Ready

My mind is a swirling mess of random to-do lists.  People to contact for address changes, things that need to be purchased right away, boxes I need to pack (and move), and rooms that need to be cleaned before the true unpacking can start.  Then I get to unpack and move in an entire home.  On the same weekend as kick-off for church and my 20 mile run.  Joy.

I’m overwhelmed and beyond excited.  New house, new furniture, new chapter.  Although my attention span is probably half of what it used to be because I can’t seem to concentrate on anything for too long before I start seeing lists and IKEA furniture in my mind.  I’m hopeless.

I’m literally days away from holding the house keys in my hot little hands.  I’ve already started packing boxes.  Who knew I had squirreled away so many things in that tiny space?! (this is just half of it)  The reality has set in, but in a great way.  I’m leaving something and I’m starting something new.  I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m ready to get this show on the road.

I tend to be a really patient person, but I'm starting to lose it.  My hopes go up with good news only to be dashed by no-news or extended expectations on the paperwork.  I'm anxious to move forward, sign the papers, and finally get my keys, but I'm at the mercy of the lender and their paperwork process.  I literally can do nothing.  Can't start my utility calls, can't inform insurance, can't buy appliances or furniture. I just have to sit here and continue waiting.

It all sounds so trivial in the grand scheme of things, but regardless, that's where I'm at right now.  Trying to focus on anything else during the wait and failing miserably.

A good friend

A year and a half ago I lost faith in friendships.  I was hurt in such a deep and profound way that I wondered if I would recover again.  I shut down for a while, and then I whirred back to life in almost an out-of-control fashion.  I was determined to fill my life with all kinds of friendships--solid friendships with people who genuinely wanted to be around me as much as I them.  But the goal was less on quality and more on quantity.  I would not let the past repeat itself.  Like the last little bit of jelly in the jar I spread myself thin.  At some point I sat down, exhausted with all the running around and wondered how my current situation solved the initial problem.  There was still the remnant of pain, just overshadowed by all-consuming busyness.

I did a little analyzing, sorting through, and figuring out who actually was on my "home team" and I made a wonderful discovery.  Underneath the madness and chaos of my "as many friends as possible" game plan, I realized a beautiful friendship developed.  I didn't appreciate it for what it was until I took the time to slow down and let it reveal itself to me.  The constant busyness (that I still struggle with) clouded the glass.

I heard God say that it's time to journey into the next chapter.  Thankfully I have a good friend to journey with.  The pain of loss never really goes away, sort of like a dull ache, but the beauty of rebirth and revelation at what's right in front of your face is breathtaking.

Today I am thankful for friends.  Not just the commonplace acquaintances who ask how you are but don't really care, but the life-changing, "I'm always here, even in the middle of the night" friendships.  The people who make life brighter by just being around.  Thanks Megan :)

From the overflow.

From the overflow I find myself.

An overwhelming sense of community surrounds me.

I'm home.

I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

And tonight I'm reveling in that fact.

I've been journeying through the dessert lately, learning some important lessons.  But I'm starting a new chapter now; I felt God saying that it's time to move forward.  I'm ready now and I'm excited for what I can see coming up in the near future.  Some new challenges for sure, but blessings as well.

I love this chorus.  It perfectly expresses how I feel right now. (Here in Your Presence)

"Here in Your presence, we are undone
Here in Your presence, Heaven and Earth become one
Here in Your presence, all things are new
Here in Your presence, everything bows before You."

I'll openly admit that I'm profoundly attached to Salem Alliance.  All I have to do is walk in the doors and I start to feel alive and growing.  I love the staff, the people, the culture, and the community.  I could literally hang out there forever, it's like I'm drawn there.  I'm immensely proud to call Salem Alliance my church home.  We've got "it" for sure.

God is doing some great work in Salem-Keizer, and to be able to see His handiwork and the results of His people serving those around them is truly amazing.  Despite staying up all night, working in the morning, packing in the afternoon, and some incredibly short cat naps in between, I was able to spend the evening at the Broadway Commons Grand Opening.  A celebration and building that I have been waiting for for a long time.  A co-mingling of church, commerce, and community.  A bridge to the neighborhood and a light for the lost and lonely.  A place to belong.  Broadway Commons is a beautiful extension of the Salem Alliance vision, and a new way to "show" faith.  I love it.  Plus, there are enough couches and seating areas for everyone.  I plan to test them all out soon with meaningful conversations.  

That building will be used and loved.  A welcome place for the weary and the wary.  A place I plan to visit often.  I seriously cannot wait.

Idols on the shelf

My mom had a knack for choosing interesting punishments during my childhood.  In fact, I should probably attribute my Latin Honors in college and my organizational genius to the fact that all throughout my childhood, punishments always included a book report and a cleaning project.  My mom was a kindergarten teacher for years and therefore had access to an entire library full of books titled after fruits of the spirit or other character-building themes.  There was also a special book called "getting along with your sibling" that I probably wore out the binding to along the way...

When I was three years old, I refused to clean up my room.  I'm sure I was somewhat of a tiny terror, but stubbornness runs deep.  At this point in my childhood though, book reports weren't quite possible.  So what do you do with an unruly three year old who refuses to clean up her toys?  Well, take them all away and put them on the shelf in the closet, out of reach.  I remember sitting at the door of the closet crying my eyes out.  I earned each toy back by learning to keep it in its proper place in my room.  One toy each day until I had them all back.  A punishment that will always stay with me.

A friend lent me a book on Sunday Walking with God by John Eldredge.  It was exactly what I needed to read at the exact right time.  Here are some excerpts I was struck with last night while reading.

"We give our hearts over to so many things other than God.  We look to so many other things for life.  I know I do.  Especially the very gifts that he himself gives to us--they become more important to us than he is.  That's not the way it's supposed to be.  As long as our happiness is tied to the things we can lose, we are vulnerable.

And so God must, from time to time, and sometimes very insistently, disrupt our lives so that we release our grasping of life here and now.  Usually through pain.  God is asking us to let go of the things we love and have given our hearts to, so that we can give our hearts even more fully to him.  He thwarts us in our attempts to make life work so that our efforts fail, and we must face the fact that we don't really look to God for life.

Until God has become our all, and we are fully his, we will continue to make idols of the good things he gives us."

We fear vulnerability, yet our actions incite vulnerable and potentially painful situations from the get-go.  We don't want to be hurt or go through pain, but we've set ourselves up for it.

I've had many things taken away over the years, some more painful than others, but none of them easy.  I, like a little child, tend to grip certain areas of my life a little too tightly.  I let things, or relationships, or expectations become idols in my life and I refuse to loosen my grip on them.  So periodically, God has to step in and take it all away from me.  Pry it out of my fingers and put it out of reach, but not out of sight.  Never a fun lesson, but something I must learn from anyway.

And sometimes I think I just need those closet-door-crying incidents to shake me up a bit and make me realize that when God takes things away it's only because He knows what's best for me.  Albeit painful at the time, growth follows the pruning.

Bradley Alan's Wedding

Two days, copious amounts of food, countless glasses of wine, a Catholic ceremony, an ocean of tears, an amazing amount of laughter, and an army of guests pretty much sums it up.

Today I celebrated my brother's wedding day.  It's pretty hard to believe that my little brother is actually married.  Seems like just yesterday we were playing Donkey Kong out in the back yard with the neighbors or having late-night study sessions in high school.  Somewhere along the line he grew up.  We grew up.  He met an absolutely fantastic woman, graduated college, and got married.  I couldn't be happier for him.  Truly, I couldn't.  It's still just a little bittersweet.

Instead of a passé unity candles or sand, they tapped into their truly geeky engineering cores (He's a chemical engineer and she's an environmental engineer) and created a unity ceremony that really embodies "them".  They poured chemicals into a vase, and they both playacted as they did it.  Safety goggles and all.  Quite comical.

I had hours and hours to sit around, visit with people, take pictures, and generally just let my mind wander.  Of course I came up with several thoughts, some of which I'll share.

*I'm destined to cry through every wedding that I attend (as long as I know the couple).  That's just a fact.  Apparently even Brad's groomsmen could see the waterworks. **sigh**  What's even more interesting than the actual tears is the emotion behind the tears.  What is it that brings us to tears when we're so happy?  What are we actually crying about?

*There are always wedding mishaps.  People missing at just the wrong time, frosting that melted right off the cupcakes onto the tablecloth, and the groom and his groomsmen spending the night before the wedding sleeping in a Christmas tree farm.  It is these moments that will remain memorable.  These moments are what bring character to a wedding. You'll always remember the quirky moments.  Love them for what they are.

*Weddings have a tendency of bringing people back together.  Uniting families and friends after long or short periods of separation.  Or just bringing two new families together in a strange, but beautiful new patchwork.  Something about all the love at a wedding makes you appreciate what you have and miss what you don't.  I got to see extended family from both sides of my family today AND I gained a new family (plus an awesome new sister!).  I think I came out ahead today.

*Emotional events can make you want to do two things.  Rush on ahead or slow down and savor.  I hate to admit that I tend to to the former.  Beautiful moments are sometimes only possible when you slow down enough to realize they're right in front of your face.

 

*Hugs and "Congratulations!" are acceptable ALL day long.  Everyone is feeling a little giddy and nostalgic, so just embrace it--literally. 

*And finally, love is worth waiting for.  Sure sure, I knew this already.  But someday, some guy is going to look at me like my brother looked at Katie, and it'll all be worth it.  Every last minute of waiting.

Be careful what you ask for

Monday morning.

As I got into my car this morning all I could think about was how much I would rather be reading this book I started last night (Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster).  A pretty typical Monday morning thought.  I turn on the car and start driving to work, but I can already tell that my car is handling in a strange way.  Sometimes you can just feel the changes even if you're unable to articulate them.  Something was wrong, but I hoped that it was just the tires interacting with the new rain on the road from last night.

Several blocks later I start hearing a thumping noise.  Uh oh.  That's a problem.  I pull into the Roth's parking lot to inspect and there is a fine specimen of flat tire looking back at me.  How perfect for a rainy Monday morning, right?

An incredibly nice man in the parking lot offered to put my (rusty) spare on for me.  He must have seen the lost and confused look in my eye.  Sometimes that look comes in mighty helpful, because while I'm sure I could change a flat tire if necessary, there's absolutely no guarantee that it wouldn't take me several hours to do so. 

I drive straight to Les Schwab and have them check the tire.  What do you know, looks like someone decided to slash my tire last night.  Maybe they were upset the weekend was coming to a close??  No way to repair it and vandalism isn't covered on the warranty.  Excellent.

I sat in the waiting area at Les Schwab as I received a text from my brother.  He wanted to know how I was doing with the whole thing.  Honestly, I felt great, relaxed and peaceful.  In fact, I think it's more than irony that I asked to be able to read my book this morning and got just that, a mini-vacation.  Which makes the whole morning more of a blessing than anything else.  Interesting how God works.

I find myself in the overflow of God's love and provision this morning.  Flat tire and all. 

Full life or Full schedule?

A full schedule does not equal a full life.

There I am, sitting in a park, reading a phenomenal book (Bittersweet by Shauna Neiquist) and BAM, convicted.  Is my frantic schedule really the asset I sometimes see it as?  Or is over scheduling and filling in every time slot really just a sickness?  The point hit hard, especially when I realized that I time slotted "reading a book" into my schedule between appointments lest I waste any part of my day...

Here's a snippet from the book:

"I love it when a day's activities stack up on top of each other perfectly, from breakfast to work to lunch to grocery shopping to coffee, all the way through till I fall into bed.  I love days when you're always leaving something early to arrive just a touch late at the next place, like pearls on a string or Tarzan swinging on vines, feed never touching the ground.

Or really, I love the idea of that way of living, so I sign myself up for it every chance I get.  And then I realize in the moment that it isn't what I wanted at all.  After a while, I'm frantic and tired and not really listening when people are talking.

I've been around this block a thousand times.  I'm ravenous, and life looks to me so sparkly and beautiful, waiting to be devoured like a perfect apple.  So I say yes, yes to everything.  It's so delicious, and I don't want to miss out on even one moment of it.  And that's the point.  I miss all sorts of sacred and significant moments, because of my frantic insistence that I can do it all, and that I don't have to miss anything."

This whole lesson dovetails with another chapter in the book about realizing who is on your "Home Team".  The people you're closest to, the ones who let you see them without makeup on and feel comfortable enough to get themselves a glass of water in your house without asking.  These are the people that should be the priority, but sadly that's not always the case.  Sometimes I allow those who "need" me or those who persistently ask for my time to take all of my free time instead of pouring into my Home Team first. 

So perhaps it's time for me to sit down and figure out exactly who is on my Home Team, and create a little more dead space in my weeks.  Waking up and dreading days because of never-ending activities isn't working out.  It's time to work on intentional scheduling and intentional relationships (with fewer people).