So long Prince Charming

This is my declaration.

I do not want Prince Charming.
I do not want to be rescued,
or found.
I do not want to be admired, fawned over, praised,
or respected for my extraordinary beauty.
I do not want to hear how I am already beautiful
even though I don't have the right curves, right clothing, right skin, or right BMI.


Because Prince Charming implies
that I must be the princess of the fairy tale.
Because being rescued implies
that I was in harm's path.
Because being found implies
that I was lost.
Because being admired for my beauty implies
that I am my looks.
Because saying that I'm beautiful despite my lack of rightness implies
that there is a standard of beauty.


I am not the fairy tale princess.
(I do more than sleep, sing, and look pretty)
I am not in harm's path.
(I am also capable of getting out of harm's way if by chance I ever am)
I am not lost.
(I am taking the scenic route)
I am not my looks.
(I am a fully embodied human)
I am not less than a standard.
(I am me)


So, don't tell me how hot I am.
Don't tell me how sexy my body is.
Don't tell me that I'm the princess.
Don't tell me that you're Prince Charming.
Don't tell me.

Because I'm not gonna be listening.



** Edited on 13 March 2014: picture and formatting added**

Overflow: When tears become words

I am raw and broken.
I am a boat tossed in the sea.
Waterlogged and splitting, falling
apart as fiber after fiber
comes undone.

I can't continue, not without losing
the essence of who I am.
What do I do?
Do I surrender to the process?
Do I let myself be unmade in the
hope of being remade in a more
complete and whole way?
What do I do when what I thought
was my purpose is
no longer my purpose?

We talk about our desire to be
real, authentic, intentional.
But what do we do when the realness
is too much, when the unpolished
and ugliness of real overwhelms our persons?

Real requires time spent with the
pain and unpleasant as well as the
joyous and thought-provoking.
Real see the dissonances within living.
But what do we do when Real gets
too real?

I want to pull the mask up.
I want to pull away from Real.
Because...
Real is hard.
Real is brokenness.
Real is raw.

mother's day and the number fifteen

Today is Mother's Day. And as much as I want to, I can't be with my mom today. Somehow 1,300 miles is a little too far to walk in a day. So, I decided to celebrate my mom by dedicating this post to her.

I know everyone makes a big deal about how their mother is the best. But I don't think it has to be a competition. I think everyone has the best mother for them. I know that is definitely true for me. God gave me the mother that I have needed, am needing, and will need.

So, I thought I would share some of the reasons why I love my mom.

15 Reasons for Why My Mother Wins at Being My Mom
1. She taught me the meaning of not letting my education get in the way of my learning.

2. She showed me that music makes everything better.

3. She has stood in solidarity with me through many different medical sagas.

4. She gave me my quirky sense of humor that finds pink flamingos, duh-winning, and Funda Hundas hilarious.

5. She knows the importance of coffee, chocolate, and ice cream.

6. She gives me advice on everything yet shows confidence in my ability to make decisions.

7. She cooks delicious gluten-free food.

8. She taught me that the number of books to get from the library is limited only to the number you can carry.

9. She taught me that sometimes characters in movies and books can seem like real humans. (And sometimes you have to go visit your "friends".)

10. She has supported me when I said I wanted to pledge a sorority, transfer to a university 1,300 miles away, and go to a Broncos game while injured.

11. She sends a lot of care packages with things like chocolate vegetables and a birthday-party-in-a-box.

12. She covers me every day and night in prayer.

13. She has taught me that Jesus needs to be the center of my life.

14. She is not simply my mom but one of my best friends.

15. She loves me unconditionally.

I love you mom! I hope that one day I can be a mom like you!

Abba, thank you for mothers. Thank you for my mother. Thank you for showing me what unconditional love looks like!

highways, love, and dreams

My little sister is engaged.


and instead of celebrating with her, I'm crying at my own singleness.

and I hate myself for it.

I feel like the only one of my friends who is not in a relationship. Yet my logical side tells me that my feelings are lying to me.

I want to be in a relationship. And yet as I write those words, I feel shame because I think that means I'm not enjoying my period of singleness like I've been reminded to do by pastors, married women, and once-married women alike.

I hope to be married in the next five to ten years. Yet I think I am afraid of commitment.

Somewhere in the craziness of driving on the road called Life - going to college and making great memories and dealing with horrible illnesses and falling in love with Jesus - I seem to have spaced on what turnoff I was wanting to take. I feel like I just discovered that the road that I wanted to go on at some point in the future is nowhere to be found now. I've taken so many other great roads that have led me on a journey to this incredible city of Seattle, so why am I so attached to this one path?


If life is a highway as Tom Cochrane so eloquently put it, then I think I missed the turnoff that leads to a romantic relationship.

If life is a highway, then I've traveled down roads of medical issues that aren't supposed to be driven at the age of twenty-one.

If life is a highway, then I've found a way to drive slowly on the road of college.

If life is a highway, then I think I went off-roading.


I have to believe that I haven't missed the road for a relationship. I have to believe that it is somewhere in my future travels.

I have to learn to be okay with the fact that I may be exploring and off of the main road for a while. For whatever reason, it's not time for me to take the road to relationship. If only my heart would remember that life is not stagnant.

I am on a journey and every day brings something new.

Someday, Jesus will let me know that it's time to turn onto that road to relationship. But that day is not today. I have to wait and trust that the One who carried me through my desert storm has my itinerary and will be with me every step of the way.

Today, I choose to let Jesus drive. 
Today, I choose to sit back and relax and just enjoy the road trip. 
Today, I choose to see the beauty on the road that I am on. 
Today, I choose to not worry about the itinerary. 
Jesus doesn't need my help in navigating so,
today, I choose to let him take me on an adventure.

magic eight balls and chichés

This may not come as a surprise to you but I love technology. I could talk for hours about the pros and cons of social media for hours or the wonders of Facetime and Skype or how technology has changed the way we interact.

However, I have something specific on my heart.

"God only gives three answers to prayer: 1. 'Yes!' 2. 'Not yet.' 3. 'I have something better in mind."

http://spiritualinspiration.tumblr.com/post/9422565894/www-getoutthebox-org

This anonymous inspirational quote  has floated around this week in my Pinterest and Twitter circles. At first glance, it looks great: God doesn't say no to our prayers but sometimes has something else planned.

But I probably wouldn't be writing about it if I loved everything about it.

I have a problem with the fact that this quote implies that prayer is like a letter to santa: i want a princess pony and an A in chemistry and my grandma healed and the buffs to get a good coach and a boyfriend for the holidays and... No. Prayer isn't just listing off problems in your life that you want fixed. Prayer is so much more than that! Prayer is a conversation with the God of the universe. Which brings me to another underlying issue with the quote: it assumes that God is like a magic 8 ball with only three possible answers.

News flash: God isn't a magic 8 ball. He has so many different ways to answer prayer requests. We're limiting a limitless God when we say that he has three answers to requests.

Have you ever tried to carry on a conversation with someone who only responds with three different phrases? It doesn't go well. It isn't enjoyable to talk with someone who doesn't respond back. So why are we willing to limit our God to three responses?

Life is complex. As much as we would try to simplify it with simple clichés about answers to prayer and how good always comes from tragedy, our efforts don't make the complicated nature of life disappear. We need to learn to live life IN the complexities: to not give the pat response but instead admit that life is messy.

The only truth that I see weaved throughout all of the mysteries of life is that God is here. I don't have everything figured out and I probably never will but I choose not to hide the ugliness or paint over it with the happy brush of clichés.

May we discover the joy of being in conversation with God and the complexities of that relationship. May we discover limitless ways that God chooses to answer prayer requests. And may we learn to live within the complexities and see Truth weaved through it all.

thanksgiving and a list of thankfulness

In honor of Thanksgiving, I decided to make a list of everything that I am thankful for this year.

I'm thankful for:

• my mom and dad
• my sisters and their SO's
• my niece and her unconditional love
• being loved and cared for even when I'm far away
• my host family
• the little girls who freely give of their love and their hugs
• technology like Facetime and Skype that let me stay connected
• having my credits transfer in such a way that I can graduate 2 quarters early
• making new friends at school, at church, and around Queen Anne
• the billions of independent coffee shops
• surprise packages with everything but the dove bars
• hearts changed
• having food to eat
• having clothes to wear
• having a place to live
• my new church family at City Church
• my old church families at Legacy Chapel and Littleton SDA Church
• the women of my bible study who shower me with love and prayer
• the Starbucks near my house for the Clover, the coffees, and the baristas.
• a laptop and phone that work
• the mile walk from home to school that has improved my fitness
• being able to donate blood
• getting perfect scores on all three statistics tests
• being able to watch some of the broncos games on TV
• having a TV
• my ADX sisters and AGO brothers
• God-incidences that keep me alive and well
• being in the best health of my life
• two working ankles with no hint of weakness
• rain boots, rain jackets, and my umbrella
• life-changing experiences at GC College Camp
• the men and women who God has used to speak a word of truth into my life
• my best friend and her influence in my life
• the knowledge that I get to see my family and friends in 14 days
• being alive and out of my desert storm
• the peace that has come with knowing that Seattle is exactly where God wants me

There are so many other things I could add to this. There is so much that I am thankful for. The last two years have been the most difficult years of my life and to know that God has used those experiences for his benefit makes it all worth it.

Abba, I thank you for life. I thank you for carrying me out of my desert storm. Thank you for not leaving me there to die. I thank you for leading me to Seattle. I know you have a reason for me being here and I am thankful that you are in control. You truly are glorious. I glorify you. 

a memorial and thankfulness

Today marks one year since I started treatment for my Graves' Disease. Since that day in Seattle, Washington, I have gone through a lot of changes. Physical changes like my thyroid levels normalizing, the thyroid eye disease going into remission, and losing 75% of the weight I had gained over the course of my year from hell. Psychosocial changes like climbing out of the deep pit of depression and anxiety that the disease had brought, being aware of the fragility of life, pursuing my friends once again, and discovering that I am a creative and metaphorical woman. There are so many other ways that I have grown and changed in the last 365 days and I just know there will continue to be more and more changes as I continue on the road to full physical, mental, and spiritual health.

At Legacy this morning, Brant talked about making memorials, physical reminders of where I have been and what God has brought me through. So here is a little something that I wrote about my year from hell this evening.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!
It is because of you that I can praise you today!
You alone are the reason I can sing and dance!
You walked with me, holding my hand until I couldn't walk anymore.
And when I crumbled to the ground, unable to take another step,
you picked me up and carried me through the worst of the desert storm.
You carried me whispering that you had me and to rest in your arms.
You didn't leave me in the desert with the wind howling,
the dust swirling about, and the thunder and lightening hovering overhead.
No, you didn't leave me.
You lovingly took me in your arms, pressed my head to your chest,
whispered, "I've got you. Rest now." and started walking,
while the storm raged on.

editing and iron

In my English Composition class, we have do peer reviews for our essays. I haven't always been a fan of peer editing even though I've been doing it for nearly eight years. Today, one of my classmates and I were talking about peer editing and how we both liked a review that ripped our paper up rather than a review that was nice. Yeah, it sometimes hurts my feelings to see all of the problems that the reviewer wrote down, but I know without a doubt that my essay gets better because of the criticism.

It got me thinking at how similar that it is to my faith and having my brothers and sisters in Christ hold me accountable. Accountability can often seem like a negative thing. But God calls us to help each other grow closer to Him. Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." That is kinda like what a peer review does, it sharpens your essay.

So, may God use your brothers and sisters in Christ to sharpen your faith and may God use you to sharpen the faith of your brothers and sisters.

potty-training and persevering

Do you ever feel like all of your hard work is for nothing? My mom and I have had several experiences of that today between a macbook and potty-training.

Maybe how we react to those situations that interrupt our lives reveals what our faith is like. Maybe if our foundation is strong, instead of getting discouraged and giving up, we would get up and try again, trusting that God is in control. Perseverance is hard work! And sometimes it seems like a near impossible task! Between distractions and lack of focus, it is really easy to wander off and give up. Yet when we are in communication with God, he will give us the strength and focus to persevere through the tough stuff.