On the belly of the deepest love

As I lay here in the total dark save the screen I type on, I listen. I hear first the sleepy adjustings of my favorite ilsagirl as she cuddles in next to our adopted favorite, Quigley. I next hear the familiar chuckles of my uncles as they watch stand-up in the living room. Finally, my ears settle on the storm raging outside.

I used to be terrified of storms. Growing up spitting distance from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I developed an unhealthy awareness of the devastation of tornadoes at an early age. I became fascinated with the science and raw power of those concentrated whirlwinds and while I was drawn to them, I was terrified of them and any rainstorm served for me as the harbinger of their destruction. For years, if it was beginning to storm, I was beginning to panic.

Now, I live far away from the threat of tornadoes and for the last three years or so, rain has become my favorite weather. I'm not just talking about a little drizzle- although cold rainy days ALWAYS take me straight back to Europe where my heart so desperately longs to return- I love the drowning, torrential, unwavering lashings that wake you up at night and leave you breathless as you try to get through them. 

I think this shift is occurring in my life with the Lord as well. I used to be terrified of prayer. I grew up with a mother who believes and adheres fully to the power of prayer. I learned early that prayer is a thing, but had little grasp of what this meant or was supposed to mean for my walk with Christ. 

Later, as I entered high school and college, I began to see prayer as a scary, unpredictable force that only served to wreck whatever happiness I was indulging in at the time. For example, I used to be terrified to pray about the man I was dating because I was convinced the Lord would take him away from me. (Not necessary to mention, but praise the Lamb he removed them all from me, some weren't so bad, really, but I couldn't be happier where I am in life right now.) I saw God as a wish granter and a prayer twister that would take my words and bend them into some horrible misconception of what I meant, i.e., have you ever prayed for patience and not regretted it pretty much immediately? Come on, be honest. 

It was actually my season in Texas and my breakup with Will (that I have written on extensively and Lord willing, that last one was the last of it) that caused me to really sink deep into how deeply the Father desires to dine with us at the table of His mercy. In the word, prayer is talked about constantly or it is being used constantly. Prayer is our chance to hop up onto the kitchen counter and swing our legs and spill our guts out to the Father who so greatly desires to care for us. God then takes those guts, fixes the parts that are broken, and then sews us up tight- better, easier, lighter than before. 

Prayer is the worst thing that could happen to an anxious mind and yet it is my only refuge. It is where my help comes from. In quiet mental desperation, you pour myself out before Him to the point of total exhaustion and then you are just forced to wait. You wait for Him to move heaven for you, His beloved. You wait for Him to let justice flow and mercy swallow you up whole until you are swinging deep into the throws of His goodness and grace.

Through prayer, you get to curl up in the crook of the arm of the Father and say, "I'm terrified." He responds, "I know. Be still in this moment for a minute with me. Let's flesh out why, who, how, and what you're afraid of. Now, go rest my darling. I am your Father, I care, let me now fight and move and be I AM." 

I have no clue what is even happening in my life right now. Little prayers that I would murmur for years so quietly that I would deny them even to my own soul when pressed about them, are unfolding beyond my wildest imaginations right before me. I learned to surf this month which still doesn't feel even a teensy bit real. I am learning how to be pursued like Christ pursues and it is overwhelming and crushing and beautiful and terrifying all at the exact same time.

I am swept away in the goodness and intricacy of the Father's plan for me. It goes so much further than I could ever have asked for. I am undone and caught totally up in this season. It is a tidal wave, a thunderstorm, a hurricane and I am clinging to my little lifeboat trying so desperately to keep a grip on what reality should look like. Well, tonight, in the middle of the storm, I'm letting my hands let go. I'm releasing my fear, excitement, terror, and joy into His reign and rule. 

This sweet month of August has held beauty and grace and storms and I am feeling my soul take breaths where I didn't even realize I had been holding it. So tonight, friends, breathe deep. Take it to the Lord in prayer, regardless of what it is. You just might find that the things you're afraid of now might just make your soul happiest later. 

Pray prayers that terrify you. Pray things that only God can handle. Pray things that you didn't even realize you wanted. Pray things that embarrass you and things that you would never ever tell anyone in real life. Cast all your worries, fears, joys, doubts, anger on the Father who delights in and cares for you.

As I stand here in the middle of one of the craziest and most unpredictable seasons of my life, I am drowning in a torrential, unwavering lashing of love and grace and goodness and weirdness that wakes me up at night and leaves me breathless as I try to get through it all. I have no advice other than "pray without ceasing." Then, cry, watch a Christmas movie, and throw yourself into the storm to dance in the downpour. He is listening even when you don't mean to be asking.

And friend, if you ever get the chance to surf, take it- sharks included. He is always and only ever good. 

Always. 

Only. 

Ever. 

Good. 

Songs of the blog:

Belly of the Deepest Love- Tow'rs

Old Ties and Companions- Mandolin Orange

Hymn- Fleurie

Abc- Alexander Fairchild

Light After Darkness- Kings Kaleidoscope

Coming Home- Leon Bridges

Love Unshakeable- Mark and Sarah Tillman/

On being a beach baby

I am a joyful person.

In general, I am smiling and giggling and causing a scene in public as I laugh out loud about silly things.

Being a joyful person doesn't mean I am always happy. If you have been following my journey for a while, you know that I went through one hell of a break up two years ago. Well, today I found out that he is getting married in two weeks. Maybe other people heal faster than me or whatever, but this month has been so sad for me. Maybe other people are quicker on the rebound and then never feel emotionally invested anymore- I am not one of those people. Today, I was wrecked. I wanted a moment of honest and bravery with myself so, I took these: 

Here is the deal, following Jesus doesn't always feel good. Being a disciple doesn't equate with constant sunshine and rainbows on cloudy days. The Bible is filled with people crying out to the Father over and over and over again to just deliver them from their sorrow. Not their circumstances- their emotions.

The thing is, I am loving life in this season. I permanently smell like sunscreen, I basically never wear make up, and I get to go to the beach on Monday's just because I have the day free. I love it all here, the humidity, the sand, the brightness of the sun (it is brighter here, I swear!), but that doesn't mean that the things that make me sad have disappeared.

I think that it is very easy, and very dangerous, to pretend on social media outlets that life is always awesome. We all know the social media person I am referring to. That person who is traveling the world and always wearing the perfect outfit and always choose the exact right filters and then OOPS! they met their soul-mate and now they are traveling the world with their soul-mate and suddenly they have 2.5 perfect toe-headed children and the cutest little date nights and weekend trips to London and they are HAPPY and they are WHOLE. Here is the truth, that isn't what my life is like. That isn't my reality. My reality is editing pictures maybe well of adventures that may or may not have happened that day and posting a comment that may or may not be joyful, but I cannot and will not pretend to be shooting rainbows out of my butt when it just isn't happening that day. 

My life is a series of ups and downs and ins and outs and I am SO THANKFUL. Pain is not weakness. Pain is not a marker of mistakes. Pain is a marker of LIFE. Pain looks life and the face and says, "YOU DIDN'T WIN!" Pain is a punch in the face to all the silly perceptions of reality we create for ourselves. Pain doesn't make you less whole. Pain is holy. 

King David is known for all time as "a man after God's own heart." If you aren't a Christian, basically, this means that David and God were tight. They were bros for sure. David did mega-messed up stuff and God still loved the poopcrap out of him. Here is something you might not know about David. HE WAS SAD SOMETIMES. Not just sometimes, actually. He was sad a lot and when he was sad, he would talk with his pal God about it. Here is my favorite example: 

Psalm 42

To the Chief Musician. A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of the sons of Korah.

1 As the hart (this means deer) pants and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for You, O God.

2 My inner self thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, Where is your God?

4 These things I [earnestly] remember and pour myself out within me: how I went slowly before the throng and led them in procession to the house of God [like a bandmaster before his band, timing the steps to the sound of music and the chant of song], with the voice of shouting and praise, a throng keeping festival.

5 Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, my Help and my God.

6 O my God, my life is cast down upon me [and I find the burden more than I can bear]; therefore will I [earnestly] remember You from the land of the Jordan [River] and the [summits of Mount] Hermon, from the little mountain Mizar.

7 [Roaring] deep calls to [roaring] deep at the thunder of Your waterspouts; all Your breakers and Your rolling waves have gone over me.

8 Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I will say to God my Rock, Why have You forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

10 As with a sword [crushing] in my bones, my enemies taunt and reproach me, while they say continually to me, Where is your God?

11 Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

The whole Psalm is THE BOMB, but there are two verses that I would like to highlight here. First, "My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, Where is your God?" I think over the years of walking with Jesus, this is the most common guilt-trip I'm given: if you love God so much, why are you sad? I kinda want to punch those people in the face. It isn't always happy. It has NEVER always been happy. Anyone remember Adam and Eve? I mean, hello, they pretty much blew it immediately.

For a Christian, I think that there is a stigma that if you have depression or anxiety or hell even just a string of bad days made public, you must not love Him enough. That is bullcrap. Having a sad day does not mean that my joy and strength are not still found and forever found in the Lord. Having a sad day just means that an external stimulus has effected me mentally and my response is to weep for a while. HEAR ME: this does not mean that the Lord is not still my portion. That is where the second verse I would like to highlight comes in the play. "Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the help of my countenance, and my God." This verse makes me want to scream and clap and sigh in relief all at once. It makes me want to scream from the rooftops that "it is not just me!!!" David, king, poet, adulterer, commander of men, leader, man after God's own heart is saying that "holy crap, yes, today sucks a little (lotta) bit, but yet shall I praise Him." The sovereignty and glory and joy of the Lord is not thwarted by my sad days, on the contrary, it is in His goodness, omniscience, and glory that I find the strength to remember that sad days don't mean I love him less. Sad days mean that I am alive. Sad days mean that I am human. Sad days mean that I have lived and loved and that I have the emotional scars to prove it. 

So, friends- Christian or otherwise- will you join me in being real with one another? Will you join with me in showing that realness to each other? If you need help, get it. If you take meds, remember them. If you don't remember the last time you were real on social media, then you are doing it wrong. Friends, know this: the gospel is worth it. On our very worst and saddest nights, the loneliness doesn't come close to the joy found in Him. 

Find your joy in Him even when you are sad and don't let anyone tell you that this isn't enough. 

Songs of the blog: 

Beach Baby- Bon Iver

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)- Sleeping at Last

I Can't Make You Love Me- Adele

Naked as We Came- Iron and Wine

One Too Many Mornings- Bob Dylan

On building Your kingdom here...

There is a flighty unsettling within me here in Florida. For months now, several friends and I have been praying for the people I am going to meet down here. For people to become "my people" and for a church to become "my church." It is bittersweet to know that most of them will never have to love me through what the people in Texas had to love me through. Simultaneously, I am struck by the sweetness of the Father's mercy. He allowed me that season so that by His mercy I get to tell the story of His faithfulness and joy to the people I encounter here.

So far, I am not exactly nailing it at the whole church hunting thing. I missed church this morning and I am honestly, even just around town, finding it pretty difficult to find people that fit my "idea" of what I had become accustomed to in TX. Granted, it has only been a few weeks, but even on social media and googling different churches in the area, I am a bit disheartened. Then, because I missed church, I decided to watch one of Matt's old sermons from this past winter. (Found Here.) I find no coincidence that the Lord would lead me into the heaviness of James in the solitary quietness of my new bedroom.

James is heavy and wonderful and difficult and so simple. James makes you want to sing praises all the day long and then rip your own tongue out because it isn't good enough. James teaches you that wherever you think you are with the Lord, there is always more of Him to dive into. James teaches you that faith and works go hand-in-hand, but it is folly to believe that by doing works, I can assure my faith. In both Matthew and John, we are told that out of the abundance of the heart- the mouth speaks. I am arguing that out of the abundance of my faith (the more I seek and find Him) the more my life, my works, my passions, reflect that. 

I am learning at a break-neck speed that it is so much more about who the Lord is to me in this season than what the Lord is doing for me. I believe that as Christians, we feel like as long as we are acknowledging the Lord, we are nailing it. I believe that He is teaching me that it goes so much deeper than that. He desires me to see Him as enough- not just good. Yes, of course, the Lord is good, but if Him being good was ALL that He was, it would be enough. In His mercy, He is also just and patient and gentle and sovereign, etc., but in His goodness alone could I be satisfied. 

In the book of Matthew, Jesus implores us to seek Him first. Before we ask for food, shelter, water, or happiness, we are to seek His kingdom first. Out of the abundance of that seeking, our needs are met. I think the lesson I learned this morning at church, in my PJs, on my bed was this: I find Christ in the seeking and if that is ALL I ever find, my needs have been fully met. 

For so long, I assumed that if I wasn't happy with where I was, then I wasn't where the Lord intended me to be. Now, I am pretty sure that is bullshit. Let's take a quick look at the Valley of Dry Bones. If you are unfamiliar with this story, in (short of Revelation) the most acid-trippy book of the bible, Ezekiel is witness and key player in the resurrection of an entire valley of broken, brittle, and tired bones. Yes, bones. Not metaphorical bones. Real ones. By the work of the Lord, those bones rose, took on flesh, and assembled themselves as a great army before the Lord- ready to do His will. 

Today, I took communion using cheap wine and the end of the loaf of the bread that no one else in the house eats, on my bed, in the dark, weeping, alone. It was intimate. It was to His glory. It was for my good. Moreover, it was a promise. He promises to never leave me nor forsake me. In that promise, I am learning that even if I don't have a single other thing going for me- I have Him. 

In the darkness, in the doubt, in the hustle and bustle of starting a new chapter, in the middle of really, really awesome beach days, He is still, always, and only enough. It isn't about temporal happiness, His work in me is about His glory and my eternal joy.

May my life be the proof that you can have all this world, but give me Jesus.

Songs of the blog:

Build Your Kingdom Here- Rend Collective
Dry Bones w/ Fire Fall Down- Matt Birkenfeld
Let the Heavens Open- Kari Jobe-Carnes
Blameless/ How He Loves- Dara Maclean
Though You Slay Me- Shane and Shane

On being radiant again...

I want to be honest with you: I feel as though the sole reason I haven't written in so long is because I have been living so truly free that words seemed cheap. Now though, I am on the precipice of moving cross-country (again) and I have some reflections to share!

 Randomly ordered top five things I have learned during my time here in Texas:

  Number One: I have answered the question of "Am I ready (emotionally) to date?" with a resounding (and slightly embarrassing) yes. However, first dates can be awkward even for the coolest cats, so, here is some advice: 

1. If you have a heart condition, take your meds with you dadgummit. Throwing up on first dates while very, very funny anecdotally, it isn't so much fun in reality.
2. Don't ever let someone else's lack of intimacy or vulnerability cause you to feel negative about yourself. You are radiant and wonderful and they are an idiot if they don't treat you that way. In the same light though, don't hold their lack of intimacy against them either. Sometimes chemistry just doesn't work out.
3. Ask more questions. The weirder the better is always my policy. Examples: "What is something you have always wanted to try?"(Break-dance fighting.) "You get to have a super power, but it can only be a hella lame super power. What would your power be and why?"(I would want to remember everything I have ever read. Duh.) "Who would win in a fight between a grilled cheese and a taco?"(Taco, obviously.) 

Number Two: Charlie Hunnam is a total babe. This one doesn't actually hold any merit, but I have watched six seasons of Sons of Anarchy in the last month and I am totally obsessed with that bada** British babe alert. I don't regret how strongly I feel about this I mean just look at him! Look at him!

  
Number Three: Sometimes being alone is OK. Even when it is awful. Even when you feel like you don't deserve to be in that season anymore. The Lord is still faithful and it is His call when your season of wilderness is up. Hosea 2:14 tells us that He will lead us into the wilderness and speak tenderly to us and to our hearts. Let the wilderness in. Let the solitude lead you to hearing Him more clearly. Learn to listen to that still, small voice even when you want to scream and thrash. 

  
Number Four: Brushing your hair is overrated. My advice? Be as free as you can possibly be in the exact moment you are in right this second. In the word we are told that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. They will know us by our love, yes, but they will also know us by our freedom. Take huge risks without being thwarted by the consequences. Hate your job? Quit. (Seriously. Life is too short.) Don't actually love that person you're with? Pray about it. Be respectful. Guard their heart. But, honestly, trust your instincts. No one on earth is you-er than you. 

  
Number Five: Love yourself no matter freaking what. You are so perfect. You are so brave. You are so worth happiness. You are lionheart and my best friend Taylor has some words for you, dear one. Please know that you are not made up of everything you hate about yourself. Listen to the compliments- breathe them in deep. Start to see yourself as awesome, handsome, beautiful, and worthy. You are so very, very worthy.

As my last twenty four hours in Texas approach, I have been asked often what my most poignant lesson has been. With full conviction, it is this: the Holy Spirit does stuff. He is a freaking weirdo and it rocks. I grew up in a culture where we didn't necessarily learn that the Holy Spirit didn't exist, He just wasn't taught to be very important. I am getting to know Him and holy crap, you guys, the Holy Spirit wrecks shop. I used to believe that the Holy Spirit was that feeling I got when I would do bad things. Oh, how naive I was! It is by the cross that I boast, but it is in the Spirit that I get to claim authority! He is powerful and so, very intricate. He can make 11 total strangers have nearly identical visions years and THOUSANDS of miles away from each other. These aren't hypotheticals, this happened. Go visit my dear spirit-filled friends over at We Are Unveiled and fall in love with His sweet, unfathomable plans.

Beyond just being intricate, the Spirit puts flesh onto your broken, weary, brittle bones and commands you to breathe. He saw my meddled, mangled, broken mess as I rolled into Texas after not marrying Will. He saw my broken bones and rotting flesh and has declared it healed and whole. To the glory of His name, I truly feel this way. Let Him heal you. Even if you are so hurt and so sad that you honestly can’t stand to think about the fact that He is sovereign because your life sucks so badly at the moment that if He is in charge of the shots, then you kind of want to punch Him right in the throat. LET HIM HEAL YOU. God is the only one who can. He searches your heart and He HEALS YOUR HEART. 

In wholeness, confidence, and a tiny twinge of sadness, I am moving to St. Petersburg, Florida on Tuesday. I have no job and no friends (yet) but I have family that loves me absolutely unconditionally and I am about to become the beachiest babe you know. 

Wish me luck. 

Pray for me. 

Visit often. 

Just promise me to live life as freely as freaking possible, OK? It is so worth it.

Songs of the Blog:

YØUTH- Breathing Easy

Tune-Yards- Water Fountain

Relient K- Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and things like Chemistry

Seryn- We Will All Be Changed
Elenowen- Flying Solo