To the Ends of the Earth

Well friends, I have some exciting news: I'm going to Cambodia! And Norway! And somewhere else!

Confused? Let me explain. 

Phnom Penh

I heard about an organization called Hard Places a few months ago, after my friend Carrie traveled to Cambodia to look for a place to live (she's moving there at the end of this month.) It's a Christian organization that works to combat child trafficking in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. They work to rehabilitate rescued children, prevent more children from being trafficked, as well as alongside government officials to try and persecute the pimps that sell children. 

Carrie encouraged me to apply for an internship for the summer, and after I prayed about it for a long time, I had peace about pursuing that. I knew that God was calling me to go, to love in a way I have never loved before, and to give of myself as only God can equip me to do. And I am so excited to tell you that I have been accepted as an intern and will be working alongside Hard Places for 3 months this summer! 

After that, I'll be home in Saint Louis for a few weeks before I head off to Northern Norway for YWAM DTS! (Youth with a Mission, Discipleship Training School.) YWAM is a world-wide organization that exists for one simple purpose: to know God and make him known. I will be spending 6 months at the base in Northern Norway, learning about God's heart for the world, as well as getting my fill of adventures in skiing and backpacking with my classmates. After those 6 months of school in Norway, my classmates and I will do outreach somewhere else in the world. In the past they have gone to Greenland and Nepal, but we won't know where we are going exactly until the DTS begins. 

Youth with a Mission

I am so excited. And so blessed. And a little bit floored by what God is doing in my life. And by a little I mean a lot. 

There are quite a few road blocks that stand between my puny little self and the crazy journey God is leading me on. My heart is so sure that I am called to do these things that I get excited when I see new road blocks appear... New things that say, by all logic, I won't be able to go. It makes me laugh. Because every time one appears, God knocks it down. And I smile, because he's my God, and he is so good. 

One, for example, was the fact that I needed to get another job for the Spring. My school loans will kick in while I'm in Norway, and I need enough money in my account to make the payments while I'm gone. It's not an option. No second job, no Cambodia or Norway. So, I dropped to my knees and told God what I needed to make this happen and asked him to provide. I applied to a few places on Craigslist, and then went to bed. Early the next morning, I get an email from a woman at the YMCA asking if I can come in for an interview that day! 

This is the building where I and 17 other students will have class,
study, sleep, share meals, and everything else :)

I show up, and she starts asking me questions about the Y that I'm not at all prepared to answer. But, what do you know, it didn't matter. She asked me questions about what the Y stood for, and what I thought about that, etc. I believed fully everything that I said, but I never formed those words or thoughts. I wasn't really speaking, God was. I love that feeling. Afterwards I got up to get a tour of the facility and by the time I got back, Denise had a bunch of papers sitting out on her desk and she said, "Okay, here's the deal. We don't usually do this, but we were just so impressed by you that we want to offer you the job right now." God is so good! 

Not only that, but the first day I show up to work, I end up talking to a co-worker for an hour about Jesus, God's heart for the world, and what it means to truly love people. Turns out God is teaching us the same things, and we both had things the other needed to hear. I was thoroughly encouraged by the conversation, and I know she was, too. He provided me so much more than just a job.

Beautiful mountains in Northern Norway

The next roadblock is the fact that I have to raise somewhere close to $20,000. To little ol' me, that's a huge number. But to the God who owns everything in the world? It's an opportunity to show me how faithful and good he is. I'm about to be wrecked in so many ways. And I can't wait.  

Are you ready to watch God move a twenty-thousand dollar mountain? I am. :)

More on that later.

Much love and many blessings, friends.

If you're interested, check out more information on YWAM and Hard Places.

Love is (Still) Wherever You Are

I realized that there is a truth I have been living by that isn't a truth at all. Or, rather, it is a partial truth that I have been accepting as the whole.

As humans, we are relational beings. I certainly am no exception. I hover somewhere between the introverted and extroverted, depending on the day I take that magic test all my teachers seem to like so much. It was through relationships that the most painful moments in my life occurred. It was through relationships with others that I found healing, restoration and redemption. It was through relationship that I found Jesus.

People, in every context, have played a huge part in my life. I know they have in yours too. They guide us, encourage us, shape us, break us, harm us, change us. They all matter in one way or another. I love this. I love the way God uses us to bring each other closer to Himself. He is a relational God. It only makes sense that we would find great significance in relationships too.

I met Jesus because a couple of 20-something year old girls loved the angry, scary 15-year-old me. They were the first example of Jesus that I saw and recognized. They were the first example I had of what it looks like to live with a heart captivated by God. And ever since then, there has always been that constant mentorship in my life. Whether it be brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers in Christ, there has been drawn around me a more loving family than I could have ever dreamed of. I have always had the presence of people older in faith than myself to encourage me towards Jesus.

This is where the partial truth comes in. And where I finally realized the truth of something that I thought I had understood all along. Because the people around us that love Jesus? They play a huge role in showing us what love can do to a willing heart. But what I have fallen prey to is believing that because my life does not look exactly like theirs, then I must not be as 'far along' as they are. That because my life looks different, it must not be as good. And that if I love Jesus long enough, my life will look more like theirs.

But that operates under a faulty assumption: that the longer I love Jesus, the more my life will look like someone else's who loves Jesus. False. The longer I love Jesus, the more my life will look like Jesus's.

It's a subtle difference, but it makes all the difference in the world. Do you see it?

It's not a lateral thing. It's vertical. I'm not saying we don't grow in our understanding of grace. It's that is isn't about comparing where we are in regards to where everyone else is. I can love Jesus for just as long as those 20-something year olds did when I was 15, and my life still won't look like theirs. Because I am not them. My gifts, passions and purposes are different than theirs. We will never look the same. It isn't about looking around and comparing where you are to where everyone else is. It's about looking up and seeing the God of the universe beaming at you with so much love and joy that there are tears spilling down his face. Right where you are.

Because you either love Jesus or you don't. But if you do, love will change everything about you. And God puts people around us to show us the thousands of different ways that love manifests itself and to encourage us towards himself. Not to make us look at his work in our lives and say "this is not enough." Not to make us look at each other and feel shame that the love in our lives isn't as "big" or as "good" as in someone who has loved Jesus longer. That isn't how it works.

We are human. And as humans, we are all on the same field. We are all in the same place: sinners sorely in need of the grace God offers us freely, every day. It's a gift. Given in whole. Not doled out in increments as we reach spiritual milestones. This leaves us free to be, not who we think we ought to be, but exactly who God made us to be. Which is weird, quirky, unique and incredibly loved for it.

Love is all encompassing. Perfect. Joyful. It changes everything about you. It rejoices in your gifts, your passions, your purpose. It shapes you, it refines you. It comforts you, it fights for you. Love never fails. Love is constantly pursuing you, constantly loving you. In your quirks and everything you wish you could change about yourself. In every way that makes you different, in every way you wish you weren't. Love abounds. Love rejoices. Love abides.

Love is wherever you are. 

Love is Wherever You Are

The amount that I have learned about love in the last few months is something I can’t encapsulate in words just yet. The amount that I have learned in the last 24 hours alone is something I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to explain.

Since August, I’ve been up to my ears in questions, answers and interviews. I’ve been applying for every opportunity that God brought my way. Why? Because it seemed really important. Turns out God was right. With every application, every question, every essay, I learned a little bit more about what I’m looking for. And usually by the time I would get to the end of the application, I would realize that that wasn’t actually what I wanted to do at all and wouldn’t turn the application in.

And now, three months and what feels like a million applications later, I realized how much my humanity has crept into this whole process. Because God shifted my heart a few weeks ago. He showed me what it is that I long for: to continue to be wrecked by love. But I had gotten into my head that this process was going to result in some sort of direction, so I didn’t see that revelation for its true value. I waved hello to it as it settled into my heart, and turned my attention back to pursuing every option I found, determined to continue until God finally told me “yes” to one of them.

And then I was slapped in the face by my own words. Last week I shared a very difficult conversation with someone and was bluntly honest about the fact that they had not been careful with my heart. One of the things I said was that “you have an idea in your head about where my heart should be, and in that you have missed the grace of where I am.”

That is far more true than I realized when I said it. I had an idea in my head about where I should be, and in that I have missed the grace of where I am.

And here’s the truth about me: I’m a mess. All the time. I’m proud, selfish and arrogant. I have a really hard time loving my family. I am jealous and often pretend to be more confident than I am. I make mistakes, all the time. I fail to love Jesus every day. I am a girl with a lot of baggage. I come with a heart torn ragged by abuse and abandonment. And that heart has just recently learned to love and be loved and is still really bad at both. That stubborn heart still throws up walls at any threat, any pursuit, any perceived danger.

And in my head, I have an idea of where I should be. And that ^^ isn’t it. How can where I am be so far from where I should be?

Maybe because there is no such thing as “should be.”

Because this life of mine? It isn’t mine at all. It’s God’s, and he loves us more than we know. God is love. A Love that loves unto purity. A Love that isn’t about being perfect or in the perfect place. There is no map, no 12 step program, no ‘should be.’ Love is wherever you are.

On Sunday, as I was driving home from backpacking and mulling over some of these things when they were still half-formed, I heard that it was baptism Sunday at my church. Something stirred in my heart. I got to lunch and my roommate told me about her experience at church that morning, and how she was going to go back that evening and get baptized. That stirring in my heart intensified, so I just smiled and said, “I'm coming too.”

I’ve loved Jesus for a while now. But there was such overwhelming love in standing up in front of my church family, with new friends ready to surrender with me, with both my sweet roommates who have played such big roles in my story, and getting baptized by Cy, my big brother in everything but blood. It wrecked me. In every wonderful way.

I’ve been wrecked by love. Right here, right now, in all my fear and failure and sin. And all I want is to continue to be wrecked by love. And that’s all there really is to it. The grace of where I am? It’s that Love is wherever you are.

And I’m right here.

For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. Colossians 2:12-14

Alleluia, amen. 

Ready. Set. Stop.

Ready
Your heart to follow
Set
Your eyes on me
and
Stop.
Just stop.

You're already here
And so am I
Don't grasp so hard
At the hand steadying you now

Are you ready?
Are you set?
Then stop.
And breathe
Just breathe

Let me turn you around
From the inside out

Let it go
Let it be
Let me be me
And breathe
Just breathe

Ready. Set. Stop. 

La Caja, der Kasten, the Box

However you want to say it, it's still a box. Four walls. No escape. Confining. Constricting. Suffocating.

I put boxes on all kinds of things in my life. More than I know, more than I recognize. I put four walls around things that were designed to be big, bold and reckless. I was designed to be big and bold. My heart was created to love recklessly. My life was designed to be wild. My impact on the world was designed to be not just big, but BIG.

Because my God is big. And he calls all of us to differing but equally BIG things. That is often so hard for us to believe. I know it is for me. I am small. I am just another person in this big, wide world. Why would God do anything big through me?

Have you ever noticed that God doesn't do anything small? Because he's God. And he's in the business of souls. And when you're in the business of souls, even the tiniest thing makes the biggest difference. Because it's the very center of who we are, what we love, what we believe, and therefore what we do. There's nothing small about that. And because it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us, doesn't that mean that everything we do is big too?

But there's more to it I think. Because yes, everything we do is important. Eating, drinking, working. It all matters, according to 1 Corinthians 10:31. But it also says over and over and over again "be not afraid." And you know what that says to me? Not "don't ever go near the things that scare you, so you don't have to ever be afraid." No. It's saying "walk towards the things that scare you, not away. Walk into them and keep your eyes on me. And just watch how I show up."

This has laid heavily on my heart for a long time now. It used to make me drop everything I was doing and chase after every service project I could think of. I used to scour for opportunities to volunteer in ways I never had before. And then I would burn out. I'd get tired, and I would stop going, stop caring. But the thing is, Jesus was never the heart of that. He wasn't what I was after. I was after my to-do list, my own greatness. And, lo and behold, it always fell through. It was like grasping at straws.

So, over the last few weeks, as this has burned on my heart more than ever before, I was tempted to do the same thing. But God has just told me to wait, so I have. Even more than that, he has challenged me to take a break from the conventional things of Christianity. I haven't gone to church in months, I haven't gone to bible study, I haven't even cracked my Bible in a week. Instead, I spend every morning sitting on my back porch in silence, drinking coffee and just being with the Lord. Like having breakfast with an old friend, there is no agenda, no chapter to read, no verses to meditate on, no plan. Just me and Jesus, being friends.

This was not an accident. Because he has shown me that doing big things and being used in big ways doesn't come from my own actions. It's about seeking Jesus, and being obedient when he brings things across my path. It's about being still, and obeying in BIG ways when God brings them your way. The catch, for me anyway, comes in the waiting and trusting God to bring them your way.

And bring them my way he certainly did this week.

To make some very long stories short, this week I: found about $2,000 worth of drugs on campus and had to make a formal statement to the police. I watched a friend speak in tongues for the first time in her life. God used me to cast demons out of someone. (Yep, you read that right. Crazy, huh?) That incident occurred while I was supposed to be at work... Obviously, I did not show up. And I didn't even get in trouble. Amazing. And to top it all off, I met up with Bob Goff today.

Life is less about the should's and should not's and more about just loving. It has no agenda, no plan. Not really. God does, but we don't. Loving God and living life in a BIG way is more about seizing the opportunities that God places right in front of us and trusting him to come through. It's about leaning into the things that freak us out, because those are the things I think we were truly made for. Why else would they freak us out?

I understand almost nothing. I don't even know if this made any sense at all. All I know is that loving God means breaking out of the box. It means trusting him and his plan when he puts $2,000 worth of cocaine in your hand. When he chooses to use you to help catch a drug dealer. It means trusting him even though the casting out of demons really weirds you out and you aren't entirely sure what to do. It means skipping work and trusting that His timing is perfect, and that he is the great Provider. It means calling up someone you've never met to see if they'll have coffee with you, for no other reason than that the thought of it makes your heart beat faster.

None of that fits in the box. None of that is normal. And those are some of the moments I have seen God move the most. And I did not seek any of them out. God brought them to me, and I simply followed the sound of his voice. God calls us to big things. And because he's God, he will bring those big things to us. Right now. Right where we are, just as we are. Imperfect, in the day-to-day, in the unexpected. We don't have to necessarily chase them down. Because God's BIG things are all over the place and they all look different, and they are often unexpected and unconventional.

We just have to pay attention

and

"Be not afraid." (Isaiah 41:10, Deuteronomy 31:6, Jeremiah 1:8, Isaiah 54:4, and so many more...)

Pursuing the Uncomfortable

I wrote a few weeks ago that I have been struggling. Now is no different. There is a lot stirring in my heart, and I understand very little of it. But, I am a lot less unsettled by it. God has taught me to embrace this vague place, because it is vague for a good reason.

But there has been something on my heart ever since I got back from Spain, and God has given me some insight into it lately. It took root when I was in Spain, but it has been growing ever since I got back. It's the idea of discomfort. Of intentionally pursuing the things that make us uncomfortable. Because there is a good reason that things make us uncomfortable, and if we would just press into them instead of walking away, I think we'd learn a lot. I know I always have.

The things that make us uncomfortable, like people who are different than us, things we have simply never done before, or whatever it is that makes you uncomfortable... They so often blind us to the people we could have the chance to meet, or the big things we could have the chance to do, and the big God we could have the chance to experience. We are frozen by fear. And we often don't think twice about it. And sometimes there are good reasons for that. But more often than not, I think it is our love of comfort that makes us fear the new, the unpredictable, the intimidating.

I've never looked back and been sorry that I had walked towards something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. But I definitely have looked back and been sorry that I walked away.

I have seen the depth of God to be found in the uncomfortable and intimidating. It's really amazing. He truly is bigger and more faithful than we realize.

Have you ever been put out of your comfort zone enough to see it?

I saw it when I was traveling all over Europe by myself. I had to rely on God like never before, because there really wasn't anyone else. I had to rely on him, not my circumstance, to be my comfort because I was scared most of the time. But he met me there. He taught me just how faithful he is, and how he will always come through for us when we need him to. He began to teach me just how big he is, and how BIG the things are that he can and will do through me.

But he had to strip away all my comfort first. Because it is in comfort that I begin to think I don't need him, that I can do it on my own, and my view begins to shrink. My view of God, of the world, of my own ability to impact the world. It all shrinks to the size of comfortable.

The truth about how big God is and about the big ways we really can impact the world? They begin at the edge of comfortable. And they grow the further you walk into discomfort. When you stop giving God an out. When you stop relying on a backup, the plan B, the 'just in case.' We have become comfortable and unwilling to give it up. We are incredibly unwilling to follow God's voice into the unknown. We are unwilling to follow the sound of his voice when it calls us to things that would be devastating if he didn't come through. But how big is our God then, really? If we never do anything that we couldn't do without him?

I'm tired of comfortable. I'm tired of predictable. I have no idea what this looks like in the context of right now. Because I don't think this unease is just to pursue after May. I think God has just as much intention for it right now. No idea what that means, but I know that I'll know it when I see it. And as for May?

This rebellion against comfortable, and the strong, steady voice of God both call me to ask one simple question: What is the most uncomfortable thing in the world for me?

And whatever the answer to that is... Well, by the grace of God, I'm going to pursue whatever that is.

Which, I think, is exactly the answer to the 'right now,' too.

What would it look like if you did the same? 

For Equilibrium

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,

May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,

May your gravity be lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of the moonlight restoring the earth,

May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect. 

As water takes whatever shape it is in,

So free may you be about who you become. 

As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,

May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,

May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough

To hear in the depths the laughter of God. 

John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

Loving Out of Brokenness

This semester has been rough so far.

I don't know how to explain it. I guess I can't really. I have felt disconnected, withdrawn, quiet, selfish, short-tempered. Basically they're all the walls I am so apt at putting up when I don't understand my own heart.

I'm being rubbed raw. Stripped down. Broken. Exposed. My heart is in a place of deep, intense sadness that wells from something much deeper than circumstance. A lot of it, I think, doesn't actually have anything to do with me but with whatever it is God is teaching me to break for. But I don't know. I don't know much of anything these days.

The temptation I face every day is to hide. I have always been a runner at heart, and this is no different. I do not understand what is going on in my own heart, and it makes me want to pull the covers up over my head and shut out the noise, the ache, the mystery.

Thankfully, God is bigger than my cowardice and confusion. He teaches even when I try not to learn, speaks even when I try not to listen, loves even when I am running away. Is patient even when I am trying to love him with half my heart, and keep the other half for myself.

Thanks to some insight from a friend, I know what I am: lost. But not in the sense that I don't know where I'm going. I don't care where I'm going and I don't care about the plan. I just want Jesus and to know him more fully and to share his love more and more effectively with the people around me. It's not that I don't know where I'm going next. It's that I don't know where I am right now.

It's that I'm lost in my own brokenness. Lost in nursing an aching heart that breaks for something I'm not aware of. I'm lost and wandering, because I don't understand a single thing about my own heart at the moment. And yet, there is no escaping it.

What I do know is that God is good. That he loves me more than anything, and that there is a good reason that I am where I am at the moment. And that if my instinct is to run away, then what I should probably do is walk closer. That tends to be the way it works. If I am afraid, do it. If it makes my heart beat faster at the thought of it and I am instantly tempted to walk away or make excuses, then say yes and do it anyway.

What I do know is that beneath it all is my ever-present desire to love Jesus and love people. To know Jesus, and to know people. And I am comforted by God's promise that he will never stop doing good for me, and that he is stripping away the things that keep me from Jesus and from people. So, I may not understand it, and I may be broken for reasons I don't understand, but I thank God for it. He is doing me more good and showing me more of himself than I know.

I realized in class today that what my heart longs for is comfort. Because my heart is uncomfortable, and it longs to be otherwise. But that's a lie. Because all the comfort in the world won't satisfy. And the amazing thing about God is that he can rub your very soul raw, and still overwhelm you with peace and comfort.

And I feel an invitation in my soul at that. To intentionally leave comfort, to walk away from familiarity and convenience. To let the brokenness I don't understand encourage me to lay down my life for the people God has given me such a heart for. Because I am not the only one in the world who is broken for reasons unknown. I feel that stirring in my heart, to stop hiding and let this brokenness fuel actions and love.

Oh. I get it now.

This brokenness is not mine. It's a gift. To teach me to step beyond my own white picket fence and love well, love radically, love unexpectedly. And probably a hundred other things I don't know about just yet. But the point is, my humanity wants to shut out everything until I can shut up the brokenness enough to ignore it. But God's been inviting me to step towards it, step into it. He's inviting me to experience the depth of Himself found in loving out of a place of deep, Godly brokenness.

God is so good.  

Deutsch, oder Alemán?

So...

I've been learning German. I love it. It's so much fun, and I just love learning languages. It's awesome, and is such a blessing to me.

However...

I am a Spanish major. Meaning, I speak Spanish decently well. So, en mi mente, in my mind, there are two categories. Native language, and foreign language. And all foreign language is Spanish, because that's the only foreign language that I know. Correction, was the only foreign language I knew.

So most of the time, if you speak to me in a language that isn't English, my brain automatically goes to Spanish. But that doesn't exactly apply when you're sitting in German class. So, I end up doing a lot of translating from Spanish to English to German. It gets a little confusing. But I've managed to keep all the various languages in their proper places so far.

The other day my teacher, Regine, asked me a very simple question that I totally knew the answer to. Wie Uhr is est? What time is it? As she pointed to the time she had written on the board: 14:30. So, 2:30. I thought, "Awesome! I know this."

"Dos y media," I said, totally confident.

Right answer. Wrong language. And I could not, for the life of me, remember the answer in German. It's "Halb drei," in case you were wondering. But what makes it even funnier is, I couldn't even remember in English how to further explain why I was speaking Spanish. My brain just kept thinking in Spanish, and there was no changing it.

Lesson learned today? Only one language happens at a time. And apparently, I do not have control over which language that is. It's like for every situation a little war is waged in my brain, and one language always slaughters the other two. There's no switching once a victor has won... That language  fought valiantly and wields all control. Like a dictator. The other two languages are left lying in a bloody heap on the floor, never to rise again... Until the next war is waged, anyway.

I just have to hope that the victorious language corresponds to the language of the situation I find myself in. If not? Well... Maybe everyone else should learn English, German and Spanish too. Just to be on the safe side.

No Thanks

I have a philosophy in life: If there isn't a good reason to say "no," then you should say "yes."

Whether you agree or not, I tend to live my life this way anyway. I find myself saying, "why not?" a lot. And it leads to a lot of adventures. Some very unexpected. I love it.

I realized the one exception to this rule, though: relationships.

What made me realize this? I got asked out on a date last week.

Long story short, I was walking back from German class with a new found friend, talking about life and school, when he asks if I want to go out sometime. My first thought was, "I don't know you, and that wasn't very specific." But, I thought, give the guy a chance. Maybe he's just nervous. Who knows. Give 'em a shot. So I said sure, and gave him my phone number. My expectations were pretty much non-existent, however. And rightly so.

We have class together almost every day (German happens every day but Thursday, and we also have photography together twice a week.) So, I walk into German the next day and... nothing. He says nothing to me about asking me out the day before. I walk into photography later that night, where we sit right next to each other, and still nothing.

I had to laugh. I hadn't expected much in the first place, but I sometimes forget how "uncool" it is to be intentional. How a guy will wait a few days before asking a girl out so she doesn't think he's pushy or too interested. What a load of crap.

But, that's exactly what happened. I finally get a text three days later, asking if I'm busy tonight. I was alone, driving home to Saint Louis, and I literally laughed out loud. My response was something along the lines of "No thanks," and "You might not want to wait so long next time."

My boss thinks I'm crazy. Actually, her response when I told her this was, "Geez Ally. It's going to take an incredible guy to get you to say yes."

Well yeah it is. And I'm not sorry. I have no desire to be discouraging or anything, but I also won't sugarcoat or say yes when I am not being pursued the way I, as a daughter of God, should be. Which totally does not include being half-pursued and then ignored for three days :)

Mark Driscoll calls it Godly rudeness. That it's a good thing, because we women tend to be doors. We let everyone through who comes along and we let them into our lives and hearts. We are open to everyone. I've been there. I know what it feels like to be a door. You don't realize it when you're in the middle of it, but it sucks the life out of you. And makes it hard to realize just how good men can be, and just how you are supposed to be treated.

And then there are the women who are walls. You say no. With Godly rudeness. To everyone. Until the Lord tells you to say yes. I am learning to be a wall. But the big difference being, I'm learning to be a wall who is willing to say yes should God say so. Not a wall who blindly says no out of fear, but one who has pursued God's will and has found that the answer is still no.

That's a process. As always. But until I hear otherwise, the answer is still no.

For the sermon on this, that I think every girl (and guy, for that matter) should hear, check it out here: http://marshill.com/media/the-peasant-princess/i-was-a-wall

Chopped

Over the last few weeks, God has torn up much of my life. I have been in a bad mood for longer than I can remember ever being before. Why? Because he has dug up every lie I have ever believed about who I am and what I am worth. Sound fun? Well, it's not.

It has been really wonderful too though. Because as God has brought me face to face with those lies, as he has brought me into them and made me sit in them and truly feel, know, and name them, he has shown me more of himself. And that is worth more than anything in the world.

One of the biggest lies that I hear is that I am not beautiful. There is a deep-seated, constant fear that I am not beautiful. That I am too this or not enough that to be seen as lovely or captivating by anyone. It is the lie that causes me to make myself the brunt of most of my own jokes. If not me, than to tear someone else down to make myself feel better. It is the lie that has often caused me to grasp at every reflection I pass, willing myself to be lovely. It is a lie that continues to control me subtly and undeniably.

But in the midst of facing the truth about what I often believe, God is teaching me about true beauty. That he is a beautiful God and thus has created everything as beautiful. And that it is not within human capability to make beauty any less than it is. These are not new concepts to me. But they are vital in learning to not only ignore the lies of the enemy, but annihilate them completely.

So, I have taken a step back from beauty. I have recognized my good, Godly longing for it. And my sin in trying to grasp at what has already been given to me. He is teaching me much about the freedom of beauty. The freedom that comes from knowing that it is not something that can be hidden inside long, beautiful curls, a perfect face, or a size 2. That it was not meant to be something to bind us. It was something freely given so that we may have peace in it, in our perfect likeness to the most beautiful God. So that we can bless others and teach them to see their own beauty. We were never meant to spend our lives striving for beauty.

So I did the only logical thing:

I cut off all my hair.

Sorry for the terrible photo. 

And the thing is, I don't care if you think it looks great or terrible or stupid or fantastic. I didn't do it because I was looking for beautiful. I did it because I already found it, and I'm tired of being deceived into striving for it. And God met me there just as he promised he would. 

Because I am learning that the truth in the beauty of the flowers in the field, the sunset, the mountains... All those things that you look at and can't help but wonder at the glory of God? They apply to me too. I am learning to see God's glory in my reflection, and not my own. I don't see all the ways I don't measure up to everyone else... I see the beloved daughter of God that I am. Beautiful because the God of the universe, the Creator of beauty itself, lives and breathes in me. It's true of you, too.

Do you believe it? 

Or, more importantly: Do you live your life like you believe it?

If not, I want to challenge you to take a look at where your definition of beauty comes from. And maybe do something crazy. Step out on a limb. Take a risk. I promise you two things: God will meet you there if you let him, and you'll be just as beautiful as ever. 

You Don't Have to Stay Here

I am often plagued by nightmares. Less so than before, but they happen at least once a week or so. Sleep has never, really, been my friend. They don't really surprise me anymore, but are just simply expected. And then it is a sweet relief if they don't come.

I had one the other night that was unlike any I've ever had before. The darkness and fear, they were the same. But in the middle of it, everything stopped. A man appeared out of nowhere and said to me, "You don't have to stay here," and pointed to an open door. But I didn't understand. I couldn't comprehend what that meant. So I did what left me with gut-wrenching guilt and shame when I awoke: I turned back. I turned my back on the man offering me freedom, and I chose the horrifying.

Appalling, horrifying, terrifying, sickening. And yet, familiar. It was safe, in a way. Because it was all I had ever known. The unknown life waiting just beyond the light in the doorway was far more terrifying, in the moment, than the familiar nightmare.

I have not been able to shake the meaning of this. No, I don't normally read into dreams. But this was not a normal dream, and the truth echoing in it has stirred my soul unceasingly. That pull in my soul has said, "Pay attention." So I'm paying attention.

I've been reading The Supernatural Ways of Royalty by Kris Vallotton. The book has hit home more than I thought it would. Partly, because Kris's story is similar to mine and he points out many of the struggles I face because of it. And partly because it addresses what God has been trying to teach me for a while now, I just didn't realize it: my identity.

I always thought it was solid. My identity is in Christ, and I have always rested in that. What I am realizing now, though, is just how many lies I have been told about my value, and how they still affect the way I live my life. And resting in my identity in Christ cannot be complete and wholehearted until the lies I used to believe are defaced.

That's a scary thing. To open yourself to every fear you ever faced, every one of the innumerable lies you were told about your value, every single thing you have always feared was actually true. Even if you know it isn't. Because it's familiar, the presence of those lies.

But, as I was reminded the other night, "You don't have to stay here." There is a truth, an identity I have never truly taken ahold of, waiting for me. That of a daughter of a king. A princess. Immensely valuable. I want to turn back to the familiar nightmare no more.

I don't really have any idea what this means. It is difficult, but I can tell I am at the beginning of something wonderful. Something immensely hard, but wonderful. And I do not face it alone. And at the end of it, God has graced me with a promise: that I will know who I really am and how incredibly loved I have always been.

Any fear pales in comparison to that sweet, sweet promise.

I don't think I'll stay here anymore. 

The Warmth of the Cold

Sam and I are currently in Bozeman, Montana. As we make our trek back from a wonderous week in Seattle, there have been unending thoughts crossing my mind. There has been much depth in my heart today, as I have thought and ruminated on the things God has been teaching me. I am still working on writing that down. This is something of less depth.

But as I was thinking the same string of thoughts and questions I've pondered all day long, I walked outside. I walked out to the car to grab my ever-present and necessary Chapstick, when I stopped and felt the chilly breeze on my face.

It's August, but the night is chilly. The air is dry and crisp, and it smells like a late October night in Saint Louis. I loved every second of it. I could almost smell the colors of fall and hear the crisp sound of leaves on the ground.

I can't explain it. The silence that comes from a chill in the wind, the overcast of the clouds in the sky or the dull residual light of a sun long gone. I am weird, I know. But the cold, the dark... It's like home to me. To love it is so strange to most people, but it's all I have ever known.

Don't get me wrong. I love a good hot day spent swimming and (hopefully someday) surfing and sailing. I love wearing my Chacos and running through the sprinkler. And I am certain I would long for the warmth of the sun on my face if it ceased to exist.

But nothing, nothing satisfies my soul the way it was satisfied tonight. Embraced by a chill in the air, the smell of freshness and life and color, the sweet comfort of darkness and stars and silence.

I couldn't help but stop and worship. To revel in the circumstances I was made to love and thrive and see so much of God in. I couldn't help but cry out "Abba," and smile in thanksgiving and joy.

Which was, I think, exactly the point. 

Old Habits

I had to laugh today.

Just yesterday, Sam and I were talking. We've got a 45 minute drive every day, so we cover a few topics. But yesterday we were talking about being gracious receivers. This is something that has always been difficult for both of us. God has been gracious and good, as always, and has taught us both a lot about allowing other people to love and serve us.

It's kind of funny, because service is something that comes so naturally to me. But learning to allow other people to serve me? That has been a long process. We were talking about how far we have come, and how much God has changed our hearts in this. In being gracious receivers, and not being stubborn and refusing to let anyone do anything for us.

And it's true. We have come a long way. I know I am not at all the person I was before. Even in the last year my heart in that has changed so much. My willingness to allow people to love me by doing things for me... It used to be that I didn't want to owe anyone anything. Then I didn't want anyone to have to do things for me, because I didn't need them to. I wanted them to save their service for someone who needed it, you could say. I have only recently learned that it is just as loving to accept service from others as it is to give it out. Funny how that works....

I had to laugh because Sam and I were just talking about this. And then today, at the end of a very long, hot day, I had an empty water cooler to walk up to the office. It wouldn't fit on the golf cart, so one of my friends grabbed the cooler and told me to take the golf cart and that he'd walk. Without a thought, like a reflex, I told him not to worry about it, that he could take the golf cart and I would carry the water cooler. The look I got said, "You're crazy if you think I'm going to make you walk." And I had to laugh.

Some habits die hard, I guess. Though my reasoning isn't the same as before, it comes down to the same thing. Which that reason then boils down to the same thing that drives all my sin: pride. That stubborn pride that God promises to tear down, thankfully. One water cooler at a time :) I am so grateful for a God who is patient and loving and good. And for friends who don't offer to serve, they just do.

One of many lessons I have learned over the last few weeks. More on this later. :) 

Basic, Pensive, Different

There's something stirring in me. Like the swirl of wind and color in the rise of October, there stir the beginnings of something new and different in me. The browns and reds of the familiar are falling way to something foreign to my soul. Something colder, like the winds of first December. It's a comforting cold, a stretching cold, a welcomed cold. Like a dive in the pool after a hot day. It's shocking, different, new. And exciting.

What? I don't know. There is simply something colored on the horizon. It's a color that I've never seen before. Something subtle, that has no prior emotion or memory tied to my heart. And yet my heart beats on, like ever before, as if the colors on the horizon are something it's been yearning for all along.

There is a constant pull in me, to know the colors that dance before my eyes. To know them and give them names. To put edges on the smudges of sunrise. But that is not my job.

There is another pull in me, just as constant, but of the opposite. To love the moment of presence. To love my days in the heat of  the sun and the screams of wild abandon that follow children to the ends of the earth. To love the exhaustion of the day in and out. To know the temporariness of now, to take breaths and love the moment in which I find myself every day. Every moment.

There are blessings all around me. And the colors of what comes next are truly something beautiful. But I know not what it is, and that is good. It's in the heat of now where I can see the eyes of my God staring back at me. The hands of my Savior shaping me for the next bend in the road. The heart of my Father embracing me, encouraging me, loving me so deeply.

And yet, there is a noise in me. It's a dark, heavy cloud that sits just on the horizon. Encroaching on the deep colors of the sunset I seek so desperately to embrace. It thunders, flashes of light pulling the center of my attention from the beauty in which I long to reside. The violent light threatens to pull my gaze instead towards the darkness that trembles within the distant clouds.

They are there. They are always there. The clouds. They come and go with veracity, violence, subtle whispering lies. But they always serve the same purpose, the same call; to pull my gaze from the sun in the sky, and fill my head with the worries of lightning and thunder.

But the lightning and thunder are not what define me. Or my God. Or anything. They come and go with the shifting of the wind. They change, they grow, they diminish. They are only here for a moment. It's the colors that sit so elegantly on the floor of the sky that define the world. They change, yes, but they are always there. Every day. There is not a thing in the world that can hold them at bay. After the storm calms, no matter what havoc it may have wreaked, the colors remain. Elegant, present, calming.

They are where my gaze belongs. They are where my attention, my heart, my love lie. Because the wind will shift and the worry that clamors for the attention of my soul along with it. And at the end of the day, I will have learned nothing from watching it but that it cannot be controlled.

May we choose instead to watch the colors as they dance in the sky.

Constant Pursuit of Adventure

It's 7:43 in the morning, and I am currently sitting on a bus on the way to Atlanta. From there, I have forty minutes to catch my second bus to Orlando. I'm praying I make my second bus... Otherwise I have some serious problem solving to do. Either way, I find the Megabus a wonderful adventure and am thoroughly glad I forgot to buy a plane ticket and had to take the bus.

The world truly is a small place. There are big places, small places, off-the-beaten-track places, well worn and loved places. There are close places, far places, familiar places, and worlds-away places. But they are all places, and all within reach.

Do you really grasp the vastness of this idea? Not just that there is an entire world outside your doorstep, but that you can go. You need no reason, no explanation, nothing. You can just pick up and go. And all those excuses running through your head as you read that? That you don't have the money, the time, you've got homework, work, kids... Whatever it is, they are never truly tying you down. They may craft the comfortable walls behind which you hide, but they do not bind you.

Because God is bigger than your job, your school, the rigorous demands of kids and family. I'm not saying you have to up and leave those things. God calls us to our jobs and schools and families, absolutely. They are good, Godly, important, beautiful things. But what my head and heart are mulling over as I watch the miles pass by is this: Would you pick up and leave those things (or take them with you) if God called you to up and go? Or are they an excuse to stay where you are?

Maybe these are just the ramblings of a gypsy. I have never liked staying put for very long, nor do I struggle to drop everything and go. I need no plan, no agenda, no specifics. I am in constant pursuit of adventure, no matter what that looks like. It's just how God made me, and one of the ways I see him best.

But I don't think I'm alone. Ours is a God of adventure. He made this world, and he made it beautiful. He filled it with people and places and mysteries. Do you know the story of Jesus walking on the water? He didn't have to walk on the water, but he did. And you know what? I'm with him. Walking on water is way more fun than just appearing on the boat. I bet Jesus thought it was fun, too.

Adventure comes in many colors. It never looks the same twice. I think it's more of a way of life than an experience. But don't miss the truth in that: life was never meant to be safe. It was never meant to be calm and predictable and passive. That is the great lie of American Christianity. Loving Jesus makes life less predictable, not more so.

I hate the term "missions." Because no one likes to be a project. And I think life is a mission. It isn't something a handful of exceptionally godly people are called to do overseas. If you love Jesus, your life is a mission, whether you live in the States or not.

Not everyone is called overseas. Not everyone will see the world. I count myself incredibly blessed to have seen as much of it as I already have. More than most have in a lifetime, and that is such a huge blessing. But what my gypsy spirit longs to share with those around me is the freedom to do so. The freedom of head and heart to pick up and go and trust the Lord to provide. The lack of fear to walk into an unknown adventure and trust God to not only come through, but overflow.

Because it isn't always easy. The opportunity may not simply present itself in a nice little package on your doorstep. Sometimes, and most of the time I've found in my life, God's call to pick up and go is a faint thing. Is a soft tug at the heart and little more. And from that soft tug, you often encounter more closed doors than open windows. You often have little more than that soft tug to break down the doors standing in your way.

One of my favorite books says that the saying "God never closes a door without opening a window," is a load of crap. It's often an excuse to be passive. The truth is, sometimes God closes a door because he wants you to break it down.

Would you? 

When the Words Won't Come

Week after week, the words just won't come. 

As a writer, this is usually the most frustrating thing that can happen to me. Rather than being truly frustrating, though, I find myself in a kind of limbo. 

The words are coming, I know it. They just aren't here yet. And instead of grasping for something that I cannot have nor will into being, I am waiting. Waiting for the words that have never belonged to me. For the words that give shape to my head and my heart. For the words that I'll never fully understand. For the words that I will never own, but can only borrow for a moment at a time. 

Writing is a gift. It brings me so much joy. But that doesn't make it my right. That's the thing about writing... You can't force it into being. I can't hope to give words to something if God doesn't give me words for it first. I cannot put something still infinite into the finite existence of letters on a page. God is teaching me so much that it is my heart's desire to write. To let those borrowed words flow and to come to know the God I love that much more. But as much as I may desire to write, I am not inspired to do so. 

The words are not mine. And they simply will not come. 

Instead, in that silence, I am simply reminded of God's blessings. Of the abundance of grace and goodness he has showered on me. Every day. Of family and friends. Of a job that I love so dearly, and moments of silence in God's presence every day. Of laughter and good books and running through sprinklers on really hot days. Of sweet friends who know how to encourage me, and people who bring out the silly side of me. It goes on and on. 

Instead of giving me the words to understand the big things God is teaching me at the moment, he is reminding me of the abundance of grace he shows me every single day. He's reminding me of the little things.

Why? I do have words for that:

No idea. 

But in it my heart is stilled, calmed, quietly basking in the goodness of God. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. Nor all the words in the world. 

For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging- in love, creativity and friendship
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by the ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

For Longing, To Bless the Space Between Us, John O'Donohue

Quiet

I am a verbal processor. You have probably noticed this by now. I have to talk things out. Everything. Seriously. I just can't process things when they're all jumbled up inside my head. I need to talk it out to find the common thread of what God is trying to teach me. But the process isn't done then. Then I have to go write about it. It's only after I've written about something that I truly understand it. 


Well, sort of.


I've been struggling since I got back from Colombia. I guess I shouldn't say I've been struggling, because it isn't like I've ever struggled before. I'm not discouraged or lost or running or looking for God. He's here. He's been right here all along like he always is. He has shown up in spades in the moments I have needed him to. But the rest of the time, he isn't nearly as verbal as he usually is in my life. He's just very quiet lately.


I'm being stretched. God is not only annihilating the box I didn't know I had put him in, he is blowing the boundaries off everything in my life. The things that not only he can do, but the things he can and probably will call me to do. I love it.


But that's just the part of it that I understand. There is something incredibly deep, something subtle but fundamental that he is shifting. He is changing something very deep and very important in me. And I have no idea what that is.


I understand the world best when it is put into words. And since God is being very quiet these days, it confuses me. Usually, when God is teaching me something, it is through use of words. Whether it be conversations with other people, or him giving me words directly, words tend to be how he teaches me important things. But not this time around. I can tell he is doing something important, but I don't know what it is. And I don't think I'm going to. There are no words, and I don't think there will be. There is simply a stirring in my soul, a shifting of my heart, and silence.


I realized today that he is being quiet because quiet is what I need. But even more than that, he is being quiet so that I can't even try to understand what he's doing in me. Maybe it's too deep, too subtle for me to ever understand, or maybe I'm just not supposed to right now. I don't know.


But whatever the reason, I can't even try to understand or put into words what God is teaching me right now. And in that I am reminded that God doesn't need me. He changes me for good, for his glory, and my heart is his. He changes it, and sometimes I don't get to see it or understand it or really be a part of it at all. Sometimes he just changes it and I'll never even know what he did. I just know that the heart in me is different and a little bit more Christlike than it was before. 

Loco

Just a few random notes, because....

My life is crazy these days. In a good way.

Camp is busy, busy, busy. But I love every minute of it. I am tired to the bone at the end of the day, but I don't feel used and abused like I did last year. This is so clearly where I am meant to be this summer. I love it, I love my staff, my co-workers, my boss. And I think, maybe, they love me too.

I head home tomorrow for my best friend's wedding! I'm heading out after camp, and I'm so excited. I am sad to leave and miss out on camp for half a week, though. I will miss it while I'm gone. And not at all related, but I get a haircut this week! Finally! Taming the wild mess: go.

The World Race. It's been on my heart for a while now. I have no clear direction just yet, but there is that deep sense of purpose in me that says 'go.' Not in a right now, drop everything kind of way. But in the 'start thinking about this, praying about it, and prepare to act on it,' kind of way. I'm not sure yet if it involves me graduating a semester early, or going next summer, or what. He's given me no plan yet, which is fine because he's got it and that's all that matters. But I do think he's in the process of revealing the next step to me... Which means I'm about 70 percent sure I'll be packing my bags to gallivant around the world for a year come next July. Or maybe this January.

YWAM has also been on my heart. To a lesser degree, but still present. I've no idea what God is doing... but it's pretty freaking cool. I love watching it unfold.

And I've been reading through books like crazy. I finally finished Desiring God, am thoroughly challenged by it and still chewing on it, and have been talking my roommate's ear off about it's challenges on suffering for Christ. I just ordered Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot, Forgotten God by Francis Chan, and biographies of David Livingstone, William Carey, Amy Carmichael and James Hudson Taylor, and am still waiting on Anam Cara and a book of poems by John O'Donohue. I love it.

That's all I've got now. Life is insane, and good and full of so many blessings. Deeper thoughts later.