note to self

It's okay to tell your hairstylist that you don't want bangs. 

Don’t feel bad. Don’t question her opinion of your bang-less existence. Don’t worry if the world finds you hip enough. The truth is: you’re not that hip. Plus you hate bangs. Hate them.

You try to make them work but every single time you’ve ever had them, you regret it. You pull at them to grow and scream in frustration when even six bobbypins won’t do the trick. You cry and beg God to make your bangs grow back faster. You look at Pinterest for hours, trying to find a solution.

You’re not really a “bangs” kind of girl. You’re more of a “throw your hair up in a ponytail and run” kind of girl. A “jump into the ocean and not worry about wet hair sticking to your forehead” kind of girl. A “get this mess out of my face, I don’t have time for this” kind of girl.

And that’s okay. It’s okay to let your hair be about you and you alone. To let yourself be who you want to be; to not be swayed by any external voices.

It will feel weird--assertive and maybe even harsh--to claim exactly what it is that you want. You might feel guilty and mean, demanding and boring, maybe even unfeminine. But you don’t want bangs, damnit, and that’s okay.

It’s okay to say “no” to the things you don’t want and “yes” to the things you do. 

There is freedom in it and you are ready to be free. 

the art of loving

My New Best Friend (also known as the woman who is professionally trained and paid to listen and sort through my emotional junk every Wednesday evening) has assigned me some homework in the form of literature. It's my favorite type: part head, part heart. She's limiting me to one chapter a week (the worst kind of torture), but so far, my response to this book is: yes. My New Best Friend assigned it for a reason and I intend to get as much out of it as is physically possible for me in this time. I intend to learn, to grow and to share. Maybe you can glean some wisdom, too.

From The Art of Loving, by Erich Fromm:

"Love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering.

What are the necessary steps in learning any art?

The process of learning an art can be divided conveniently into two parts: one, the mastery of the theory; the other, the mastery of the practice. If I want to learn the art of medicine, I must first know the facts about the human body, and about various diseases. When I have all this theoretical knowledge, I am by no means competent in the art of medicine. I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice, until eventually the results of my theoretical knowledge and the results of my practice are blended into one-my intuition, the essence of the mastery of any art. But aside from learning the theory and practice, there is a third factor necessary to becoming a master in any art--the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern; there must be nothing else in the world more important than the art. This holds true for music, for medicine, for carpentry--and for love. And maybe, here lies the answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art, in spite of their obvious failures: in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power--almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving."

whole.

"In this life, traces of [separation from God] are still with us. We are inseparably linked to our unredeemed flesh. Our bodies are mortal. Not just the bones and muscles, glands and senses, but mind and emotion as well. That vast, unbelievably intricate, electronic, chemical complex which is culturally, genetically, diabolically (at times), geographically, and pathologically-influenced mortality."                                          --James Bryan Smith//The Good and Beautiful God

via

Probably the most important lesson that I continue to learn with anxiety is that there is a distinction between wholeness and healing. It is subtle, yes, but hugely important: the difference between an attitude of thanksgiving versus resentment, understanding versus confusion, freedom versus shame. I willed healing for my anxiety by the mantra: "God is a healer, thus God wants me healed." I started with scripture about God's ability to heal things crazy enough as demon possession and blindness and even raising life from the dead, then added my own deductions about God's vision of restoration and his love for me personally only to find myself with a sense of entitlement for God's healing and a shame that it had not yet happened. Then, the tension of evaluating what healing really means for us now.

My first understanding of healing was created in utero. Before I was even born, I was the granddaughter-great granddaughter-niece-cousin-second cousin-third cousin of a doctor. A very intelligent man or woman trained to fix our broken bodies. Any sickness, an antibiotic. Anything broken, reset. We never stayed sick because we always had the resources, the intelligence and the sense of self-worth to fix our broken selves. With my anxiety, resources, intelligence and self-worth were called into question--God was the only solution.

Is it just me or do we have a tendency to approach God as if He is the man in a white coat with prescription pad waiting? Whatever works, I'll take it. 14 days, twice a day until--ta da!--you're healed, good as new. When my anxiety hit, my first response was to pray to this highly trained doctor-God. Pray that God would take it away, pray that God would heal my mind and adjust my neural pathways, giving me new chemicals and new brain cells. I was asking and hoping for a miracle. At times, it was so severe that I would sleep with my bible under my pillow, to rest my head on scripture, hoping that healing would come through osmosis. It was a theologically incorrect act of desperation, as many of us will take when living in pain, shame or isolation due to illness.

The theology of healing is complex, but when we see God as only the keeper of the means for physical healing, we miss a beautiful opportunity to expand our definition of "healer" and see a bigger picture for our lives. 

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."     -Psalms 147:3

Anybody who has dealt with any kind of chronic illness--physical or mental--longs to know God as a healer. Tangible healing. But sometimes, God chooses not to use your body for a miracle. Sometimes, you are not the woman whose bleeding is stopped or the man whose sight is restored. Sometimes, your body continues its natural progression toward death. When our desired definition of healing doesn't come, we have to ask--"What does healing mean?" It just might be a question of semantics for our scientific world.

Enter: wholeness versus healing.

Heal: the act or process of becoming well; the state of your physical body

Whole: unbroken, not damaged; an indicator of your identity in Christ

Biblically speaking, healing always carries with it the idea of "wholeness." That is to say, wholeness is a crucial part of healing. When Jesus heals, He always restores. With every healing act, we are given a tangible sign of eternity. He reverses the pull of death for just a moment and we see fullness of life restored. Souls feel their worth and lives are brought back into relationship, brought out of isolation.

• The Woman with the Flow of Blood (Mark 5)
• Blind Man Receives His Sight (Mark 10)
• A Woman Has Seven Demons Cast Out (Mark 16)

via

But, healing is not a crucial part of wholeness. Our bodies are in a state of decay--it's undeniable. We were never promised to live with these bones forever. And yet, one can be made whole even as bodies decay, even with a chemical imbalance or bodily malfunction. One can still be restored in the eyes of God and community without being physically healed. More often than not in our world, this is the case. Illness of any kind can leave us with a sense of being broken, ashamed, isolated--little thieves of abundant lives. But Jesus came for abundant life and wholeness is a byproduct of knowing Him. His life reverses the death in us. Wholeness from Him tells us who we are, binds up our broken hearts, removes shame and graces us with relationship with Him. 

That is the gift of wholeness that physical healing alone cannot give. I take great comfort in that as I recognize that anxiety may be a forever-ailment. To live out of my wholeness in the midst of anxiety, knowing that there will come a day when anxiety is put to rest, when my flesh is redeemed. Until then...

I am not healed, but I am whole.

[re]considering beauty

"The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It's the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows and the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years."

--Audrey Hepburn

I have nothing new to say about beauty, only what I've experienced. Nothing I say will be all that special and certainly many women have overcome far more than I. I don't have a story about learning to love myself despite missing limbs or an eating disorder that took hold of my life or any other heart-wrenching story about being at odds with the cultural values of beauty. I only have my experience and my belief that a conversation about beauty is a conversation worth having.

March, 2009: Very short hair

In January of 2009, I chopped off 13 inches of hair. It was an odd decision, considering that I was always told, "Long hair is pretty hair." I believed it too. But, in January of 2009, I was not quite myself. In January of 2009, I described myself frequently as a "ball of mess." In that ball was wrapped up joylessness, darkness, fears of failure and feelings of unworthiness and a complete inability to see God as Himself, or myself as the woman I was. I felt ugly, body and soul, and I hated the way I defined myself. IAll this coming from a girl who received compliments, whose parents lavished praise, who had good eyebrows and a body that was just the right size. My insecurities were normal and because of that, they were normalized. But I hated that I felt the need for hair--dead follicles--to make me feel beautiful. I cut it all off, wondering and hoping if a detachment from what the world said I should be would make me feel more like the me that I wanted to be. I felt empowered, holding years worth of growing and striving in my hands. I saw it as a distinguishing moment, a fresh start, as if I was cutting off all that was dead within me. 

With a set of scissors, I transformed from a cultural image of femininity to an undefined woman. There was struggle that came along with it. One moment, confident in all that I was without hair, the next, trying to convince the world that I was still what they wanted: beautiful, worthy, valuable, feminine, a woman. Particularly helpful were comments from the people in my life, openly showing their disapproval: "Don't you miss it?," "I just like long hair so much better," or, my personal favorite: "Just don't become a lesbian, okay?"

In those moments, I was sad. I was sad for the urge that we all feel to look like the girls in magazines; sad for the urge to adjust our own temple of expression to the idea of beauty that the world holds. I was sad that having short hair took "bravery," that we were all admitting to hiding behind pretty and long locks. I was sad for the ease with which I let statements like that make me feel ugly (or for feeling ugly independent of statements of disapproval), for wondering if a man would ever pay attention to me (especially on a college campus), sad that sexuality was wrapped up in "beauty," sad for feeling like something was missing that went beyond thirteen inches of hair.

But in that time, on days when I struggled with bobby-pins or my anxiety-induced weight fluctuation, when I compared myself to the "perfect" girl to my left in Calculus or when I cried because I looked like a boy, all that was dead within me was brought back to life. Probably not because I cut off my hair, but because I admitted defeat and gave up control. It was a fast of sorts: I gave up trying and striving, and my attention was lovingly refocused on more important things. During that time, I found myself belonging to community, being accepted for what my heart could bring, discovering that I enjoyed making art, learning to love, traveling to Jamaica, finding healing from anxiety, finally being honest with myself. During that time, I became who I wanted to be, even without hair. That fact alone made me feel more beautiful than any curls or extra inches ever could.

I say all of this to let you know that I understand the struggle to feel beautiful. I understand that the issue of beauty has more wrapped up inside of it: self-expression, acceptance, worthiness, security; at the same time, it brings us to striving, to wasted time in front of a mirror, time that could be spent doing anything else. I understand the tension and allure of being beautiful. Beauty is a gift from God, but perfectionism is not. Beauty is a gift from God, but He cares more about what you're doing to bring life to the world than what shirt you're wearing. Beauty is a gift from God, but He'd rather see you learn how to love than learn how to apply eye make-up perfectly. He'd rather you grow your wisdom and knowledge of Him than your hair and He has a greater purpose for your life than trying to meet an impossible standard of beauty. And even knowing this and finding relief in the truth of it, I still find myself saying, "I just want to look cute today and I don't think that God finds it wrong." I really, truly don't. The issue of beauty is complex. 

magik Beauty Store

Over three years, my hair has grown back. It's long and healthy and I can curl it whenever I want. I love that. Occasionally, I find myself looking to it for affirmation. There is a deeper concern, though, because not everybody struggles with the tension of beauty. Not everybody believes in a God who redefines it; they simply accept what the world says as ultimate truth. I work with young men and women who already have their own ideas of beauty, and it doesn't stop with thirteen year olds. Girls want the perfect eyebrow shape, dark hair and light eyes. [In very uncomfortable interactions, they tell me each day that they'd trade their dark and "boring" eyes for my light eyes. They don't know that I once, in a very awkward time in life, hated my eye color and wore blue contacts because blue eyes were "prettier."] Girls will let no emotion show on their faces because they don't want the laugh or worry lines, or they will spend an entire day at school with a mirror hidden in their purse, applying and reapplying mascara. And boys want the typical "hot girl," a look that no thirteen year old girl (or any-age girl) can ever achieve (nor should they feel forced to spend their time trying). These cultural ideals are passed along through generations so that we learn to strive after them, but we are forgetting to train our kids, or retrain ourselves, to care about what beauty truly is.

Maybe because we still don't know. 

We are forgetting to tell ourselves that an unforgiving heart is uglier than any set of bushy eyebrows.

We refuse to accept that hatred shows itself on a person's face and it is not a wonderful thing to behold.

That a mouth full of criticism is more unattractive than laugh lines or cellulite. 

That short hair, even a pixie cut, is more attractive than a mean spirit on any day of the week. 

That clothes, hair and makeup are accessories (fun ones at that!), but never the defining feature of a person.

No one tells us that unique self-expression is beautiful. Very few people grow up aware of the freedom  and beauty of being different, living to different standards.

We forget that by the standards of models or magazines, you could be completely perfect, but if you lack love, 

you are nothing. 

The mentor in me comes out to say this:

Many old, wise people have said "there is more to beauty than what meets the eye." It's true, and I want the world to believe it. So strive for beauty, look cute doing it, but please, I'm begging you, do it in the ways that matter. Don't lose sight of your value, your true identity, or the person that you want to be at the end of the day or the end of your life. The world is an ugly enough place on its own. 

Take care of the dead inside of you to find yourself as an embodiment of what is truly beautiful.

For further reading about beauty:

Good Women Project

The Resurgence: What is Beautiful?

Wonderfully Made

"Sometimes, people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are."

--Marcus Zuzak

mud + spit + oaks of righteousness

Have you seen the way that I journal? 

It's a bit nuts, I know, but it helps me to make sense of all the thoughts inside of my head. I'm hugely visual, and, when I have time, I pretend to be intellectual. (Okay, pretend might be the wrong word.) I love times with my Bible and all of the resources that I use to understand it more fully. To me, reading the Bible void of context, without knowing the people, the time, the place, seems frustratingly incomplete. For me to know the Lord more completely, I need to STUDY. Which means resource books laying everywhere, multiple colors of pens, dictionaries and blank paper. Occasionally, when I am disciplined enough to participate and open enough to receive, I get some strange and beautiful insight into my life that makes me know + love the Lord all the more. For now: 

1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." 6 Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud 7 and said to him,"Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.               [john 9:1-7, esv]

I can't separate this passage, with all of its rich meaning, from what I feel stirring in my own heart about family and restoration and freedom from my assumptions about the nature of God. This blind man could be any one of us, with physical ailments or emotional baggage, and the world asks (and us right along with them), "Whose fault is it?" We need someone to blame, something to make sense of why things are the way that they are. A perfect God would never allow causeless imperfection, so it must be our fault. The disciples thought this way initially. (More extreme, we think that imperfection=the non-existence of God, but I'm not getting into that.) Blindness because of sin. Cause and effect reality, void of grace. Credit it, maybe, to ancient philosophy: Sickness is a product of sin; he is blind because of something he did, or something his parents did. Sin stalks through the generation. It's what they believe. It's a sad and cruel way to understand God, inaccurate and damaging, giving evil far more power than it deserves. How shaming, how isolating, to think that He keeps record of our wrongs through the generations, forgetting that forgiveness is His constant gift + His mercies are new with the morning. We've heard the phrase though, and it's frightening:

generational sin

This line of thinking is not foreign to me, with anxiety and fear of the legacy of divorce in my family. But I love this passage, because in the competition between cruelty and compassion, the character of Christ is revealed. 

I love that this passage draws us back to the earth, back to the way the world works: "In this world, there will be suffering, but take heart, I have overcome the world." This is the way the world works: we were born into a world full of sickness and sin (separateness from God + the things of God). God loves us no less for it. We were born into families that conditioned our behavior, for good or for bad. God loves us no less for it. We were born unable to see, through no fault of our own (Jesus said so), and God loves us no less for it. Ultimately, His purposes win. His purpose: healing. Relational + physical. For this man, it was physical and immediate. Drawn back to the earth, almost to force us to reevaluate the goodness/badness of nature, that tendency of ours to blame creation. We come from the earth, fallen, and yet the Lord uses His creation to grow and heal us. He uses mud. 

Mud + Spit. It's gross, especially by our standards of modern medicine, but I can think of nothing more beautiful. (Yes, I think weird, unbeautiful things are beautiful.) The thing about spit is this: it's typically an insult, an image of revulsion or rejection, and yet Jesus uses it to heal, to pause and reverse the natural workings of the world. To bring a person out of isolation, to include this blind man in His kingdom. Mud + Spit. Nothing more natural, more "of the flesh," something so socially undesirable used by the Lord to heal, used to glorify and reveal His character. Brilliant, actually.

This passage makes it seem so simple: anointing and washing and complete, immediate healing. Yet I find, in my life, a struggle to "maintain" healing--constantly falling back into my areas of poor health. My issues are not birth defects, but learned behavior--you can call it generational and you'd be justified in doing so. Generational legacies of divorce, of selfishness, of Jesus-less-ness. Things many families deal with. It is learned behavior, engrained deeply and passed down in years of parenting. God loves me no less but He calls me to healing, a process of unlearning and creating new legacies and it is a struggle to do so. You'd be crazy to go back to the habit of blindlessness once the world of sight had been opened to you. But what about the comfort of self-service? The pattern of avoidance? The habit of abandonment when things get hard? And many, many others. Those are difficult habits to break. Entirely impossible to do it along, despite the allure of self-help book and therapy and the practice of yoga (all good things, but an incomplete form of healing). You'd have to step into an entirely new identity, an entirely new family.

Source: alisonyinblog.com

One of the many things that I love about the Lord is His intentionality. Here, I would have been stuck. It's the longing of my soul for as long as I can remember: Oaks of Righteousness and generational restoration. It's heavy on my mind these days. I think about the ways that I have been gathered into the families around me, welcomed and wrapped up with friends that are second family, and how I feel the tension of that adoption: Will it last? Is it strong enough? Will it define me? Is it only blood that binds us? I think about the ways that my life, a marriage, a welcoming heart could be a mode of this restoration.


It's as if Jesus knew this longing for family and understood the tension of adoption when he says, "You are heirs with Christ in salvation." And more: "You have been grafted in." Grafted in, married in to a family of righteousness, made so by a desire for Him.

In the midst of reflection and anaylsis, comparing and contrasting what I want vs. what I have (and I need to emphasize comparing: in many ways, my actual family is a dream come true). It is easy to hope for simply an earthly family. One that prays genuine prayers before meals, one that seeks transformation by Jesus, one growing in the fruits of the Spirit. It's natural to find that and cling to it for the life that it gives, to want to be grafted into that family, already in existence. To want them at my wedding, standing next to me in support, to be in the waiting room when I give birth and to act as family until the very end; to want spiritual parents and wise + righteous counsel. It's easy to forget that they have been grafted, too. I have not been grafted into them (though they may be the tangible representation of what Christ has done), but we, separate branches, have been grafted into THE Oak of Righteousness, with THE head of the family. We come from the same broken world and God loves us no less for it. From Him, new branches shoot out--a new family and a new identity, that the weight of who God is would be revealed. 

a dream, a purpose

it's far too easy to pass through days unaware of the potential of 24 hours
or critical of all the things left unachieved:
the i shoulds and i coulds, the giant mountains ahead of us
i should've solved world hunger today
or
i could've built a school to transform a nation today


we are rarely satisfied with what we've done
very rarely (okay, never) do we save the world
but we have big dreams of big change
so we wonder if anything less, even the seeds of change, are enough


we are Christ's image bearers with His breath in our lungs and His resurrection in our bodies
we have endless potential (the developer in me is celebrating!)
and yet, we are not asked to save the world
we are simply asked to live intentionally in that identity: to bear His image
to make His image our purpose
even in the face of coulds and shoulds and lists of things to accomplish
our best efforts--living out His truth in our hearts, our intellect, our strengths and our passions--should be our dream and our purpose



[via]

so here it is, my purpose, uniquely mine
a draft, of course, scribbled into the pages of my journal
it's the woman i want to be, the love that i want to show,
the things that i want my life to be about
it's my dream for myself
a reminder that if i can live each day to this end,
if i can accomplish this,
no more, no less
then i should be satisfied, knowing that greater things will follow

to empty myself in surrender to God's love; to reflect God's love and in it find my strength; to care for people outside of myself; to affirm God's truths over the people around me (and to know His truths for myself); to dream with and for others; to see God's purposes and movement in my own life; to love with God's love; to watch and expect Him to transform people and things; to give generously of every resource; to let myself experience love in transformational ways; to live in the challenge of the gospel; to laugh; to know the fullness of God; to always learn from the lives and stories of others; to be transformed by Jesus

...may it be so*

*Did you know that amen translates to "may it be so?" i love that. it's not just a closing statement, but a genuine request, too. may this dream, this purpose for my life, become a reality. it's my genuine plea.

what is your purpose?

why i write (how i pray)

i don't quite remember when i started to write for my soul. probably somewhere around the time that i started to seriously consider Jesus. sometime after my "dear diary" notes about my ultra-crush on justin jones. after my winnie the pooh phase. sometime before now. i have evidence of this stacked high in an old oak trunk in my bedroom in northern california. pages and pages are added with every visit home. by now, there must be thousands.

i could never quite figure out why i love to write. my introverted side uses it as a tool to process before my extroverted side explodes the words from my mouth. my input side likes to collect phrases and stories. my crazy-brain loves it for the focus and attention it requires. my heart loves it for the clarity it provides. more than those things, though, i write (and love to write) because it is the purest and most creative worship that i can bring.

i've never been great at traditional prayer, or at least my perception of it. i can't sit still long enough, i twiddle my fingers too much and, with nothing grounding me to my thoughts, they come and go within seconds. i thought that was the only way to pray.

enter: writing. writing is my creative and prayerful worship. from scribbled notes on unlined paper and doodled truths, to letters written on a vintage typewriter--i meet with YHWH on those pages. give me the chance to put pen to paper and suddenly, stillness of heart and mind, openness to the Lord. the pages of my journal are full of Divine-human interaction (isn't that at the heart of prayer??). you can read my heart's transformation from cover-to-cover. you can see praise and hope and longing and the ongoing process of change.

i write my dreams--the dreams placed intentionally in my heart by the Lord. i write my hopes. i write my struggles. i document the way that the Lord speaks into these things, changes them and uses them by showing me Himself. david danced before the Lord; that was prayer. he wrote psalms that we pray, even to this day. i write because of the Lord, with the Lord, for the Lord; that is my prayer. certainly not the only form, but the one i love most.

how do you love to pray?

"You are called into prayer either that you might collaborate with Him in bringing His will to pass, or that you might be able to get a larger vision of what He is like."

--John White//Daring to Draw Near

love, jamaica

let me start with this:

jamaica was great.

it was everything that i needed it to be: life-giving, joyful, relational, challenging, exhausting, beautiful, no less profound than trips one, two and three.

i have countless stories that i'd love to share, if you'd be willing to ask for them. they'll be accompanied by a billion photos, plenty of babbling and probably a few (happy/homesick) tears. i would tell you about our patchwork mural with my favorite kids in the entire world or early morning conversations on the veranda, slowly picking up phrases of patois, being welcomed into my Jamaican family. then i'd probably tell you about an unavoidable tension between the realities that i find myself in. i'd have to give you a brief history of jamaica and the lessons i've learned over the last two years. i'd probably direct you to previous blogs, one two and three. if you're interested in that, let's chat.

but for now, there are other things on my mind. less tangible experiences. instead: the slow beginnings of my transformation.

it never ceases to amaze me how quickly my heart jumps to love in jamaica. as if every fear never existed and the sting of goodbyes would be dulled. it's not--it never is. leaving always makes my heart ache, the kind of aching that lasts for days and weeks and comes up again months later. i miss it. i miss it because i love it, with the kind of love that my heart has never felt before.

contrary to the usual--i love in jamaica without fear, with abandon. i let the love come in.

(it's the kind of thing that would be much better explained in person, over food, while i blab my heart out. but i've noticed it in myself, had it affirmed in me, and know it to be true.

jamaica (place, people, experiences) has shown me that my heart is capable of deep and freeing love.)

so, my post-jamaica goal: carry that willingness and fearlessness with me across the caribbean sea and 2, 568 miles of land and into my right-here, right-now life. remember that perfect love drives out all fear. start all over again with my congolese refuge family and my biological family and my longford court family; with new friends and new career goals and new crushes and any other place that i can learn to love more freely. invest my heart freely, deeply and purposefully. here we go.

for those of you wanting more, pictures and stories will come soon(ish), promise promise :)

running toward love

it's a common misconception that i run from love.

understandably so: you may have heard the story about the last guy that i tried to date. with the "maybe don't text me as often"s and the "you can't tell me what you like about me cause then i'll fall for you"s and even the "just so you know, this probably won't work out"s, twice a week. i could've handled that with much more grace. you could've heard about awkward email guy or the man on the airplane. and you might have read the post about the guy who i stupidly walked away from, sans introduction or the soulmate that my roommate chased because i wasn't quite brave enough. i get it. my track record with dating (or attempting to date) is less than stellar. i'm working on it, promise.

but what a strange, strange thing that we equate dating alone with my capacity to love, my bravery, my ability to be open with my own heart. there is far more to love than being in a relationship. i haven't found my personal mr. dreamboat yet. to be perfectly honest, i'm not really looking. i'll stumble upon him when the time is right for stumbling.

the love that i give at this point in my twenty-two years is not reserved for one man in the bounds of a facebook relationship status or a series of semi-awkward coffee dates or eventually a ring on my finger, but i do not run from love. promise.

i've got love to give. for now, i'm stumbling upon all kinds of people in the world who need a little loving. myself included. open your eyes and you'll see them, too. if you stick with me long enough, you'll see me running toward them, with all the love i can possibly give. promise, promise.

i believe

i believe in broken things made beautiful

i believe in re-identification, re-interpretation, re-demption, re-surrection

i believe in second chances and shifting narratives

chords bound tightly and iron sharpening iron

i believe in slow progressions

i believe that death does not have the final say

that the final say belongs to life and love and peace and joy

yes, i believe

He who named me

i think often of the ways that a name can be spoken, how it can roll off lips with such sweetness, or (to steal from a branches song), it can be breathed like a love song. how a name can hold so much affection, how when you say my name, kara lee, i feel known. and that feels good.

my name always felt weird though, like it got stuck in your mouth and came out jumbled, harsh, too boxy. i was afraid that i would be jumbled, harsh, boxy too. i thought about it often--how i hated it because it didn't feel feminine or meaningful, how i was frustrated with every mispronunciation, how i planned to change it as soon as i turned eighteen.

i'm glad that i didn't.

because what a cool thing that we have names; names that we take for granted, names that identify us and place us in our families and in our context and anchor us to our humanity, names that make us unique and set us apart, names that make us distinct from our 5,999,999,999 neighbors

and isn't that exactly what we want?

to be called by name, defined, affirmed and find meaning

in our identity

in our relationships

in our faith

in our purpose

by Someone who knows exactly what we need

kara (kah-ra): beloved friend

"...if the gospel of Jesus is just some formula I obey in order to get taken off the naughty list and put on a nice list, then it doesn't meet the deep need of the human condition, it doesn't interact with the great desire of my soul, and it has nothing to do with the hidden (or rather, obvious) language we are all speaking. But if it is more, if it is a story about humanity falling away from the community that named it, and an attempt to bring humanity back to that community, and if it is more than a series of ideas, but rather speaks directly into this basic human need we are feeling, then the gospel of Jesus is the most relevant message in the history of mankind."

--Donald Miller//Searching For God Knows What

today

i am aware of just how human i am.

new soul

Something new is beginning. I can feel it in my soul. Something big, something unexpected, something so necessary for my life. I think you have to let God deal with your heart, dispense of the old, before He can bring you the new.

About six months ago, something began, and continues, in part, to this day. We all have our own trials....and this is my biggest, toughest, meanest trial thus far. It sank its sharp teeth into my skin and hasn't quite let go, leaving me bleeding, leaving me feeling messy. I did not foresee it--it hit me like a train, completely out of left field, altering everything I thought I knew about myself, about others, about life, about my God. The clarity of my human weakness was, and remains, evident. Questions, doubts, intense fears came to the surface, none of which I had the answer to.

And God reveals Himself through it, slowly, painfully dealing with the mess that is my life, that is our lives. It comes in waves; like so much of life, it ebbs and flows. Some days, I wake up, sure of the hope that I have in Jesus, feeling His deep love, aware that His mercies are new every morning, confident in His strength, and His promise for redemption and restoration, not just for me, for us all. Some days, though, to put it simply, suck. Some days, I feel off, I feel distant, I feel sure that this will bury me, that there is no light at the end of this tunnel, that my lantern is about to run out of oil. I know, for certain, that my strength, my desires, my intellect, are too weak to carry me through. And I lack patience.

I lack the strength or endurance to wait for God's timing, for His will to be revealed in this, for His glory to shine through my life. I lack the ability to see the bigger picture. I want it, yes, I believe in it, but I am tired. I am exhausted of it, completely drained. I want myself back. I need something new.

Do you ever just have a moment? A moment, maybe a song, maybe a few seconds where the chaos of life fades and you feel complete Peace, and you know, His Love is real, and it offers hope, and it is strong enough to pull us out of whatever grave we've dug for ourselves. It's a moment that reminds us that there is something more, something bigger, and it's coming for us.

I had one.

I was taking a shower, iPod playing my "worship playlist" in the background. I was about ready to get out, because technically I was done. Fresh and clean. But this song came on. Rescue is Coming, by David Crowder. I sat down in the shower and let the water hit my face, wash over me. I closed my eyes and listened to the words, just listening, needing to hear from God. Needing God to speak to my heart.

And there's nothing wrong with you
And nothing left to do
But believe something bigger
And there's nothing wrong with love
I know it's just enough to believe

Don't give up now
A break in the clouds
We will be found
Rescue is coming now

God is here. And when He comes, He brings renewal, and that's what I feel. A certain newness, which, unfortunately, doesn't mean that all my troubles are gone. But Our God is faithful, and Our God promises to make us new, to put a new song in our mouth, to give us a new spirit, to wash away the old, to restore us, to give us purpose and passion.

Ezekial 36:26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

What exactly this means for my life right now, I couldn't even try to guess...God continually blows my mind, I don't even want to try and guess what is going on in His heart, because I'm usually wrong. But I can feel it stirring deep within my soul. I can feel it bubbling up within me, ready to explode out of every pore. I can feel it deep inside me, itching to come out.

I just want to get up, take my anxious energy and run until I find it. I want to run, shedding every piece of my former self until I have nothing, and from there, I will find it, this thing, whatever it is, that God has prepared for me, that I have been waiting for, that I need. I want to run until I find the heart of God, until my heart is beating in perfect unison with His. Then, I will be new.

transparent

Can I be transparent with you? I just want you to know--I'm really good at faking it. I'm really good at pretending that I have it all together, that I am strong, that I have it all figured out. Even in the hard stuff, I was, or so I thought, strong enough to face it, strong enough to deal with it on my own. In my mind, weakness is not an option. I want Jesus to be Lord of my life, so long as I can still maintain control, as long as my strength is enough.

I think God laughs at my idea of strength. Or maybe He doesn't laugh--maybe He is so deeply saddened by it. Maybe He is so saddened that I think so often that I don't need Him, or that I don't deserve His strength, or that His strength isn't enough. I think He's even more sad when He tries and tries to make me understand the easy way, and I just don't get it. And then sometimes, you have to learn things the hard way. Sometimes your world crashes down around you; everything that you thought you'd figured out falls apart; everything that you thought you knew about yourself somehow just doesn't work anymore. And the only thing that works is Jesus, as if that is a surprise.

The only thing that works is Jesus.

Always. That is always true. Other things may work for a while, other things might hold up for a short period of time, but Jesus is eternal, and Jesus is a rock. The only thing that works is Jesus. Period.

2nd corinthians 12:9&10 "'my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. that is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. for when I am weak, then I am strong."

that is so freeing. things can be hard, and it's okay to say that. and it's okay to rejoice that Jesus is strong enough for our every need. for our EVERY need. He wants to be healer, provider, rescuer, redeemer, the God of our past, present, and future. He wants us to be free.