when it becomes too personal

There are times when the material that one is studying becomes personal.

There are times when the scripture passages that one is studying become intensely personal.

There are times when you leave class completely raw because the material hit too close.

There are times when you just want to curl up in a ball and let the tears flow.

There are times when you aren't sure if you can do this because it's too personal.

There are times when all you have is raw pain and too much emotion.

Tonight is one of those times.

I wish I could find some way to neatly resolve the pain. I wish I could not feel the pain or at least find a way to separate it from the rest of my being. I wish I could delete these memories from the memory bank. Why do I have to deal with the gray of ambiguity? Why can't I turn off the memories of shame and helplessness and guilt? Why am I still raw so many years later? Will it ever end? I don't know the answers. And to be completely real, I probably never will.

For tonight, I'm going to be raw, emotional, and let the pain flow over me.

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.

medicating and dashes

Why is it that we medicate the uncomfortableness? Why is that we medicate and drown, and drug instead of sitting in the awkward, and often, painful moment where every fiber in your body is telling you that something is not right? Why is it so difficult to face the fact that there is something broken in our lives?

We medicate by flipping the channel until we find a show that makes us laugh or horrified or sentimental. And the second that it is no longer giving us that "high," we flip the channel to the next "drug."

We medicate by going out every single weekend, running ourselves into the ground in order to make sure that we are doing "life" right with money and interesting hobbies and a glamorous career and a confident fashion sense and the perfect partner and the "best" kids and… When does it stop?

What has happened to quietness? To stillness? To not doing anything? To being uncomfortable? To resting?

I don't have the answers. I am caught in this cycle too. But I want out. I want to start caring about the people around me. I want to know and be known. I want to be uncomfortable at times. I want to acknowledge what is broken in my life. I want to admit that I don't have it all together, that I struggle with taking risks.

Maybe that is my whole point. Maybe what I am trying to express is that there has to be more to life than just drowning out the imperfections. 

There is this saying that on your tombstone there will be two dates on it with a dash in the middle and that the dash is our living. So, what will your "dash" look like? If the dash took on the characteristics of your living, what would it look like? Would it be long and thin? Or maybe a fat, squiggly line? Maybe a double line? Would it be a colored dash? Or a sparkly one? What about a simple black line? Whatever your living, your dash, looks like, let's not drug and drown out the entire experience. 

Just one more thought about the whole living without the medicating. I'm learning that in order to make the most of my living without medicating, I have to do less. I have to set aside time to be quiet, and still, and even be uncomfortable.

But it is worth it.

And on that note, I'm going to find some quiet.

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.

insecurities and Truth

I am in a weird mood. What is going on with me? I hear C&S talking about having more kids and B&D about starting a family soon. What about me? I sometimes feel forgotten. I’m the single one. The single daughter who really isn’t independent. The one with the medical drama. The one who is good with taking care of the kids. The one who is wishy-washy. The one who is a freak. The one who talks big but has a small follow-through. That’s who my insecurities say I am. 

Yet I am not those things. I am not forgotten. I have a niece who calls me Dee and Dah and best friend. I am a responsible, independent daughter who has learned to ask for help when needed. I am the one with an incredible story of how God uses medical complications for good. I am like Jesus saying let the children come to me. I am open to change, I am not stuck in my ways. I am unique, unforgettable, irresistible, and irreplaceable. I talk through the confusion in my head and through it, I am able to take the baby steps towards real, long-term change. I am not my insecurities. I am not my fear. I am not enslaved by my past. I am forgiven and washed pure. I am the king’s daughter. I am pursued. I am a kingdom woman, I have a kingdom purpose. I am here because God has created me for a specific role that nobody else can fill. 

"God knit you together in your mother’s womb and created you in His very own image. He refers to you, as His masterpiece. The Creator’s greatest creation. Pause for a moment and let that sink in.
For those reasons alone, your value is intrinsic and irrevocable.
It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you. It doesn’t matter how dark of a past you might have or how broken you may be.
Your value cannot be damaged, destroyed or even diminished.
So please, let the Truth scream louder than the lies."

~ Nick Martin

I am not my insecurity.

questions and soup

What things are you trying to figure out in your life? What is that question that you're trying to answer?Maybe its "who am I" or  "why am I going to college" or "what should I do now" or maybe something completely different. 


 I read something today in my Social Psychology textbook that kind of goes along with those questions. It was the beginning of a section titled, Introducing the Self. 

Are you a "good" person? What could you do to reach your long-term goals? Why do you think others view you as they do? Although we all struggle to find the right answers to questions like these, we ask them of ourselves easily and naturally.

I know this may not seem like it really has anything to do with epiphanies and figuring things out and answering questions. However, I think it does so just stick with me. The part that stuck out for me was not the questions themselves. It was what the authors wrote about the questions and  answers. "Although we all struggle to find the right answers to questions...we ask them of ourselves easily and naturally." Answers to questions such as "who am I" or "what is my purpose" or "who type of person do I want to date" are hard. They take lots of introspection and time and effort and even more questions that require answers. But maybe its not about the answers. Maybe its about actually asking the questions and sitting in the question, letting it soak in, letting it stew a little, letting it absorb into your being. Yes, that is a thousand times more difficult than just quickly coming up with an answer to the question just so that it isn't left unanswered. And yes, it might seem really stupid, illogical, and silly to leave a question unanswered. However, what if by leaving it a raw, unanswered question for awhile, you find something that you hadn't thought possible when you first asked the question. What if your raw, unanswered questions became soup? A soup of exquisite goodness, of delightful flavor, of possibilities and dreams, of hope and love. So take the chance of leaving the questions in your life unanswered, let them simmer in your heart, and maybe just maybe, you'll have soup for your soul.

blogging and God's awesomeness, part 2

It has once again been a long time since I wrote. It's not that I don't want to write, because I do. I'll think of something that I want to share with you that happened that day and what it made me think about. But when I sit down to write, the words don't come. I fought this at first; its hard to have something that you want to share but not be able to share it.

So here I am, actually writing for the first time in over two months. In my last post, I realized that I had become so focused on my glory that I lost sight of God's glory with this blog. I have done a lot of soul searching since then, trying to figure out whether my time as a blogger was finished, learning what my talents are.

I honestly believe that this blog is my service for God right now. It's my way of sharing what I am learning about God and my relationship with him. My mission field per say. Just like missionaries need breaks to not become burnt out and lose their focus, I needed the same. There has been so much hard stuff going on in my life recently that I had burnt out and lost my focus.

I'm not sure when I'll write again. I know that this is not the end of this blog, in fact, I would say it is a beginning of sorts, a beginning of honest talks, with no BS allowed.

Abba, I want to keep my eyes on Jesus, through the easy times and the hard times. I know I've messed up. I looked away and just as Peter started sinking when he doubted his ability to walk in the steps of his Rabbi (walk on water), I started sinking. I'm grabbing your hand, Jesus, I need you. In your name I pray, Amen.

blogging and God's awesomeness, part 1

Today, I was strongly encouraged to blog, since I haven't blogged in a couple weeks, by one of my ADX sisters, I'll call her Aro. So here I am, attempting to write however its not going that well. Maybe its because I'm trying too hard to write something thought-provoking that will spur each of my readers to become better people. I'll be honest, thats my problem. I've been told by my friends that read my blog that some of my posts are powerful spiritually. And now whenever I think about writing, I wonder if its "good enough," will it have enough "spiritual-ness" to bring people closer to God? 

When I first started writing, this was a way for me to share what I was learning about God's awesomeness through my daily life. But now, I've become egotistical and way to absorbed in the awesomeness of myself. I've become a pharisee-blogger. I'm a pharisaical blogger.

I'm not sure where this leaves me and this blog. I think I need to spend some time evaluating why I'm writing, whether its to glorify me or God.

Abba, I ask that you be glorified in everything that I do whether it be going to class, meeting with friends, or writing on this blog. Let your love flow out of me onto everybody with whom I interact. Forgive me for ever thinking that I was ever the one touching hearts through my writing when really it has always been you working through me. Thank you for loving me even when I mess up.