This morning I had a meeting with my spiritual director. I made the comment that I felt like my life felt a little like that saying – “I can’t see the forest for the trees” and she responded with, “It seems like you can’t even see the trees, it’s like everything around you is a blur.”
I don’t think I could have agreed with her more. The last few weeks of life has gone at an insane pace. Our pastor came back from Maternity Leave, we said good-bye to our youth pastor, I moved into a new role, we had a local service trip, I’m gearing up for my ordination service and for our denomination’s big conference for high schoolers which I am on the planning team.
And in the midst of all of that, I’ve been making some incredible new friends out here, traveled home to celebrate The Goddaughter’s graduation, re-signed my apartment lease, planned a trip to Austin for the Launch Party of For the Love by Jen Hatmaker and joined the planning team for that party. (Seriously girl – it’s time to start saying no!)
The world around me has started to spin and my heart is calling out to me to slow down. My heart is saying that it’s time to take some inventory, to spend sweet moments with God and to just remember that I can’t do it all and that he loves me regardless of how much I get done and what status I have in any of my circles.
But my head is reminding me of deadlines, curriculums that need looking at, programs that need revisiting, background checks that need updates, e-mails that need answering and a growing list of to dos….
My head and my heart are competing. Both are right, both are important. But I need to pay a little more attention to my heart right now. I need to follow it’s prompting and get back to what I need to hear. Whispers of a God who loves me, encouragement that I can do it, refueling for the journey. I need to take the time for Him. Don’t get lost. Even though the world does spin madly on.
I've got a lump in my throat cause you're gonna sing the words wrong
I’ve been thinking a lot about church lately. And by that I mean more than usual – I am a pastor after all. It crosses my mind a lot.
But lately it seems that all of my conversations with friends, colleagues, members of the congregation all seem to wander to what the church is doing about this issue or that issue. Yes it circles around one main issue that is getting a lot of limelight lately in our denomination but we are also talking about other things.
Or more so we are talking about why we aren’t talking about these things. Why we are remaining silent on race, sexuality, drug/alcohol abuse, main stream media/culture, war, poverty, the middle east … and the list could go on and on.
The thing is though we don’t want to start the conversation because we don’t want to cause rifts in our communities. We are afraid because our views are deeply personal and if we find out that someone else’s view is differing from us then that will cause a break in our relationship.
Or… Even worse, we aren’t really interested in what the other person has to say at all. We just want our opinions to be heard and validated. We unintentionally bully the opposing side because of a preconceived notion of what it means to hold that other view point.
We’ve set ourselves up into camps. We all think there is a right or wrong opinion. A black or white answer that works for everyone in every situation within this topic. But it’s so not true. Everyone has a story behind what they think and why they think it. We have to be respectful of each other and each others stories.
The way that the Kingdom wins in these types of conversations is when we look for Christ in one another. When we listen to each others’ stories and try to understand the other person better. When our only agenda is to understand the person sitting across from us, rather than try to make them think what we think.
They aren’t singing the words wrong. They are just singing them differently. Our job is to try and see what God is doing in the midst of both of our songs.
our whispered words are louder than bombs
I have a very clear memory from a solitude retreat I took my second year of Seminary. It comes back to me frequently, like a still voice from the Spirit reminding me to keep myself in check.
I was taking a walk through the neighborhood by the church I was currently attending (that I now work at). I was walking past all of these cute houses with kids playing in the yard and I felt that feeling that most single girls of a certain age feel… I want that. I don’t want to be stuck here in Seminary. I want to be in my call. I want to know where I’ll be spending the rest of my life (or just the first chapter). I want to know who I will be spending it with. I want to have the wrap around porch where I can sit with my friends and watch our kids play. I don’t want this – I want that.
Then a line from the Shauna Niequist book I was reading at the time rang through my ears, “Don’t try to fast forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned.” (From Bittersweet).
I didn’t know then that that neighborhood would be one I would drive through several times a week once I received my first call. That neighborhood would be one I would take prayer walks in with our kids on our All Church Retreat. That neighborhood would be canvased by me, alongside our leadership team and staff.
That moment floods back to me a lot. When I see someone or some situation that I wish I had in my life, Shauna’s words continue to ring true in my ears. It reminds me that I still have a great life to live right here right now. All that stuff awaits me in the future – maybe, who knows? I know there are things in life that I want to have, that I want to experience. And I know that my God loves me and wants to give me the desires of my heart – in his way, in his timing.
I know someone who says that when we’re waiting it’s because God still has something left to teach us. The immature person in me wants to tell God I’ve learned enough – I’m ready for my hearts’ desires. But the mature person in me tells me that there are mountains of lessons to learn before I’m fully ready for that next step. I’m still in process, as hard as it is to admit – it’s true.
Jesus tells us not to worry in the Sermon on the Mount (See Matthew 6). He tells us to “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, live righteously and he will give you everything you need. Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Some days I need to repeat this to myself multiple times. Some days I live it out without reminders. And plenty of days fall in between the two extremes. I just continuously remind myself that in a world where I’m told my worth is determined by whether or not I have a ring on that finger and kids in tow, those messages are not from God. That is a future that I have not yet earned. For now, I will seek the Kingdom of God above all else, try my hardest to live righteously and trust in the fact that He will give me what I need, when I need it.
nobody loves me quite like you love me
A few posts ago I wrote about a writing contest that I entered over at Hello Giggles. It was a writing contest call “Tales from a Bestie” and I wrote a piece on my former Roomsmate and how we met. It felt good to right it, to reflect on our first weeks and months of friendship.
I was not, however, chosen as one of the finalists. Although I read the posts that were chosen and they were seriously good!
I did, however, get an e-mail back from them asking me to pitch some ideas for the website. They said they liked my voice and thought I had an interesting point of view. Which was cool to hear since I tend to think my point of view isn’t all that special. But maybe because I see it everyday.
I’ve been trying to put myself out there more, in the writing world. I’m trying new things and making myself put my ideas out there. But it’s hard, friends. It’s hard to look at the world around me and think so many thoughts but then to write them down in a way that others would be interested/challenged/whatever. But I want to keep trying, so we’ll see.
I have other writing news that I’ll be sharing in the next couple of days, but for now, here’s the piece I wrote on the Rooms, for your reading enjoyment.
Relationships are full of moments. Significant ones that change everything like a cannonball into the deep end and insignificant ones like a drop into an ocean. Most of them go unnoticed in the real world. There aren’t any orchestras following us around to swell and crash when something is happening that we should take notice of, like in the movies.
Imagine with me for a moment – picture a grad school orientation in a small room full of chairs and a podium, the walls lined with coffee, tea and assorted pastries. It’s late August in Chicago which means you could cut the humidity with a knife, every window in the room is open but it doesn’t help the stale summer air circulate. As I walk in, I instantly feel the social pressure of the situation. A room full of mostly twenty somethings all wearing name tags and mingling. Everyone is subtly eyeing everyone else – sizing each other up if we’re all being honest here. I look around and across the room I spot a girl my age but much more put together. She’s chatting with a group, laughing periodically and I feel a pull toward her. I immediately know that this girl and I are going to have a story. Either we are going to come out of this program as best friends or we are not going to get along. Later when it’s time to break into groups, I end up in her group, where I learn her name – Hilary.
The next day there is a breakfast for the whole school and the professors. I end up sitting with Hilary again and at the end of the introductions and announcements over eggs and coffee, I decide to through out an offer – “Wanna walk to get coffee before whatever’s next?”
“Sure, can we stop at my apartment first?” To which I respond “Sure.” And that was it. The moment we became friends. I’d later come to find out that Hilary hated coffee – everything about it. So her agreeing to go with me was a bit of an anomaly.
Fast forward two months, Hilary comes over and tells me we need to talk. We go into my room, close the door and she is grinning from ear to ear. We had been petitioning our campus housing to let her move into the third bedroom of my apartment. We had finally gotten a yes and we celebrated the moment we became roommates.
In a lot of ways, Hil and I could not be more different. She is a pastor’s kid who moved from the south to the west coast before coming to Chicago. I didn’t become a Christian until High School, moved from the east coast to Colorado before moving to Chicago. She is up to date on fashion and trends while always being perfectly accessorized and before we moved in together I couldn’t even paint my nails efficiently. She is a pop music queen and I have a tendency to be a bit more indie inspired. She loves movies with car chases and lots of action where I could watch chick flicks everyday and never get bored.
But at the same time, we always found common ground in the strangest places. We both knew all the words to every song on Robyn’s 1995 release Robyn is Here. We both loved to dance it out when stressed. Neither of us were morning people and need caffeine before we can even think about talking to each other. We’re both into craft beer and love to find pubs or neighborhood bars to frequent. She’s a planner and I’m a follower of plans. We just tend to fit together in the oddest of ways.
There was this one moment that seems to sum up our interactions – we were driving home from church in my car. As we listened to music and talked through what homework we needed to do that day I asked her to remind me to do something when we got home. She pulled out her phone and added a reminder to remind me. I laughed and said, “One of my favorite things about you is that you set reminders to help me remember stuff.” And she looked at me in disbelief and said, “That’s one of your favorite things about me?”
But the truth of the matter is that yes, in that moment I realized that she was the type of friend who went above and beyond to help her friends. This was just a small example of it. She was constantly helping me become a better person, a better friend, a better pastor. It was a moment when I realized just exactly how much I appreciated her in my life. That mundane moment that really didn’t mean a lot was the moment when I realized she was the best kind of friend, one who cares deeply about you – not because what you could do for her but because she loved you.
I’ve heard that it’s hard to live with your friends but once again, Hilary and I were an anomaly. Although I am positive we often got on each others nerves, we also had no qualms about just coming out and saying what was annoying us. It’s not that we didn’t fight, it’s that we fought out of a place of mutual respect and aimed for compromise. I remember a few tense conversations standing in our kitchen, each of us refusing to turn away until it was resolved.
One night in particular, I was in my room crying over some dumb guy. We had been at a party and I came home early to wallow. She stood in my doorway giving me that look that I knew meant she had something to say that I did not want to hear. When I asked her opinion she gave it to me and I was right. She essentially told me what I already knew – I was wasting my time on someone who could care less about me. It was within that quiet moment that I realized she wasn’t ever going to sugar coat something that I needed to hear. We didn’t need the sugar coating anymore – we were Besties – the fact that we loved each other unconditionally was all the coating we needed for the hard truths.
Our friendship has had hundreds of other moments. Good moments – dinners out, birthdays celebrated, new crushes discovered. Hard moments – hearing that she was moving away, new heartbreak, big life changes. And all the in-between moments – runs to the store, car singing, texting about the latest bit of celebrity news. Each of the moments are treasured. She is one of the best people in my life and regardless of the fact that life has taken her to the west coast and kept me in the midwest, we continue to be the anomaly in each others’ lives. She is one of the only people who can call me on my crap and keep me laughing while she does it. She’s a beautiful friend and I hope we get a million more moments together.
Oh come oh come Emmanuel
“We aren’t just waiting on God – we’re waiting with God.”
– Louie Giglio on Advent
Earlier this fall I preached on the characteristic of Kindness and within my sermon I set out a challenge to for our congregation to be Agents of Kindness. I have been on the receiving end of mountains of Kindness throughout my life. And I mean true kindness – the acts that are above and beyond being polite to your fellow human. In my sermon I talked about how I see the verse from the Psalms that says “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” One aspect, in my opinion, of the truth in this verse is when the people of God bestow kindness, mercy and goodness on one another.
Whenever I open my social media or the news recently, I feel like I see a lack of this verse. I see the brokenness of our systems, the brokenness of people, the brokenness of relationship, the brokenness of sin. I’ve stayed quiet on social media about these things because I don’t think a productive conversation is happening in the comment section of my facebook page. Or that if I tweet something out to oblivion about the topic that I will really be changing any hearts or minds.
Some may say I’m running from the issue. Some may say I’m not doing my due diligence as both a pastor and a minority. Some may say that I’m exerting privilege because I am not dealing with it. And while some of those things might have an ounce of truth in them, It does not mean I am not wrestling with them. I am struggling to find truth, to find grace, to find calm within the storm.
Then I hear this quote from Louie Giglio this morning. He talks about the Advent season, the wait for the coming of the King. And I realize that we are not simply waiting on God to reconcile the races, we are waiting with Him. He is here alongside us. His spirit is alive in us and in those around us. And he makes good on his promises of mercy and goodness. Whether through His acts or through the acts of his people.
If I could tell her something I would tell her this
there’s only two mistakes that I have made
it’s running from the people who could love me best
and trying to fix a world that I can’t change
I was driving in my car the other night. The darkness all around me felt all consuming. I pulled into the driveway and walked briskly to the door, without knocking I walked in. I was greeted by delicious smells, warm hugs and reassuring smiles. The rest of the night was spent with new friends, bonded together by our call to ministry. We ate and laughed and celebrated the newest call in our group.
At the end of the night I got back into my cold car and this song picked up where I left it off a few hours earlier. It’s a song by the new band of my all time favorite songwriter (bonus points if you know who that is without googling it). In this part of the song the singer is talking about seeing a woman he sees driving next to him with tears in her eyes. He mentally offers this piece of advice to her.
I don’t entirely know why this lyric tugs at my heart strings but it does. I think it’s the complexity of running away from people who can love you best and wanting to fix the broken world around us. As a pastor, sometimes it feels like my job is to fix the broken world all around me. To fix the pain around me.
But the real key is to remember that I can’t fix it. I’m not the key. It’s Christ. I need to remember that always, the mistake is in trying to fix the world around us. The correct response is to open our hands up and let Christ in.
the daylight's wasting
(I’m trying to get in the habit of writing more – which I am not doing so well – which I feel like I’ve been trying for a year now!)
My mom and I have been having a lot of heart to hearts lately. A lot of hard conversations about our family life and what has transpired in it. We’ve talked about the root cause of a lot of pain in our family and how (or if) it could have been avoided.
You see, growing up in a family like mine, there are certain messages that get ingrained into your brain. Into the fabric of who you are. Messages that are like a broken record, skipping, stuck on short sentences that cut deeper and deeper every time they repeat. One of the biggest problems is that these repeating messages are reinforced by other messages we hear in our everyday lives. And when that happens the cuts get deeper, reopening wounds.
I used to think that if I just had enough faith. If I tried taping over those messages with the Truth of how God feels about me that I would never feel insecure again. That I would get to the place where I would never have to struggle with those hurtful messages anymore. I just needed to get strong enough. Block others out more. Look towards God more.
But I am starting to think that those messages are there forever, regardless of what I’m doing – they will always be playing in the background. But that each day I can choose to hear the reassuring words of my Savior and Lord over power them. That my faithful response is to acknowledge them but not let them take over.
Because the person that I am cannot just pretend those things did not happen. I cannot just choose joy over the pain, that would be fake for me. It’s not fake for everyone but it would be fake for me.
Instead I choose Truth over lies. Daily I choose to believe what my Almighty Father has said of me instead of the lies that I have been told about myself.
Because those cuts are real. And because we are sheep being sheep – others will say similar things about me in the future. The only way to move forward is to acknowledge the message, stop pretending they aren’t hurtful still and then choose Truth.
band-aids don't fix bullet holes
A few weeks ago I talked about being in the rough. About feeling like I was lost but at the same time mere feet from where I wanted to be, where I knew I needed to be.
Last weekend I went home, a quick little vacation to reconnect with myself. This weekend I reconnected with those around me.
Last weekend my Friday night consisted of family dinner and bed time snuggles. This weekend it was a warm dinner on a cold night alongside some great friends and catching up on our favorite shows. A low key night for Halloween while texting with my family.
Last weekend my Saturday was a pumpkin patch with my nieces and goddaughter and one on one time with my mom. This weekend it was a craft/nails/netflix day with a new friend who feels like an old friend.
I’ve always been really tentative with friends. Letting people in has always been hard for me, but not letting people in is harder on me. That’s why I’ve become pickier with who I choose to let in, who I allow to be in my inner circle.
I was once told that when Jesus compared us to sheep it wasn’t always a positive thing. Often times sheep get packed in close together and end up biting one another. The person sharing this wisdom told me that when sometimes as human we bite each other – we cause pain accidentally, because we are imperfect people. We’re just sheep being sheep.
In relationships, we bite one another. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes not so accidentally. This is why relationships are so hard, sinful people hurt other sinful people. We rely on the grace of God to fill in the gaps, to help us to forgive and try not to get hurt again. We need God to help protect our hearts and to give us guidance along the way.
In ministry, it’s important to surround yourself with safe people. People who you can be real with and who you can let in. It’s for that reason that I’m so unbelievably thankful for my friends. For those I spent this weekend with, for my Best Friend, for Roomsmate. For My People in CO. Thank you all for standing by me and for walking this path with me. Thank you for being my circle of trust.
it's hard to get around the wind
I attended a meeting at my home church while in town last week and all of the parents in the meeting corresponded with moments in my first few years of ministry experience.
Two sets of parents whose kids I taught in Sunday School when I was a teenager.
A handful of sets of parents whose kids were in the 5th and 6th grade program that I ran in my first internship.
One parent who fit in both the above and had a daughter I was in youth group with.
Before the meeting started one parent gave me a huge hug and said to me, “My son still has hanging in his room a note that you wrote him when you left here and every time I see it I think about you and wonder how you’re doing.” She asked where I was and I filled her in on the details.
But her statement kind of stuck to me. Her son was in 6th grade when I left. He was a staple at our gatherings with his best friend but was really shy and rarely talked to me. I never would imagine that he would still have that little note I wrote him all these years later. Now he’s a junior in high school. still a staple in their youth group, sings on their worship team. Like most my former students I get to see his life unfold via Facebook posts of our mutual friends.
In ministry, there are no guarantees. There are days filled with heart bursting joy, there are days filled with heart breaking sorry. And there are days that fit squarely in between those two extremes.
But some days you get the exact reminder you need that you’re still called to walk this journey with people when those days come you thank the Lord for his provision and strength.
quit these pretentious thoughts and just punch the clock
There’s a quote from 30 Rock that has been rolling around my head for the past week. Jack’s boss says to him, “You’re in the rough Jack, you got to get back on the fairway.”
Sometimes I get in these modes when stuff gets tough. I just tell myself to put my head down and get to work. And then I do just that, I put my head down, get the job done and when it’s over I look up and realize I have no idea where I am.
You’re in the rough, Jack. You got to get back on the fairway
I’ve never played golf but I know the difference between the rough and the fairway. I picture Jack in the rough, trying desperately to hit his ball out from behind trees, thick grass and weeds. Swing after swing, just using up his energy and hoping for that one good hit that will chip the ball back to the plush green of the fairway grass. The carefully manicured lawn where the golf ball is meant to be. To get back to where he feels in control of the situation.
I can imagine the frustration of someone pointing out to him that he’s in the rough. That where he currently stands swinging is not where he is meant to be. He knows it, you don’t have to point it out to him. He knows where the ball is supposed to go, and he’s got to figure out how to get it back there.
I looked up recently. Pulled my head out of the work and took a look around. Thick grass – check. Weeds – check. Trees blocking my view – check. A few wrong turns, misguided hits and suddenly I’ve landed myself right in the middle of the rough.
I’ve lost it. The momentum that got me here, which is maybe a good thing because here is not where I’m meant to be. Here is not good. Here is not the life intended for me. But I got here. I chose the wrong club, didn’t square my hips, just swung wildly and landed myself here, in the rough.
Luckily for me, each day is brand new. Each morning the sun rises and God’s riches and mercies are renewed for me. The fairway’s out there and by the grace of God I’ll get back out there. Because He is strong when I am weak.