I've been thinking lately that maybe there will be a day in the next 6 months when I'll be able to sit back and take stock of all the ways my life has changed in the last year. Every once in a while when I try to think about it, it feels like I'm looking out the window of a fast-moving car at things that are too close to me-- it makes me feel a little motion sick. Maybe I should just keep my eyes on the road ahead for a little longer.

I don't know if this is related or not, but on our honeymoon, Jon and I were driving in Yukon Territory. We'd driven up and up in the thickest fog/cloud I've ever been in.

When we finally could see anything, the terrain was so bizarre. The plain of volcanic rock used to the damp cover we'd driven through was covered in small, crystal clear ponds and the spongey growth of small shrubs and fungi. We could not get over how foreign it looked, no matter that we'd just crossed into another country, it felt like we'd stumbled onto another planet. Had we entered some sort of sci-fi reality TV show?

We gawked with child-like wonder, and then pulled the car over to explore and touch and play and climb. It was early in the morning and we'd only traveled a few miles, but we were already giddy with what God had given us this day. And then the sun began to show.

"JON! There are mountains! HUGE ones! Do you SEE this?"

We were speechless. We were humbled. This was God's glory revealed. This was the Lord of creation giving us more than we could have imagined possible. The sheer joy of it. I think this is the first time in my life I really knew what it meant to revere the Lord. And as I thought about that moment later on the drive I felt Him saying to me, to us,

"Be patient when you cannot see where you are headed, for I know the road I am leading you on. Find joy in the foothills and plains. Be filled with wonder at the new experiences of your young life. Enjoy and explore the foreignness of this new union in marriage. But just you wait. You will be humbled and overcome with gladness by the way my glory will be revealed in your life. I will be revered above all. These mountains took ages to be carved out, and only moments for me to bring into light. I am doing a great work in you. I am sculpting something behind a veil which I will not reveal yet. You are a great work for the glory of the Lord, and greater things than you could ask for or imagine are waiting for you, they are near at hand and hidden. Sense that there is more waiting for you, even while your joy spills over in these places."

I wrote in my vows, "I will walk with you in bold faith that we are on a great adventure with a good and faithful God." I am getting a glimpse of just how great the adventure and how good and faithful our God.

Taking a break

I am going to take a break from social media for a little while, and this picture is the reason:

"Back to where we first met for a picnic. Working on the vows we'll say to each other in 50 days." 14 Likes.

The evening involved a picnic, red wine, a sunset and tears. 

When it's not picture perfect, I have this feeling that everything is following irrevocably apart. This is not how it's supposed to be. I have this idea that the things in my life are supposed to be great and put together. Probably at least in part that's what everyone displays of themselves. I feel like my life is supposed to be lived through these picturesque moments where I can hem in the fray, crop out the rough edges and put all of  my favorite things on display: the friends I love, the scenery I love, the man I love. It's like a trophy case. It's like if other people approve or hell, if they're jealous, then the goal has been accomplished. 

But here's what I realize looking at that picture: I need a break from trying to convince myself through snapshots that life is anything other than a wonderful mess. I want to forever remember our date on that rock: reminiscing about how we met, enjoying creation and time side by side, and talking through what exactly we are going to promise each other when all we really want to promise each other is the whole friggin shebang. But I also want to remember the crying and the trying so hard to understand each other and the challenges and the reconciliation. I want to remember the messy, because that's who I am and that's how I want to be loved. Because when life is perfect, or when I pretend that it ought to be, I avoid all of the things that make it worthwhile. Growth. Depth. Sincerity. Redemption. 

So all of this is to say, I love that social media keeps us connected. I love seeing pictures of my friends' world travels and their joyful moments of romance and their big adventures and their new homes and their smiling friends. I love seeing what they love, and I love sharing what I love. I'll be back, I just need a break to treasure these things quietly in my heart (Luke 2:19). I need to learn to love the messy and not put picture perfect up on the pedestal. I also just want to remind anyone who feels like I sometimes do that what is on display is probably only a fraction of the story, and it is probably the airbrushed part, but the mess matters.

I have used the word "control" a lot this week. Usually coupled with the word "illusion." There are so many pieces of my life lately where I have been carefully putting all the trusses in place, meticulously making to-do lists and plans. I have been living in this dichotomy where I know control is not mine, but all of my efforts to control what I can have been feeding the illusion that I am able to exercise control. I have been trying to mitigate risks on my own but it has only added to my worry and anxiety. So, this morning when I started stressing about something which I have tried to control, but ultimately can't, I finally had the right idea. I cannot control this, but I know the One who can. And so I sat down to pray about it and immediately had a "holy breakdown." This is where things are right: when I take my requests to the Creator of all things in prayer. When I admit I do not want the burden of ensuring outcomes, I am meant to rest easy in the hands of One who loves me. The struggle for control snuck up on me. Last fall, I trusted Him deeply with my dad's health. I trusted Him because I absolutely had no control over what was happening, and I knew that He did. But what I deeply hoped for didn't happen, and without realizing it, I started believing a lie that the desires of my heart weren't safe in His hands; I could do better, I could keep them safe myself. I have felt God's peace and presence, but haven't been allowing myself to feel His compassion, to feel the way His heart was breaking for me, even as He delighted to welcome my father home. Without realizing it, I convinced myself He wasn't worthy of my trust. But this morning I was flooded with the realization of His understanding, of His aching on my behalf and of His desperation to have me put things back in their right place.

Remind me of your great Love, oh God. Remind me of your extravagant plans for redemption-- that you see the way this is coming together, and the failings of this broken world will not be the finale. Remind by turning my gaze toward the places where you have already woven blessing and flourishing out of my pain and confusion and help me to believe that I am safe in the hands of the Master Craftsman, Creator of all things good and beautiful. I do not want the illusion or burden of putting things in their place. You have called me to humble submission, to rest and confidence in you. Help me to live there, where things are in right order.

I've been really blessed to have really close relationships with five different girls who all have really close relationships with each other. It's kind of like any movie about any sisterhood you've ever rolled your eyes at, but it's like, real life. I genuinely love each of them for who they are and would lay my life down for anyone of them, but it's only compounded by the fact that each of us feel that way about all of the others. But anyway, enough of that mushy stuff.

The reason I started writing this is to say how much I love having a front row seat to watching their lives unfold. Lately, I've been so annoyed with all the forlorn under-employed, post-grad 20-somethings bitching through social media about being forlorn under-employed, post-grad 20 somethings, because guess what, you just have to figure it out! No one has answers for you that you haven't heard already, and you're just going to have to take what you know and work it out yourself. Yes, that whiny chorus of your peers is cuttingly accurate and being a grownup mostly blows, but how you respond to all of this is what makes you, you.

Out of my five friends, one went to school for accounting, and after working an accounting job for over a year, just decided she hates it. One fell in love with a girl in a band and moved to Arizona only to realize that with the tour schedule, her girlfriend doesn't really spend much time in Arizona. So she's been flying all over creation to make things work and trying hard to find a job and carve out her own space. One went to Spain to be an au pair and when that didn't work out, she got a temp job in Texas and now she's moving back to Omaha to find Lord knows what awaits her. One just broke up with a boy for whom she'd stayed in Manhattan, KS (aka BFE), and now she's on to Chicago for bigger and better (and scarier) things. One moved from Boston to LA and worked her ass off at Starbucks while looking for a "real" job, and then found one that she hates and now works her ass off at both.

While all of these wonderful women in their own ways could typify the under-employed, post-grad 20-somethings, they're all figuring it out!* And it's shitty, and it's hard because we're real people now and not just students and we have to figure out insurance and pay bills and register our vehicles, but sometimes I think people feel so lost in that sea of responsibility that they don't realize they're swimming! By God, your head is above water! Even if just barely, even if waves still catch you off guard sometimes and your legs are tired, you are kicking and you are winning more than you're losing, and you're learning how to do this and you're becoming who you want to be! I have known these girls collectively since high school and some of them since elementary school and never in all of those years have I so clearly watched their best choices and their sheer will to figure shit out define them. These are growing pains. I believe the struggles will only change, but they will always be there. And maybe that's why I have so little patience for people complaining about this stage in life, because those people who just sit there and do that will always be able to find things to complain about. But I am in love with these girls whose will to grapple back with the challenges of being a person so gracefully suits them. I am inspired by them and I am blessed to have them in my corner and to be in theirs and I can't wait to see who these struggles make us.



*I too, am figuring it out. I am salaried with benefits and have no reason to complain about my job, but with married life and another move on the horizon, I feel equally lost-at-sea.

"You will see what I am doing."

Lately, (for obvious reasons) I've been thinking a lot about marriage. Taking on the role of "wife" is both exciting and daunting. I believe the job will require a kind of investment and selflessness that I can't even imagine through my lens of singleness. I've been thinking about the kinds of things our culture and media say about love and marriage and the kinds of things our God tells us about marriage. Instead of being wrapped up in butterflies and happily ever afters, I'm trying to focus my eyes tightly on Jesus and walk hand in hand with Him. I have been coming to a new understanding of covenant and commitment and grace and action.

There is a marriage prayer by Dr. Louis H. Evans that my dad had adapted and read at every wedding he preformed. In fact, he and my mom used pieces of it in their vows to each other 25 years ago. There are pieces of the original my dad didn't include in his abridged version, and so I've created a hybrid of the two that I'd love for Deena to use at our wedding. I've been praying over it a lot as Jon and I prepare for the next steps in our journey with Jesus.

O God of love, you have established marriage for the welfare and happiness of humankind. Yours was the plan and only with you can we work it out with joy.

Bless this husband. Bless him as provider and sustain him. May his strength be her protection, his character be her boast and her pride, and may he so live that she will find in him the honor that the heart of a woman deserves.

Bless this loving wife. Give her a tenderness that will make her great, a deep sense of understanding and a great faith in you.

Teach them that marriage is not living merely for each other; it is two uniting and joining hands to serve you. Give them a great spiritual purpose in life. May they seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the other things shall be added unto them.

May they not expect that perfection of each other that belongs alone to you. May they minimize each other’s weaknesses, be swift to praise and magnify each other’s strengths, and see each other through a lover’s kind and patient eyes. 

Now make such assignments to them on the scroll of your will as will bless them and develop their characters as they walk together. Give them enough tears to keep them tender, enough hurts to keep them humane, enough of failure to keep their hands clenched tightly in Thine, and enough of success to make them sure they walk with God.

Now their joys are doubled since the happiness of one is the happiness of the other. Their burdens now are halved since when we share them, we divide the load.

May they never take each other’s love for granted, but always experience that breathless wonder that exclaims, ‘Out of all this world you have chosen me.’

When life is done and the sun is setting, may they be found then as now still hand in hand, still thanking God for each other. May they serve you happily, faithfully, together, until at last one lays the other in the arms of God. 

This we ask through Jesus Christ, Great Lover of Our Souls. Amen.

Give of rest, bringer of peace, easer of burdens, source of all life and joy be close to us. Tune our hearts to your presence. Let all that is within us and around us sing your praise in all circumstances. You hold us close and you hear the cry of our hearts. When we are in desolate places you call water out of the rocks. When we are pressed, we are not crushed. When we face fire and flood, you make a dry path and we are not burned. You refine us and you are our great abundance. Your grace will sustain us. Go before us and level the mountains. In all trial may we cling to you. Give us rest for our souls. Teach us tenderness. Let us daily dress in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Let us overflow out to each other what you have poured out to us, that we would endure with one another, forbearing and forgiving as freely and fully as you have done for us through great sacrifice, out of love and promise keeping. Bend our knees to you out of reverence and awe and gratitude and surrender and submission. Restore right order to our lives and fullness to our hearts. Let the cry of the story of our lives be: Come and see what God has done for us! He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. How awesome are his works on our behalf.

“Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies… What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever… 

Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:

     “Death is swallowed up in victory.
      O death, where is your victory?
      O death, where is your sting?”

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

1 Corinthians 15:43-44, 50, 54-58

I’m going to live like I believe God would not withhold the best of what He has created from me. I’m going to believe that as the source of all meaning and joy and the creator of all pleasure, that He knows what’s up. And I will do my best to glorify Him in all things.

God, thank you for the blessing of a joyful heart in all circumstances. Carry me through whatever comes next. I cherish the blessing of close hugs, laughing until it hurts, friends who let me shout stupid things and be silly, and a love that not only survives but thrives from 7,000 miles away. Your run loves deep, Lord, let me swim in it in every season of my life. Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.

Fall moves in like a settling. Everything sinks and shifts and sighs.
My mug into my hands,
I into my chair,
The leaves onto the earth,
The darkness into the evening,
The clouds onto the mountain.

She is surrounded by that fluffy sheet in the morning,
As I snuggle beneath the down,
I emerge porcelain,
Graced with goosebumps from the open window
That chase away any sign of the Summer’s seasoning on my skin
She emerges clothed in snow
I believe she is more beautiful now
And so there is pride in the season’s pale
For it is not a fading;
Trees light up like torches in orange,
And my eyes ignite with laughter and reflected burning logs.

The thickness of socks and the sleeves of my sweater,
The whole home warmed by the oven’s treats,
The crispness of mornings and sweet spice of cider.

There’s wonder to the earth awakening in Spring,
But the twilight and drowsiness world before winter
Is comfort like a lovers with heads laid on pillows
Before they slowly drift to sleep.

Remember that none of the challenges you come to catch me by surprise. You feel overwhelmed and discouraged because you had hoped for an outcome that you did not receive; but I am never caught off-guard by the outcomes, and the only thing I ever have to hope for, dear one, is that you trust me, because everything else is under my authority. Place your life and plans under my authority as well, and you will be at peace because then your hope will be in me and not outcomes.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

I don't feel as strong as people seems to think I am.

You can imagine that if you had to hold something heavy above your head how your arms start to quiver and feel like they're made of jello. And in your fatigue you would just want to let it go and lay down and rest your aching muscles.

I am trying to keep things from pressing in on me. People have commended me for my ability to do so, but I just want a break from being strong. I just want a few sequential days where I don't have to bind myself up and hold it together.

Today is not a sad day. Today my father was supposed to by laying in a hospital bed with two twelve inch rods in his back, recuperating from a risky surgery, never again able to tie his shoes.

Instead, today he walked to the car and we drove home from the hospital and ate dinner together around the table and played with the dog in the living room.

The road ahead is uncertain, but the battle is the Lord's, and we will march toward it worshiping with abandon.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, "Your threat means nothing to us. If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king. But even if he doesn't, it wouldn't make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn't serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up."
Nebuchadnezzar, his face purple with anger, cut off Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace fired up seven times hotter than usual. He ordered some strong men from the army to tie them up, hands and feet, and throw them into the roaring furnace. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, bound hand and foot, fully dressed from head to toe, were pitched into the roaring fire. Because the king was in such a hurry and the furnace was so hot, flames from the furnace killed the men who carried Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to it, while the fire raged around Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Suddenly King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm and said, "Didn't we throw three men, bound hand and foot, into the fire?"
"That's right, O king," they said.
"But look!" he said. "I see four men, walking around freely in the fire, completely unharmed! And the fourth man looks like a son of the gods!"
Nebuchadnezzar went to the door of the roaring furnace and called in, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the High God, come out here!" 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked out of the fire.
All the important people, the government leaders and king's counselors, gathered around to examine them and discovered that the fire hadn't so much as touched the three men—not a hair singed, not a scorch mark on their clothes, not even the smell of fire on them!
Nebuchadnezzar said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him! They ignored the king's orders and laid their bodies on the line rather than serve or worship any god but their own."

The God whom I serve is mighty to save and to heal. But even if he doesn't, I will not bend my knee. I will not be ruled by fear or intimidation. I will worship only the one True and Living God and I will bend my kneed to nothing else. In the midst of all things, Lord, I want people to look at the way we respond and say, "Servants of the most High God, I have whiteness your trust in Him and I have seen His presence with you. May that living and saving God be forever glorified."

You are not shouldering this alone. Believe that no matter how deceptive your feelings may be.

I know you feel like you are losing time. You are grieving over the feeling of loss. But I need you to remember that my economy of time does not work like yours. What you give up to me is not gone to waste. I can do abundantly more with what you put into my hands than you can do holding on to it yourself. Work actively and persistently on relaxing your heart in my hands. Try not focus on what you feel you are losing, remember that it is mine and what is mine is not lost. I will bring you through this season-- and it is only a season. You've known cloudy, cold Winters that seemed endless, but there was always Spring. I am at work right now. I am not ignoring you. I am present in this. There will be so much blessing from this season of patience and faithfulness. Despite all of your feelings, the only thing you are missing out on right now is the comfort of my presence. Be in it and remember that all time is in my hands.

God, help me feel assurance that you know what you’re doing and that the timing of all of this is in your hands when it is most certainly not in ours. Let me rest in the comfort of knowing you are good. Help me daily (hourly, moment by moment) to find contentment and joy in you. Grow in me patience and perseverance. Let our longing be for your will more than each other. Strip from me the idea that I am a sprinter, anxious on the starting line, and replace it with an image of following your lead in a dance together. Though I feel in my bones a crescendo coming, this stiller movement is still apart of the choreographed beauty of the whole piece and is far from an end or a beginning. Help me feel the rhythm you are asking me to move in and the closeness of you guiding me. I praise you for blessings and answers to prayers that are already on their way. I lay the desire of my heart at your feet.

Last night, Jon and I were talking about insecurities. As I was telling him how safe and secure he makes me feel, it led to a conversation about why I haven't felt secure or safe in other relationships. As I told him these stories my heart ached, partly with the pain of the stories, but also because I wanted to apologize for letting people treat me poorly and for treating myself poorly. I wanted to apologize for believing lies that were spoken to me in word and implication and for speaking lies to myself. I wanted to apologize for accepting lesser love than what was waiting for me. I wanted to apologize not because he was asking me to feel guilty about any of these things, but because, though I've grown a lot into the truth, there are still small ways in which those hurts keep us from being closer right now and I wish there was nothing coming between us at all. Our conversation continued to ways we can grow through them together. 

Then it hit me: this is how God feels, only so much more because He loves me perfectly the way no one on this earth ever will, and He created me to be close to Him. I have given my heart to lies and lesser love when the security and safety of the unfailing love of the God of the universe awaited me. God doesn't desire me to feel guilty but aches because these lies have gotten in the way of my understanding His love for me, His great and perfect love where I am to be free from insecurity and shame because He holds no judgement of me. 

It made me reflect back on something I read in This Momentary Marriage when John Piper looks at Adam and Eve being naked and without shame in Eden:

"I can be free from shame for two conceivable reasons: One conceivable (but unreal) reason is that I am perfect and have nothing to be ashamed of. The other reason I could be free from shame is that even though I am imperfect, I have no fear of being disapproved...
Marriage was designed from the begining to display the new covenant between Christ and the church... The very essence of this new covenant is that Christ passes over the sins of his bride. His bride is free from shame not because she is perfect, but because she has no fear that her lover will condemn her or shame her because of her sin.
This is why the doctrine of justification by grace through faith is at the very heart of what makes marriage work the way God designed it. Justification creates peace with God vertically, in spite of our sin. And when we experienced horizontally, it creates shame-free peace between an imperfect man and an imperfect woman."

I want to abide in the love of Christ without shame and I want to come to an understanding of what His love for me looks like without the pollution of the lies I have believed about love and about myself before, and I want to stretch that out horizontally in the way I love others around me. I want to love them in a way that speaks of the Truth into their life and not lies.