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.