Family

family in the car

family outside

family inside

family everywhere

Family Footage

Does your family ring colored handbells to Christmas songs at Thanksgiving?

Doubt it.

My Cherokee and Me

Most days I feel a lot like my car.
Square.

Even after four years of having it
I still cannot manage to park gracefully.
its more like an awkward little tango in between drive and reverse
you want to look away, but you can’t help but watch.

And when I’m finally in between those two intimidating white lines
I’m still a little sideways
I try to straighten out
but often end up raising my white flag and giving up
its just so hard to park a box.
I’m still learning it.
I feel this is an appropriate analogy to my life.

Most mornings I wake up feeling like I have a grip on life,
how I think, how I process information, how I handle things…
But then the day starts
and I have to interact with other people.
This is when I begin to feel much like a 12 year old.

As the day goes on, I realize there is much I still need to master
like remembering to grab napkins before I sit down to eat,
and learning to have a successful conversation without misplaced humor
and establishing an adult-like morning routine (that includes breakfast),
and not feeling the need to say “I’m sorry” or “does that make sense?” when I speak
and not pressing snooze sixteen times
and learning to daydream with my mouth closed
and eventually, figuring out which fruits are in season,
I end the day really wanting to wave that same white flag

I think maybe once I’ve conquered these things,
I’ll finally feel like I’m making the transition to being an adult.

but the list is miles long.
and I’m not even sure I’ve made a small dent in it yet.

So here I sit.
Dreaming of the day when I will nonchalantly glide into a parking space in one fatal swoop, look at you with confidence and say, “Oh, Oranges? They’re a winter fruit.”

Oh, someday.

gentle

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 29:11

So I know that God is all things.
He possesses all qualities.
All of what is good and just and beautiful and holy and perfect...

But my brain cannot place all of these qualities on Him at once
I cannot comprehend Him being all things at one time.
So I learn the qualities one by one
depending on the season in life I am in.

For months now I’ve been learning God’s sovereignty
resting in it, wrestling with it, questioning it, being put in my place by it

But, amidst this I forgot that God is gentle.
He feels what I feel
He hurts when I hurt
And He wants me to rest.
He grants me strength to move forward
but He also commands me to be still.
Be still and know He is a gentle God
Who can romance me if I’m quiet enough.

I think its about time I allow Him to pursue me this way.

Days of October

this is October, everyday, straight from the pages of my journal.

October 1: One day I’m going to learn to be myself. I would love to figure it all out at once, but I don’t think that is how this works. So I’ll make it a day-by-day thing; one simple truth at a time. What I learn everyday. Something silly, something deeper, something I’ve always known, something new. Here we go October:

October 2. I am not my own
October 3. When we are broken, we are teachable.
October 4. You can’t grow spiritually without heavy doses of self-discipline
October 5. My attitude will affect those around me.
October 6. Moving forward is a choice.
October 7. Experiencing God doesn’t always come with emotion.
October 8. You can see how much hurt there is if you pay attention to what’s around you.
October 9. Ignoring the Holy Spirit never ends well.
October 10. The next part of life will not fulfill you
October 11. Wisdom can come from unlikely places
October 12. My time is not my own.
October 13. God often gives us more than we can handle.
October 14. Resting in Christ is not just beneficial, it’s required.
October 15. Its ok to Google simple recipes and laugh till you cry with a friend.
October 16. Honesty is difficult, but needed.
October 17. We choose the thoughts we pursue.
October 18. Simplicity provides prospective
October 19. The gospel shouldn’t be what I share; it should be the core of who I am
October 20. I have no excuse for not being bold
October 21. Isaiah 42.
October 22. There is a lot of beauty in quiet mornings, especially with coffee and Jesus.
October 23. Quality time doesn’t have to involve a lot of words.
October 24. Running away solves nothing.
October 25. Friendships are something beautiful.
October 26. Pretending is exhausting.
October 27. Learning who people really are requires looking for what lies underneath their words.
October 28. Vulnerability needs no forethought or apology.
October 29. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer”
October 30. He is so much better
October 31. It’s ok to uninhibitedly dance around to Sufjan in the kitchen with people that you’d love to call family.

Spilled

Holding in honesty is like trying to plan where something spills

We conjure up these boundaries and finely lay them side by side, leaving just enough space in between for what we can comfortably share. Behind the first line is what we should have told, the things that gnaw at our hearts in odd places and make us uncomfortable, things we are too embarrassed to share because of how it may make us look, the things we write down in our journals over and over again thinking that will satisfy the need to scream them. Over the second line is too much said. The deeper things we hoard away. The ones we don’t write in journals in fear of who might find them, or truly, in fear of being forced to stare at them written in our own handwriting, validating that its part of who we are. In between are the things we say; the words we can let dance across our tongues and into the ears of another with ease and composure.

But that is not real life.

It goes like a glass falling off a table: sudden, unplanned and messy; sparked by a question or rabbit-trailed thought. Landing behind lines, over lines, and into spaces and laps that we never planned for. Sharing too much and too little at the same time. Desperately trying to contain the spill, we run over with anything that will soak it in before it is seen, before it leaves stains or seeps into memory. The broken glass that it came from is always an afterthought. It is over to the left in ten pieces reflecting over its prior contents from ten different angles and in a new and much brighter light. The view is different from here, much more transparent. We tell others not to move, staring at fragility and trying to figure out how to pick up its sharp and raw pieces without causing anymore disturbance or pain. We place the big pieces aside; sometimes with intent to fix, other times knowing it is a lost cause. The small fine pieces lie still and drowning in the aftermath of the spill, too often they stay there, too small to see, but still large enough to feel. We call them consequences.

Post-spill there is always an apology. We are sorry that it fell. Sorry that we did not catch it sooner. Sorry that it spilled on someone else. Sorry that it deferred attention from something more important. Sorry that it made us the center of attention.
Sorry and we do not know why.

But the truth is, this kind of vulnerability needs no forethought and requires no apology.
It is desperately needed; a release of what we were never meant to hold in alone.
So there we spill, with purpose, with divine plan, into the hearts and tears of others.

And there we are covered in a prayer and held by comforting hands.
We stay for a while, and then forward we go.
Knowing that this will happen again, because it is meant to.

How naïve of us to think that it should go any differently.

This is my friend Caitie

Today we are having perfect days

and we wanted to blog about it together.

the end.