Hello, January

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let that grace now like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

-Robert Robinson, Hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

John 4: 28-29

January. Here we are again. There is a certain kind of freshness, a special spark about you. You brim with possibility and hope for change and renewal. A chance to make things new and different. I like you and the new things you bring, but you also can make things rough. Are the things you hold out even possible, even doable? 

After all, my Facebook and Pinterest feeds are full of reminders to take charge this year; make THIS be THE year; carpe diem all the things; get the body/job/life that I want in 3 easy steps; how to get rid of personal annoying habits and tendencies. Ah, January. You remind me of all the good and bad things about myself. You call me to my highest self, you remind me of good things to chase and ponder and hope for. But you also slyly point out all my shameful characteristics, my physical limitations. It’s rather unfair, actually, the way you raise my sights and slam the door shut all at the same time. The idealist in me (which takes up 83.732% of me) feels like Anne Shirley in January: “Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” The realist in me (which takes up the rest of me, and yet is louder than the idealist sometimes) feels the tug of habit and circumstance and fatigue and boredom and selfishness. 

There is so much I want from 2016; there is so much I want to give in 2016. I want to plunge in and experience the ups and downs and joys and sorrows. And yes, January, as you so neatly remind me once a year, I am my own worst obstacle. I give in to worry and fear and anxiety. I seek distraction in shows and the internet more often than is healthy. I make goals that probably aren't attainable or are too vague in nature. I make an art of people-pleasing. I start everything with the best of intentions, but usually seem to fall back to what’s easiest and established. Yet in spite of myself, I have seen some really positive and encouraging changes the past few years. It seems all transformation, all change is fluid. We take steps forward; we take steps back. We must have patience with ourselves and with each other—we are always in process, each on a journey towards who we want to be. 

Even though you spur me on to resolve and transform, you are also an anchor, a reminder to reflect. January, you will always hold beautiful and hard things for me. My miscarriage was exactly two years ago, and I hold in my heart not only that sad memory, but more so the hope that I have a child waiting for me in heaven. Ben and I have our wedding anniversary in January, and it’s such a celebration to delight over, and think about all the good and wonderful days and years and memories we have, and looking ahead to more years together. There are birthdays to remember this month, people I love and can’t wait to celebrate.

When I think about the next 12 months and on what to focus, I want it to be something that I can hold fast to, something that won’t change with circumstances or schedules or plans. There will be failures and successes, jumpstarts and setbacks. I read John 4 earlier this winter, and was struck by how Jesus said the Father is looking for worshipers, who will worship Him in spirit and truth. These words are ancient and beautiful and full of mystery, and I keep coming back to them. Jesus transformed the very nature of following after God. It’s not on a certain mountain or town (as Jesus says to the Samarian woman) or in a specific building or through the Laws of the Old Testament or the laws and rules I set up myself or what others have set up. 

In days of pain and fatigue from my fibromyalgia and endometriosis, I have realized that yes, I can be a worshiper in spite of my circumstances. I can seek Him in spirit and truth. I can pray that God will realign my heart, my mind through Scripture, through song, through nature, through relationships. I can still adore the Redeemer and Creator, still pray through my pain and fears knowing that He is completely for me, for this world. In seeking to be a worshiper, I seek to be a kind of mirror—treasuring Jesus by reflecting His truth and grace in prayer and obedience; mirroring oh so dimly to those around me His love and life. 

This is what I want 2016 to be about. This is what I want to be about. This is what I want to set in motion, January. Seeking to reflect God’s good story, God’s good work in me into the world. I think being a worshiper also means accepting and seeking to understand His unfailing love for me, and to hold out that hope for others. He is the One who does the work in us and for us, in love and faith. This mystery is what holds our faith together, and His love is what will set all things right, is what will truly transform. His love in our lives is what will make all years and all moments shine and sparkle. 

A Prayer

Shine Your light so all can see it 

Lifted up, 'cause the whole world needs it 

Love has come, what joy to hear it 

He has overcome, He has overcome

-SMS (Shine), the David Crowder Band

but these are written that so that you may believe 

that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, 

and that by believing you may have life in his name. 

John 20:31

Jesus, in this time of fear and unrest in our world, brought on by hate and zeal and belief in all the wrong places and things, may you be King. May you guide our responses and our prayers and our actions and behaviors. Be our Teacher, our Comforter. Use us to bring peace, as you brought peace. Strengthen us to mourn with those who mourn. Blot out our fears and our worries and our anxieties.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

Jesus, in your life and your death and your resurrection, you teach us how to live.

You are King of life, and of death. 

You are King of our weeping, and of our rejoicing. 

You are King of our fears, and of our peace. 

You are King of our doubts, and of our belief. 

You are King when we are locked in inactivity, and when we are out in the world in your name. 

We see your loving response to us when we are overcome, in the book of John, chapter 20. We see it in the story of Mary Magdalene, who was inconsolable after your crucifixion. She found your tomb empty, and raced to tell your disciples who came to see for themselves. 

After they examined your vacant grave, and left, scratching their heads, Mary did not have the strength to leave and move on. She leaned on your tomb, and wept. In her grief, you chose to bless her—the first to see you in your resurrection. The angels asked her, “Why are you weeping?” Mary’s only thought was to be with you, even if just your empty bodily shell, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When you then appeared to her, her grief was still too much for her to see you fully, and you, in all your gentleness and grace, repeated the angels’ question. Deep in grief, she still did not recognize you, until you said her name. Until you said her name, “Mary.” Then, only then, did she see you, and her grief melted away like frost meeting the morning sun. Only when you know us and name us, can our grief and our weeping cease in the sheer surprising joy of your presence. Only when you meet us where we are can we be whole. Only when we embrace you as King of our grief, can we know rejoicing and fulness and abundant life. You do not erase our grief, but you sustain us in the midst of it with your very self. Mary’s grief was real, just as your death was real. The separation between yourself and us was real. Your resurrection brought you back to us, and you choose to bless us, just as you blessed Mary outside your empty tomb. Say to us our names, and capture our hearts, blowing out our grief like a candle. 

Before the disciples had seen you, before they were bolstered and strengthened by your renewed presence, they hid. They hid behind locked doors, no match for the strength of Rome or the powerful religious leaders, and certainly no match for you. When you appeared to them, they were full of fear, confusion, and doubt. Instead of reprimanding them for their lack of faith, their lack of decisive action, you blessed them, and you spoke peace to them. You showed them your pierced hands, your lacerated feet. You built them back up, and you confirmed their place with you, with the Father. You met each of them in their brokenness, in their terrified hearts, just as you meet each of us even today. Even though we too hide behind our struggles and doubts and fears, they are also no match for you. You bind up our wounds, our pains, because your love for us outweighs even death itself. As you sent the disciples out to spread your love and soothe the brokenhearted, so you send us now, today. 

In all our grief, our fears, our doubts, you come to us through the locked doors of our hearts and our minds, and you stand among us, and you both speak and breathe peace into our fearful places. You know our individual struggles, and you meet us in them. Meet us now, and use us to meet the world in all its fear and terror, and breathe your peace to us once again. 

Goodbye, Daisy

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Daisy, you punk. You have been our family cat for 18 years, and you stole my heart immediately when my parents placed you in my hands, a tiny creamsicle of fluff. With your intense adorableness, your Queen of Everything attitude (which you lived out every day of your life), your whole-hearted play and mischief, you lodged yourself a place in all of our hearts. You are a fixture, an institution.

How can you get sick and old? You still judge us all silently from your corner, from the couch where you take up more than your fair share, you still purr the loudest when we pet you just behind your ears where you like it. You still yowl for tuna and follow my dad around till he gives it you. You show my mom your keen displeasure when she has to get up from the couch or if she dare use her laptop in your presence. You allow my brothers and me to pick you up and cuddle you right after you got settled down for a nap. And you are just as cute as you were 18 years ago, just a little slower and now you need more naps. You stopped being able to climb your ladder in the back porch a few years ago, too many steps. You had to find new spots to look out the window at your domain. Now you like more people than just our family; you actually agree to being petted by others. You have mellowed out a lot, Daisy. You used to turn your back or simply stalk off in extreme displeasure when we had company. I have lovingly called you my Snot Cat, because you are so, well, snotty and stuck-up. And yet so perfect. 

Daisy, I don’t know what we are going to do without you. You taught me how to love and care for something smaller and more helpless than myself. You showed me affection when I needed it the most; on sad or stressful days, you would find me and curl up with me and purr away. I even had to learn a little about putting another’s needs before my own—getting up in the middle of the night to let you in more times than I can count. I’m sure you appreciated every single time I lost sleep for you. You showed me what true leisure is—it’s in play and delight and living in the moment and napping in the sun. Enriching every part of life, knowing I could come home after work or school, or now that I’m an adult of sorts, I can come over and visit, and find you and tease you or feed you or pet you while you napped. If your Highness permitted, of course. 

And now we have to say goodbye to you, you adorable jerk of a cat. I’m so mad at you, but I’m so thankful for you, too. You are definitely taking part of my heart with you, you punk cat. I mean, I named my first email address and Xanga account after you, and here you go getting old on me. None of us know what we will do without you. Goodbye, best kitty-princess-face of all time. You have been loved and adored every moment of your good, long life, and I know you loved us all too. 

Downcast

Every inch of you is perfect, from the bottom to the top.
-Meghan Trainor, All About that Bass

[…] My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you […] deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.

-Psalm 42: 6-7


I wore my new leopard-print shoes today, for the second day in a row.

It was highly necessary.

I had a doctor’s appointment at 7:30...in the AM. The AM, I tell you. The morning. After a sketchy-at-best night’s sleep, tossing and turning and listening to the trains running along Bellingham Bay all night long, I stumbled out of bed at a very ungodly hour and put my best face forward. And my favorite new shoes. Facing one’s lady doctor that early is no small endeavor, and you gotta be prepared. Knowing that morning is not my best time of day-ha!-I wrote down all my questions, recent symptoms, and advice from the internet on how to get your doctor to listen to you. Be specific. Be descriptive. When does it hurt? What makes it feel better? I found myself having to be more than usually reflective on my chronic pelvic pain. Seeing my monthly woes listed out in plain black and white made me feel even more desperate to have some answers.

I’m glad I had my new shoes on. Leopard-printed courage. The news is not conclusive, but it’s still not the best news I’ve ever received. High levels of hormones due to my increasing age (whaaaaaaaaaaa?) and/or endometriosis.

ENDOMETROSIS???

Another chronic pain condition? On top of my fibromyalgia? Areyouserious.

I admit I’ve had my suspicions for some time, but to hear it as a real possibility from my lady doctor makes it kinda SCARY and REAL. After I woke up a little more after my appointment, the reality sunk in a little more and I had to hold back tears more than once today.

It’s discouraging, you know? You try, and you try, and you try. You pray. Your husband is wonderful and takes such care of you. Your friends and family gather and love on you. You fight through pain and exhaustion until you can’t. You take your supplements, drink your filtered water, heave yourself on the exercise bike, and take many naps. And yet, the body fails. And yet, courage fails. And yet, there are still no easy answers, easy solutions. And yet, there are still many struggles ahead.

So I find myself downcast today, this first day of Fall, this day of imperative cute shoes, this day of glorious, delicious rain. I find myself utterly incapable of the task ahead of me-living life in this new realization of more chronic suckiness. I find myself without bravery or guts today when it comes to facing my pain. All day long, in the midst of foggy shock and disappointment, I find myself clinging to God, to His promises. Remembering that all can be well with my soul, because He is with me. I find myself having to grit my teeth, and choose that His grace is truly and really sufficient in my great weakness. That His light can shine through this very broken jar of clay. That because I have hope in Christ, I am actually very bold. 

I am moving through life right now in one of the great and terrifying paradox of Christianity-when we are weak, then we are strong. Hope is shining through in leopard print flats, faith and grace, and the love of others, but for today, it’s ok to be a little bit downcast.

Full of the Ordinary

All my life
Been shaking
Wanting something
Holding everything I have like it was broken
Gimme something good
-Ryan Adams, Gimme Something Good

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
-James 1:17


Well, just doing life these days.

Nothing too crazy, too out-of-the-ordinary, too extravagant.

Actually, we have gone to see two movies in the last two weeks, speaking of summer blockbuster extravagance. And we will see another in a couple weeks. Because…this. But other than that, it has been neither wild or crazy.

We have The Work and The Weekend-dividing our time into rest and livelihoods. We have appointments, meals, hang-out times, and game nights. There’s the shopping, the cleaning, the laundry, the dishes, the recycling. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all. Figuring the fibro out is a daily thing-how to rest, and how to push through; how to breathe through it all-the pain and the exhaustion, but sometimes just the plain unfairness of it all. There’s the texts, the emails, the messages that make the day so much better.

In the past few weeks, I've tried not to see the looming mountain that is August. I've tried to ignore it, block it. Focus on the present and all that. But here we are. I've felt more grief about my miscarriage in the past few weeks, knowing that August and my would-be due date has been steadily approaching. I stopped counting the weeks I “should” be a long time ago, but now it’s mind-boggling and mind-numbing to think that I would be quickly approaching 40 weeks. The start of our baby adventure, the start of a new, terrifying, and completely wonderful season. Names could have been chosen, a nursery all set up by now. Ah well. Grief is thankfully smaller now, not as all-encompassing. But there is a hole in my heart that will never fully close, never completely heal. 

So grief is a part of life now. And so it should be-for to ignore this pain, this season would be heartless. I must give my grief space and room and air-even though it does not require as much now. I’m faced with the reality this month all over again, and I must look it in the eyes. I will hold this month close-cherish my first child with remembering, with celebrating, with writing. I will give thanks for his or her life, and the joy that his or her existence brought.

Even though this month is full of the ordinary, the normal, not full of the anticipation we hoped for, it is still good. There is still joy to be found. This life is a gift. The pain, the aches, the uncertainties, the smallness and the grandeur of life-it is all gift. All grace. The grief of miscarriage, the grief of chronic pain-it is all pointing me back to the Gospel, to the Creator, to the Giver of life. I find myself needing to be held-held by a heavenly Father from whom all good things flow, and from whom all comfort for all sorrow comes. He is the One to whom I bring all my broken things, and while He does not fix them all, He is sad with me. There is also the promise of redemption, of hope, for transformation for all things. The Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans that creation itself longs for transformation, for healing. I will cling to the promises, the hope, the love and joy of Jesus this month, this season, and in this ordinary and splendid life.

Turning 30

There’s a hole in my soul
I can’t fill it/I can’t fill it
There’s a hole in my soul
Can you fill it?/Can you fill it?
-Flaws, Bastille

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened
And I will give you rest for your souls.
-Jesus, Matthew 11:28


Well, I survived my 30th birthday. I didn’t know if it was possible. I’d been gearing up for a panic-pity party-which I attended, of course. Leaving a whole decade behind is pretty scary, and of course, it took me by surprise. The pressure to accomplish, to decide, to perform, to have it all-to graduate, get a great job, travel, marry, have children, get an exercise routine down, decorate perfectly, have great taste, figure out eyeliner-is huge. I think I thought I’m supposed to be Elizabeth Elliot meets Martha Stewart meets a Victoria‘s Secret model. So by 30, I really thought, silly me, I’d have it ALL FIGURED OUT. Smirk.

All disillusionment aside, though, when I think about my 20s, I can’t help but grin. It was good! I lived in Texas TWICE and had many crazy adventures (boozy snow cone shop, anyone? Only two Starbucks?). I’ve been a writing tutor, Christian bookstore clerk, camp counselor, staff director, copy writer, receptionist. I graduated with an English Lit degree, traveled to Italy and Norway. I had a great group of friends called The Sunday Night Club, all of whom got me through college. I believe that reading Agatha Christie or Mary Stewart is a wonderful brain refresher.  I can make foam for a latte. I can also make alfredo sauce out of cashews. I learned how to drive a stick shift and how to live alone. I read a lot of books, watched a lot of British movies and tv, went on a lot of road trips. I’ve spent entire paychecks on coffee.  I got to be a bridesmaid for some dear friends. I also figured out I loved running. I have opinions on Gothic literature and think Jane Eyre to be the greatest heroine in English literature. I learned that probiotics are so necessary for taking antibiotics. Being without a hot water bottle was unthinkable. The doughnut people knew me by name and doughnut. I discovered I liked scary movies more than chick flicks. I’ve set goals to read all the books I didn’t get to in college. I get mad when I have too many weekend plans. I’ve figured out I’ll never be a morning person. I met my best friends, and married my best friend in my 20s. I’ve gotten to know my family all over again through the years, if that makes sense. There were some sad things, too. I lost my apartment to black mold and lost all my books. I was diagnosed with food allergies and fibromyalgia. I had a miscarriage. I’ve been through counseling, because being a human is hard. There has been relational change, job change, living situation change, and spiritual change.

My thoughts on this next decade? The word that keeps coming to mind is embrace. Embracing weaknesses, embracing strengths. Embracing work times, rest times. Embracing and making the most of my time with friends, family, and even introvert time. I am going to embrace and remember the things that I used to think I didn’t  have time or energy for anymore, like reading and party planning and baking and planning trips and finding the worst and scariest B-movies on Netflix. I’ll be embracing the fact that my house, hair, habits, hobbies don’t need to be perfect. I’ll be embracing the fact that it’s ok to be tired from working, tired from having a chronic illness, tired from being alive. I’ll be embracing grace. Grace from my beautiful friends and family and co-workers. Grace from God, who truly blesses me with all I need, even though I am always inadequate. Embracing this life, this new decade with all its troubles and joys, sorrows and mirth.

                                                Getting proposed to on top of a mountain.

Searching for The Dress. 

Posing for Cinnamon Roll French Toast with my buddy, Jessi. 

Couch shopping for my first apartment at Ikea with Sarah. 

My solo vacation to the beach.

Catching rays at the Vatican.

Some of my favorite girls in the world. 

Me and the Madre on top of the world in Norway. 

Mr. and Mrs. at last. 

Tulip Day!

The family at my graduation party from Western. 

My favorite ladies.