It said the same things we've all heard, keep things covered, I could get hot and bothered just looking at your knees so don't make it harder (no pun intended) (I don't think), men are visual creatures, women should avoid being a stumbling block to their very sensitive eyes. And it of course created the expected backlash. The post was title "The Problem With Christian Cleavage" and among other issues, directed it's entire argument at women and their need to cover up or be doomed to be a stumbling block, it blamed any and all skin showing on a lack of self-esteem and credits the pastor himself as "a man who greatly yearns for women to find their identity in Christ". Which is all well and good but sets up an et nature me vs. you paradigm off the bat. 
 

I was 20 years old and a youth leader in my church and still maneuvering my way through who I was as a person and as a Christian. And one mom, we'll call her Mrs. Mean, on more than one occasion referred to me as a hooker. In fact the very first time I ever met her she walked up to me and took me by the hands and asked me if I knew how slutty my clothing was, if I knew I was stumbling block to her 13 year old son. "Iron sharpens iron," she said, "and you should have either worn a different shirt or stayed home." And then she did the most damaging thing she could do in that moment. She insisted on praying for me while gripping my hands so I couldn't walk away. She never even asked me my name. 

It felt like someone had set me on fire.

I will forever be thankful to the youth pastor I was serving under at the time who made it clear to her she was never to address her concerns to me again and only bring them to him. He took bullets for me that would probably have driven me out of the church. But I still caught the way she glared at me as she picked up her kids. 

Let me make one thing really clear here. As a 30 year old woman I look back at that girl and know that I was absolutely not doing anything wrong. My clothes weren't inappropriate, and if I was a stumbling block to her son it was probably because she had taught her son that any women's clothing that wasn't a turtle neck could be a stumbling block. Or because he was a teenage boy and I was, you know, female. But I didn't get that then. Can I tell you how I sobbed? Can I tell you how I tried to leave volunteering with the youth? Or how I threw out several pieces of perfectly modest (and cute!) clothes? Can I tell you how ashamed I was? How embarrassed? How I would freeze in panic whenever she came to pick up her kids? Her son, he's a young man now, married and has kids, happy, God-fearing, whatever damage I or anyone else did with our oh so dangerous lady-bits seems to have been short term. In other words he became a grown man and is fine. It took me ten years to even begin to find healing from the harm she inflicted on me. We recently saw each other at a wedding and I felt all those same feelings, I felt a physical, visceral reaction to her. I felt panicked and shamed and less than.

Let's forget the debate over whether men are visual or whether women need to cover up or men need to take responsibility. Let's talk, instead, about who's job it is to convict someone of how they dress, or anything else. Ready? Not yours ever. It is the Holy Spirit's job. And if you try to do his job you will always ALWAYS fail. You will ALWAYS do more harm than good. The Holy Spirit does not shame and demean, he is not in the business of making people feel small and unloved. Conviction is pinpoint accurate, shame is always a lie. Conviction is about love, it's rooted in love, and it cannot happen unless love is the foundation of the relationship. I know the Spirit loves me, so when I feel the push towards conviction, it might hurt, but I know it's root. When bloggers and pastors and people who KNOW ALL THE THINGS post words for the entire world to see and feel, when they aim with their eyes closed and hope a target, any target, gets hit, love is not even remotely part of the equation. 

I do believe that the Holy Spirit can use people, pastors, bloggers, authors, anyone really, to speak words that create conviction in someone. But when I've seen that done it almost always came with a heart full of love and compassion and very rarely with a me vs. you sound. I once heard it preached that the amount of time you spend in prayer for someone is directly proportionate to your right to speak into their life. This advice is not just for us one on one. This is perfect advice for anyone trying speak into the lives of anyone. It's for pastors, speakers, authors, bloggers, tweeters, facebookers and anything I forgot. Your right to speak into the lives of anyone is directly proportional to the amount of time you spend praying for those people, whether it's your church, your audience or your followers, or your neighbor, or friends. 


Gabe's Poem

i want you like this 
ALWAYS. 
soft and sun scented, 
slightly golden
and still smelling like 
lake water
and a hard days 
play. 
in a worn cotton shirt,
breezy hair 
and heart.
i want you like this
ALWAYS.
brave
and undaunted 
and loud 
and full 
of life and laughter 
i want you like this 
ALWAYS. 
curled in my arms 
just before bed
telling me 
I'm your favorite girl

{photo credit Nicholas Hanson of www.nicholashansonphoto.com}

Darling

This is from about a week ago:

We didn't want this baby. We have an 11 month old and we weren't ready for another one. I'm terrible at taking my pill and realized I was pregnant right away. We freaked out for a good 2 days. Then we took some deep breaths, thanked God we hadn't thrown away the infant car seat, and started making plans. Hubs had been referring to this pregnancy as a "she" from the go, I called her Clementine and teased him that's what I would name her. We talked about moving, made plans to visit his family before the new baby was born (cross country travel with two kids under 2, no thanks), and we bought our son a "big brother" tshirt. At 6 weeks, after a visit to the park with my son, I started to feel sick, then cramping, and after two hours of telling my husband that we would go to the doctor in a little while, my shoulder started to hurt. With Gabe I got the "watch for shoulder pain" warning with every doctors visit. We got to the ER at 5:30, I got into surgery at 8:30, out at 11, and admitted to the hospital at midnight.
It's been a week and a few days.
I feel fine. I feel guilty for feeling fine. I'm relieved we're not going to have 2 kids under 2, or have to move. I feel like that relief is why my body did this. I feel like I'm handling things well. I started crying in the party store yesterday, while shopping for supplies for Gabe's birthday, I came across a display of princess birthday products. A friend let me hold her 3 week old baby today and I honestly thought I was going to pass out, but couldn't stop smiling. This baby was barely a part of our lives. We weren't desperate for a child or even trying. But it's still sad. Although, I'm young, I have every chance of having another healthy pregnancy and baby, and this is my only lost pregnancy, so I am more fortunate than a lot of the women. But I wanted my son to wear his "big brother" shirt. But I wasn't ready for another baby. But I have dreams of a little girl with curls like mine and my husbands smile. But we're just now regaining some freedom after having our first. But but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but
I don't really have a question. I don't know why I'm posting. Other than that I hate to talk it out to people because I am intensely private about my emotions, and don't like to cry in front of other people because I don't like feel out of control in front of people. And so sitting here behind my computer screen, sobbing, I can cry, but be in control. I can vent without feeling like the people in my every day life will look at me with that really well meaning but incredibly irritating "aw, you poor thing" look. Because as well meaning as it is, that look doesn't help. I have to move on, I have to keep my life going, and I can't do that if every time I turn around someone is offering me the opportunity to fall apart.

The end.