To Age.

Come Thursday evening around 8:30 PM, I will have circled the sun another year. I find myself, as a new birthday comes around each year, thinking more and more about where I am at that moment in comparison to where I was on the last birthday.

To say my twenties have been years of change and growth and pain and lessons learned would be an anticlimactic understatement. I remember turning 25 and writing a post about my quarter life crisis and have to laugh right out loud at what I said and what I thought and what I thought I knew. The coming years after that post was written were all situations of a hot mess. In all my 'I'm a graduate, hear me roar' musings, I had no idea who I really was - no idea who I really was supposed to be; so I guessed at who the world might want me to be and I went from there. I made poor decisions, I put myself in dangerous situations, and I found every opportunity to make fun of myself so as to distract people with laughter from the actual mess I really was.

Twenty-five passed and then came twenty-six. And I had learned some lessons; I'd even grown a little. But I just couldn't have fathomed a guess at what this last year would mean for me.

I met Jesus, again. Or, rather, He found me - wading waist high in deep shame and confusion over where I was and who I was supposed to be and nowhere to really turn to in order to figure that all out. He reached down and lifted me up and He took the fires I had been sleeping in, living through, and being scarred from and repaired this broken sinner's heart.

I moved out on my own. I moved out of that large corn field that had found me scared and scarred and running and directed my steps to the city. It was the scariest thing I've ever done - leaving behind my mom and dad and brother, sleeping in a house alone at night with only the traffic outside the windows to sing me to sleep, spending time alone - no TV, no internet, no noise to quiet the doubts swimming, smelling out weakness like bait, in my head.

I said no. I said no to settling and premarital sex and giving in to what I want over everything else. I said no to the girl who had long been fighting to resurface - for male attention and to become someone's wife and to not have to learn how to handle the sadness that creeps in dark and heavy without hesitation. I said no to habits that were trying to break above water, but needed to die. I said no to the girl who always talked about changing but never cared to really do much about it.

I've allowed forgiveness into my vocabulary. Steph, I forgive you for the sheets you tangled yourself in, for the risks you took with this one life and heart of yours, for always saying this would be the last time and, deep down, knowing it never would be.
I began to forgive friendships that had been left open-ended, but never rejuvenated. I began to forgive myself for being at fault for them. I forgave myself for loving someone who wasn't right for me, and what's more, I forgave him for not being who I needed and still coming around. I am forgiving - because it helps me to breathe deeper. It helps me to live, not merely exist.

In Anne of the Island LM Montgomery writes, "That's one of the things we learn as we grow older -- how to forgive." and I just couldn't agree more; life is too short to sit around holding things against people or making mountains out of inconsequential events when we should really be holding each other up and pushing each other forward.

I used to fear growing older. Admittedly, I still do. I often find myself trapped in the confines of a perpetual thought cycle that tells me I will have failed if I've not accomplish x, y, and z by the age of 30. And so that is my prayer -- that I would realize I shouldn't fear growing old - as it is a privilege denied to many; I pray that I would realize the beauty that comes from aging because there is beauty in knowing yourself better each day. Rachel Maddow says it well, "My life is better with every year of living it."
Surprisingly I find it difficult to disagree - standing here, mere days from another birthday, I recall the girl I was at 16, at 18, at 21, at 25 and I must fight off a shudder; there are still fragments of those girls resting within me now - I may find myself taken by surprise when a tidal wave of adolescent emotion gains the upper hand, but it will settle itself accordingly. I must not forget that to erase each piece of who I was then would be to devalue who I've become right now.

Ann Voskamp, my favorite blogger, wrote a beautiful piece and posted it today and she said something that just held my breath from me for a moment: There comes a time when your world gets quiet enough that all you can hear is the beating and the breaking of your one heart. You'd better still long enough to learn the sound of it and let it teach you. Or you won't know the rhythm of your only life (emphasis mine.)

I think that is what 26 has been for me - my world growing so quiet that all there is to hear is the splintering of a heart and the realization of the why's behind it; my 26th year has taught me to listen a little better - to what my soul needs, not to what the world will demand of me; to what will heal my heart best - not to what will make everyone else the most comfortable; to what my Savior says I deserve - not to what my 17 year old self desired. 26 found me wounded and broken and bitter and needy for the approval of a world that has no right or knowledge to give it; 26 leaves me repaired, on the mend, searching for the sweet nectar that is at the core of this life, and needy for the only One who can truly see me for exactly who I was, am, and will be and who chooses to love me wildly and without restraint anyway.

Come Thursday, I will not know what to expect of year 27 - only that there is this - change is okay, aging is exquisite, and there is soul shaking freedom in the letting go.

When Saying No is Bravest of All

Words have been on my mind a lot lately - but to be fair, words are typically in the swirling, wade pool of my thinker; the walls of my home are decorated with words - words to inspire, remind, to leave you wondering - to confirm just Who it is we belong to in this ever changing, sometimes hurtful world.

You see, for as long as I can remember, words have mattered to me; I am a self-proclaimed over analyzer and words are often at the very center of what I am over analyzing. In the growth of my love for words I found that it was through the medium of them that I would best be able to express myself -- however writing them always came much easier than saying them aloud.

As I have grown in my relationship with Jesus, I have come to understand how important words are to Him, too. Annie F. Downs says it better than I probably ever could in her book, Let's All Be Brave:

Our words always matter. If we go back to the book of Genesis, where the world began, we see that God started it all with words. He spoke, and things became. Light. Land. Lizards. All with a word.

Proverbs 18:21 explains it in a pretty rad way, too.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. (ESV)

And Proverbs 16:24 sheds light on the power of a word, as well.

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. (ESV)

So, yeah, words are legit. They hold power -- to destroy, to lift up, to restore, to turn a world upside down.

Admittedly, I prefer the sort of words that raise the spirit of a heart, that lend a face to smiling, but we do not live in a world in which words exist merely on one side of this spectrum.

I have lived the last 26 (soon to be 27) years of my life under the false assumption that bravery went hand in hand with being a 'yes' type of person. In fact, I spent the majority of my twenties in a perpetual state of nodding affirmation. Yes, I will stay in this relationship, even though it's damaging us both, because it's comfortable. Yes, I will talk back disrespectfully to my father because I am woman, hear me roar. Yes, I will share a bed with you, and you, and you -- because I'm grown, I'm an adult, I am fearless, I am worldly, I am experienced. And, why yes, of course, I will come when you call, I will ignore all the ways you are wrong for me, I will shed my clothing, and along with it, my dignity - because saying yes means I am braver than I've ever been before.

Yes can be good, guys. Yes can most certainly be brave. But there are distinct moments of my life in which saying yes was, unequivocally, the weakest, poorest word I could have uttered.
I can tell you about a time, when 25 found me beaten and broken and bruised, when saying yes was to pull myself up and let Someone show me that victory had been purchased on my behalf.

But instead, let's talk about saying no. What about saying no is displaying bravado?

But brave people learn to say no. Most people wouldn't think of saying no as a quality of someone brave. Saying yes is certainly the more heralded option, but sometimes saying no can be the tougher choice by far. (Annie Downs)

The last month of my 26th year has left me slayed open. I was given the opportunity to say yes to something I've long been in prayer for; I have spent countless hours crying on a grey pillow case and furiously filling journal pages with the desire for a season to change in my life. I had been given the chance to say yes to a relationship - one that would lead to marriage.

My heart wanted to accept joyfully.

Every fiber in my soul wanted to shake my head frantically in an up and down motion - yes, yes, YES! Yes to all this that I have prayed so diligently for.

Only, it wasn't exactly the sort of offer I had been in prayer over. And so, my lips whispered a word that didn't lace many conversations in the last few years of my life.

No can be brave. No can be the most painful, heart-wrenching, treacherous word a young, single woman will ever utter. This no was all of those things - backed up by hard, shoulder shaken, ugly cries, sleepless nights, and literal hollering out to the Lord.

But, it was brave.

I said no to honor the woman I've become and still am becoming. I said no to not shove hypocrisy over the face of every prayer I've uttered and penned. I said no because I am not a 17 year old girl any longer and it's really time I start behaving that way. I said no, and it was brave, because there is nothing comfortable or soothing about denying something to yourself that only feels right.

This no is brave because I am not only putting to bed my first love, my first sexual partner, the first boy who ever took a piece of my heart and kept it --

This no is brave because I am putting to death the girl I was. I am mourning the loss of a 17 year old girl who foolishly put all her hope in the hands of a boy incapable of doing anything remotely productive with them.

I am graveside at the burial of my former self.

Words have power -- they hold life and healing and hurting. They leave a mark far longer lasting than any scar of the epidermis.

No packs bravery. Within the no of this last month before 27 is the knowledge of Who I am saying yes to.

And therein lies everything.

Arise

So a lot seems to be happening in my life lately -- not of the new job, new man, new life variety, but changes all the same.

You see, I've been actively trying to NOT run to my mom and my girlfriends and food to fix the deep craters a broken world will leave on a heart.
Anyone who truly knows me knows that I am a talker -- vehemently against the silent treatment and avid activist of the 'let's talk it out' variety, I will typically talk any turmoil or possible high in my life to absolute death. I will talk and talk and talk in painful, swirling, over analytical circles to everyone before going to the One who can actually comfort me or heal me or help me.

But something has recently changed... I've been hitting my pen to paper before I hit my finger tips to a phone's touch screen. I have found myself closing a journal and Bible and feeling physical relief for a circumstance or pure, unwavering hope for what may, or may not, come.

I have come to realize that my heart wants and longs and desires and it will beat on in this rugged way with the same intensity I've seemed to have acquired since birth -- and if my heart's desires are fulfilled then glory be to God. & if my heart does not receive its desires then glory be to God, even still.

Because here is what has taken 26 long and longing and anxiety-ridden and love given and laughter inducing years to realize

{He knows what's better for me anyway}

I am a creature of habit and one of 'want it now and want it my way' -- & I've been given the privilege of years in order that I may look back and see that that attitude - had I have gotten this heart's desire now and my way - would have landed me deeper in a valley left wanting.

So these days, I tell Him what I want - because it's good to talk with your Father, but I realize, a little more each grace filled and grace given day, that if I don't receive what I so desperately want --right now-- there will come a day laced with tears and laughter and an 'okay, I see You, I really hear You, too' where I will see why, while every desire is deserving of being whispered in the ear of my Savior, it is not always detrimental to the furthering of my story. {because it all turns out for His glorious way, anyway}

Recently I met with a family to hear of their story and something the momma said has stuck with me:

"Everyone has pits they end up In - sometimes we are pushed into our pits, sometimes we're the ones digging the pit deeper, sometimes we start to decorate the walls of our pit and nestle in - but no matter what the circumstance of how we came to be in the pit, we should all be crying out loudly to be pulled back up."

I have carried the shovel around that founded my pit -- there are days in this life that I wear that shovel like an accessory around my neck for the sin-wrecked world to see; I have decorated the walls of my pit - quick to frame the promises I was too weak to call bluff on and then allowing them to mock me into a puddle of self-pity. I dug the holes so that I might climb deeper down - no one pushed me into the valley I so long called home & there was nothing comfortable about resting in my self -depreciation, yet I always brought my pillow and blanket and a snack.

But there came a day when hitting the snooze button on rising above what i had done and who I'd been was no longer an option. I screamed right out loud -- I'm still crying myself hoarse  --

& and I'm finally starting to see the puzzled fractures of a siren red and wanderlust violet horizon.

Raise Your Glass to Saturday Nights

I have heard before that if you want to make God laugh, you just need to tell Him your plans....

At 21, if you would have asked me what the end of my 26th year would look like, it would certainly not have included Saturday nights on my back porch with sangria and buttered carrots while my wee one of a dog ran around barking at every noise natured conjured up for her. But that is where I am.

In my days of college I remember bargaining with the Almighty, almost attempting to call His bluff on the regular - "Lord, you surely won't allow me to be single past 22." The statement remained the same with the age changing every year. At 25, it became 30; year 30 - that far off land of age where the entire world ends if one has not accomplished x, y, and z. And it's looming closer... And there are still moments where I stand - deer caught in the smoldering headlights - as I mark off all I've not accomplished and take a shaky, anxious breath at what lies before me and is left unknown.

I was never supposed to know what rejection would feel like, what quiet Saturday nights were made of - I was never going to be the sort of person who enjoyed a glass of wine by herself and, at times, craved the silence of a house with only the candlelight dancing; I was going to always be surrounded by people - the reason for laughter and joy and, of course, I would be someone's wife -- because I wasn't ever going to have to wonder why I was not being pursued.

I can hear the belly laughter of my Father from South Park right now. He is not mocking me, of that I'm sure - only wondering when I thought I got the memo that this life of mine was left in my charge. It never was.

I realize, as I sip sangria and let it roll hot down my throat, that if I had been given reigns to guide this life where I thought it should go, I would be a vastly different person than who is sitting here today -- I would have made poor choice after poor choice and found myself deep in a pit, probably asking myself, just where did I take a wrong turn?

You see, my twenties have turned out to be exactly NOTHING like what I had anticipated; I would be lying if I said there weren't stretches of hours, days, weeks of me disliking every moment - but I also have come to realize that the fractured times of crying out, getting pissed, and eventually hitting my knees were all a part of the plan to begin with.

I cannot regret the nights of quiet aloneness and I cannot begrudge my best friends who are a part if a couple and happy and I cannot, for one solitary moment, say that I sit in a state of joylessness.

God is good, gracious, great, and glorious. He is the same Father to me as He was to Ruth. He took care of His kids then and He continues to do it now.

I am ever changing and He is never changing -- Glory be to God.

So, cheers to you, quiet Saturday nights  - for what you've taught me, where you've brought me, and for what is yet to come.

Searching Secret Riches

"And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness - secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am The Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name." -Isaiah 45:3

The days have been long - the beginning of summer has brought back pain that is yet to be defined - so my days are a cacophonous repetition of shaking out Advil from a white canister, flattening a bag of frozen corn to press against the hurt, and whispered cries, while flat on my back, for the pain to subside.

Still, I believe there is purpose in everything. {we must live life to experience a restored life}

In the midst of healing a searing pain, I am waging war against matters that I simply cannot contain, fix, or handle with my simple, human hands. The days are heavy.

Still, I trust in a Savior who does not leave the beloved behind. {Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out.} 

I do not have answers - there are times I do not have the questions, either. Only a trembling fear of what wilderness I might need to wander through in order to come out of the woods.

Still, I fling mumbled, fumbled sentences and breathe, sigh-relieving, because only One knows the true language of my heart. {never once has our God left our story unfinished and unredeemed.}

I review the desires that lace a corset around my heart and I think of the tight yearning whispered and cried over when pen meets paper - and I consider those treasures, hidden in the darkness || as my house remains standing and guarded over and a caramel colored pup snores lazy and raspy at my feet || and I breathe deep in the waiting and count out five treasures I can graze with the tip of my fingers...

The days are long, the air is thick, and the eyes puff over tears shed and worries remaining and i slowly chant out into the darkness

{Christ comes to us, takes the mess of our lives, and makes it mean something.}

It is here, where the flesh is weak and failing, that the Spirit steps into the gap and raises you and me up.

Because Jesus wins. He is the victor.

{Hallelujah}




*italicized print (in order of appearance)  She Reads Truth, Ruth 3:18, She Reads Truth, She Reads Truth.*

See the Colors of Another Sky

I looked down at my feet in front of the perfect, white chapel and felt my breath hang caught in the middle of my throat. The air was sugar heavy and heated as it swirled with the mosquitos around my head. I felt like a small child seeing a new place for the first time - how was it that I had traveled to Georgia so many times before and never taken note of the red hues of the dirt that covered the land?

I put the toe of my sandal down into the dirt and traced swirls and curly q's over and over, again - just to see that the red was intentional and meant its color.

A family gathers in a wood floored chapel and a girl in white says "I do" to a boy whom she loves deeply. I recall looking over my shoulder behind me and seeing generations of families collected together on creaking, wooden benches and thinking about all the vows that have come before this moment; I think about the grandparents that aren't able to sit among their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren as a brunette girl with blue eyes whispers vows to that blonde boy in the coral bow tie.

Fans swat the warm air back and forth, back and forth across foreheads glistening with Georgia heat and I wipe tears threatening to rip down my face - and I see, for the first time, perhaps ever, that this is such a gift worth waiting for.

I think back to the red dirt at the foot of that church in the middle of this state I know so very little about - and I think about the pink and purple, candy colored sunsets I grew up looking at, but never really seeing, and how about those snow-filled Christmases and humidity-laden summers and here I am wishing away the now to get to the next part and just what exactly am I so hurried for? When that dirt is red and those sunsets are water colors in a sky and who exactly do I think I am to try to rush the One who created all these things and created each if us with such purpose - what is the dang gone hurry?

I sit in Dayton now - in a room with four walls that I have made my own and I am still thinking about that dirt; and I'm thinking about a tree that Mal and Casey poured soil into from each of the places they've called a part of home - and I remember that preacher's words - saying something fit and true like this tree would grow from the soil of the places that built each of them to create something new and of their very own. And isn't that just what all our lives are littered with? Moments of greatness and agony and the soil beneath our feet to help us remember where we came from and that will always compass us to where we need to go ...

The same God that breathed life into my lungs, has my name written on His hands, and gives me new chances each morning is the same One who paints the sky each night in a slew of hues of orange and pink and purple; He is the same God who made the dirt in Georgia red and  the air in Colorado dry; He is the same God who brought Mallory and Casey into each other's stories and He is the one who started my whole story with a high school senior named Max and a high school freshman named Sara.

Each night, He calls out the stars one by one, and they listen. And He closes doors for us that allow new beginnings to flourish and He is always writing, writing, writing and He never changes His mind.

I swirl my foot in that imaginary dirt and remember the soft melody that carried a new Mr. and Mrs. back down an aisle and I smile at the picture of all of us together - and this is what makes the world go 'round - this is want makes the world all right, again.

The one who can decorate the sky in sorbet-colored promises is the same One who can heal a wounded spirit and bring pieces of a heart from all over the states to one piece again. He made the cornfields grow and the dirt that deep red.

And while He was doing all of that and while He keeps it all thriving, He managed to change the map of a weary, broken heart - and He gives hydration to a dusty soul. And He will keep on fueling this broken world and allowing it to spin.

I'll sit in Dayton and dream about that dirt and smile at memories snapped by a camera and remember that a day should begin with intentional recognition of just all He is capable of - with wide-eyed wonder and pure glee at what He accomplishes.

Revelations in the Rain

Raindrops splatter and tap dance across the windshield of a van with Pennsylvania plates. Mother moon has kissed sister sun goodbye and the stars have been called out one by one -  75 South has never felt this smooth, this solemn.

Raspy voices stream seamlessly into the canal of my ear, singing of hair decorated with flowers and shadows on the walls. The man next to me used to be a boy with a clean shaved face and cowboy boots always on hand. With each mile marker we graze past I am reliving his maturation and shifting.

Semis hover too close and sleep plays hide and seek with me - it ever hiding and I ever seeking. It is too dark to read of dysfunctional families in the blackened van's interior and I find my thoughts wandering toward faces and expectations.

Who knew this is what the end of 26 might look like for me - but I am here, riding in a van with a family I no longer live with, but love and miss in a deep, aching chasm sort of way.

Mere months ago a long, darkened trip like this would've led me to think fondly on experiences that did not deserve the pedestal with which I had so gently, so gingerly placed them  upon. But this June has brought new breaths of life, new waves of thinking, and the same God to believe in, but with a  completely transformed trust to kneel before Him with.

I may remember blue eyes and roughened hands, but with a sense of complete removal - they no longer create longing and loneliness within me - they are simple a part of a past  that was the catalyst for my present.

Southbound on 75 and the windshield wipers slap a rhythm only the night can keep time with. Strings and drums and creaks of a voice fill my eardrums and my eyelids flutter and then are left wide open. I can't tell how many miles this white van has laid down, but with each new exit sign up ahead I succumb to the humidity dancing outside of my window and exhale a little easier knowing I can only move toward a mind clearer of lies and confusion.

Each mile marker we graze past I realize I'm less of that little girl who sought so much in places and people who could only give a little. Hallelujah.