Step Fifty-Seven: Soaking in the Ocean

Dear Readers,

Last weekend I visited the beach for the first time since I moved out here. We were celebrating one of my beautiful friend's birthday. After arriving at the beach, we only took the time to roll up our pant legs before sprinting for the shoreline. As my feet kicked up sand and the ocean lapped at my feet I was struck by the enormity of it all. I stood at the edge of the pacific ocean, rolling cumulus clouds filling the bright blue sky, the brilliant yellow sun reflecting off the water and sand making the beach an array of vibrant colors. As I took in the blending of water and sky, I realized my insignificance in the world. I realized that the waves that crashed in upon my toes would be the same today, tomorrow, and for the generations to come after me. They would continue to roll in to the eruption of joyful giggling long after my footprints had been washed away. Long after the days of my life have passed. It was wonderful! I am nothing more than a set of fading footprints awaiting the next crashing wave, yet those footprints mean something! They matter to the creator of the universe! I am utterly insignificant and yet His love for me is as constant and unending as the crashing waves! It is a beautiful thing! He is a beautiful King!

So here is my challenge, find yourself on the shore of the ocean or at the tip of a mountain or in the midst of the desert and praise Him! Through all things, through all trials, in the moment you are weakest... praise Him!

Step Fifty-Six: Truly Transparent

Dear Readers,

Going to a Christian college can be trying for anyone who ever experiences any kind of negative human emotion. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, there is a sentiment amongst Christians that because we are "Christians" we can never struggle, never have a bad day, never be unhappy. It isn't even a cognitive thought. We just assume this role of false cheer. We all plaster on our smiles and even when tears threaten to rain down, we laugh at the bad Christian jokes and pretend that we aren't hurting, that we aren't broken.

This week has been tough. A combination of outside factors and some tough news from home left me feeling completely despondent. It was so easy to ignore the negative emotions building up within me. To keep the smile and pretend like everything was okay, but faithful, as always, God surrounded me with a couple of fantastic women who encouraged me beyond expression. They pulled my head upon their shoulder (or lap) and rubbed my back when the stress and sorrow overwhelmed me. When I just couldn't plaster that smile on again. They challenged me, when I longed to withdraw and play pretend, they dared me to be real. To be who I was in each moment, if that person was laughing, then I ought to laugh loudly. If that person was crying, I ought to wail fully. They assured me over and over again that they loved me in that moment. That they honored and respected my tears just as much as they rejoiced and delighted in my smile. But mostly, they lead by example. It is an amazing thing when two friends can come together and be truly transparent with one another. When they can sit together and feel completely comfortable revealing their current needs, their current desires. And what a blessing when we entrust our friends to care for us! What joy we possess when they come through! This is true friendship, that when we ask our friends how they are and they respond transparently that they are not well, they are not okay... that we have the privilege of loving them fully, as they are.

Step Fifty-Five: Remembrance and Thanksgiving

Dear Readers,

Perhaps it is coincidence that I etch this blog into existence at this time, with the American season of thanks rolling upon us, but regardless of it's timing, I urge you all to consider it's importance.

Life is great. It's wonderfully fantastic and it seems that with each breath, I grow in leaps and bounds. It truly is as if I have taken a crash course in life. As I sat reflecting on this growth, a realization dawned on me: I lost my home a year ago this week. Wow! What a drastic difference! Let me illustrate:

Last October was probably the one of the hardest months of my short-lived life. By this time, it was an inevitable fact that my family was losing their home in November. I was already stressed with attempting to get a 4.0 while simultaneously taking Physics, Chemistry, and Trigonometry, and then I had to pack. I also was struggling with figuring out where I was to live. My uncle and cousins (who had been living with us) had their own apartment, my sister and brother were going to live with my father, and my mother was going to live with my grandmother and great grandmother. This left me. I was confused, not for lack of options, but because of the abundance of complications. How was I to get to school, where was I to sleep, what was best for my family, what was least burdensome on those who took me in. At times throughout the month I felt so discouraged and so despondent to the many complications of living with someone the thought of homelessness was appealing. I could handle showering in the girls locker room, I couldn't handle the massive influx of details to the already crappy situation. The entire month of October was riddled with stress and pain. Discouragement and fear layering each moment, anxiety coats my memory, even now, like a thick coat of paint. I could not imagine surviving the loss of our home, much less making it to college. It all seemed so fruitless.

Needless to say, I survived. In fact, I thrived. November was probably one of the best months of my life. For the friends I decided to stay with were so uplifting, so encouraging, and so restorative. They gave me a foundation of love and support with which I could face the death of my grandmother, the unexpected (but never unwanted) pregnancy of my sister, and my conflict with the church in the coming months. In fact, November was the highlight of my senior year, which was riddled with fears and doubts and loss.

As I sat, praying and remembering I had to give thanks. A year ago, I lost my home. The place where all my memories took place, where my family grew up, and the place I returned to each and every night. I thought this would destroy me. Who can survive that kind of loss? This idea of home and security is kind of important to our existence. Now? I have a wonderful new home, where His name is praised and lifted high, where women and men come together and love each other in a way that is so genuine and so real, you cannot help but be amazed. A year ago, my heart felt shrunken and discouraged. It hardly felt like it was beating at all. Grief, anger, and terror weighed it down. Now my heart is thriving, it feels so large, at times, I don't believe my chest can contain it. It is free to soar, free to love, and free to be.

So where are you today? Are you in a place of great joy or great sorrow? Either way I urge you to look back, to find a time when things were different and remember that this is temporary. And then? As hard as it may be, go with Thanksgiving. Regardless of the circumstances of your life, God is faithful. Regardless of how it feels or what it looks like, God is good. And regardless of your desires, God is worthy. So remember and give thanks.

Step Fifty-Four: Shekinah

Dear Readers,

I have had the benefit, through the years, of having an amazingly intelligent and wonderfully incredible woman as my mentor. I had the privilege of learning from her this word: "shekinah" or, when translated, "the holy of holies." The idea behind it in the Old Testament is that it is in the inner-most part of the tent that was the dwelling place of the Lord when the Israelites wandered the desert awaiting their time to enter the Promised Land. It was where God was. It was where He dwelt. It is her belief that the "holy of holies" is now within us as believers. We are, after all, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. I do not disagree with her but I would add something to her statement. I would assert that there is another part to this shekinah, a communal aspect. I would submit that true church is meant to be a new part of our shekinah.

I went to church last night, real church. I and my friend sat together in the middle of a basketball court and worshipped God. We worshipped Him with our laughter and with our tears. We worshipped Him in a way that was so authentic and genuine that words cannot even begin to describe.

We talked about love and what it meant to love someone. The choices we had to make but also the unity that intermingles with love. We also talked about hurt and pain. I have often considered myself to be a highly private person. Residing deep within, I keep my own sacred thoughts, those moments you treasure all to yourself, those words spoken for your ears alone to hear. Buried beneath these happier memories I keep the details of my wounds. The words that were spoken that pierced my heart, the dark memories that poison my soul. I realized, I hide these things because I am terrified of burdening someone else with them. I revealed this to my friend and she made a good point: if love is about unity then not allowing her to join me in this cemetery of wounds was not allowing love to be completed and as far as burdens go, love is never a burden, it is a joy. I allowed her to join me in my cemetery. I allowed her to hold me in my grief and sorrow. We both chose love last night. It was in that moment that I realized Jesus was there. He was sitting beside us. He had been the whole night. He laughed with us and He cried with us. This was the shekinah.

So here is my challenge: join somebody in their shekinah. Allow someone to join you in your cemetery of wounds. Choose love. And then after you have laughed and cried and existed wholly together, delight in His presence with you. Rest your heads together and smile for He is with you and that is exactly how life is meant to be lived.

Step Fifty-Three: Drawing in Delight

Dear Readers,

I was recently challenged by one of my professor's wives to study the bible by drawing. She suggested we pick a passage, read it and then draw the image that comes to mind. I thought she might be out of her mind, not all of us have the ability to draw. However, her point was not that we all practice drawing, it was that we should not be bored with our bible studies. If we, as Christians, truly love God then we also delight in Him and in spending time with Him, if the way that we are studying His word or the way that we are spending time with Him becomes a chore or bores you, you need to change it up. That is not to de-emphasize discipline. We still need to practice the discipline of spending time with Him, simply change the way you do it. There is no prescribed formula, no "right" answer, God is too vast to say that you can only pray to Him by silently thinking something. The truth is that when you grow weary or bored of spending time with Him then we are not truly spending time with God at all. God is not boring. He is full of splendor and joy, you cannot spend true time with him and be bored. You might come away angry, you might walk away boisterous, you might even walk away completely depressed, but you will not walk away saying "that was boring." So as much as I hated the idea of drawing, I delighted in the idea that God was meant to be captivating and, dare I say it, entertaining.

I decided to try it with Isaiah 62:3 "You will be a crown of splendor in the hand of you God, a royal diadem in the hand of the Lord." I drew this golden crown, unnaturally well, for me, with these huge amethyst jewels. It looked kind of lonely though. So I decided to write all the words that stood out to me as I read Isaiah 61 and 62. These are the words I wrote: delight, joy, beauty, daughter, holy, rejoice, blessed, savior, shines, splendor, restore, crown, justice, righteousness, redeemed, gladness, faithfulness, sanctuary, and praise. I thought about these words, dwelling on them and how they reflected on me and my relationship with my God. I decided then to write a poem using these words as their substance.

Blessed daughter,

you are redeemed

to your full splendor

through my faithfulness alone

I have restored you

made you my sanctuary

clothed in beauty, joy and praise

my light shines through you

my delight is in you

my holy crown rests upon you

rejoice with gladness

for through the savior

justice and righteousness

reign once more.

Holy Savior,

you have restored and redeemed me.

Justice tore your daughter away

but faithfulness pursued

for the joy set before you.

Splendor shines from

your beautiful crown.

Blessed be your sanctuary.

With gladness I will rejoice

because of your righteousness

I will sing your praises.

I will delight in you.

I delighted in writing this poem, I enjoyed it! It truly made me feel at peace with God. So my challenge to you is stop being bored. If you aren't getting anything out of your worship of God, then chances are you aren't really worshipping God, instead you are going through the motions. So switch it up. If you normally read chapters, choose a verse instead, if you normally pray silently write it down or draw it out. Challenge yourself. Find a way of delighting in His presence once more.

Step Fifty-Two: Universally Weak

Dear Readers,

I have my bed somewhat lofted, so that I have some storage space, a place for my dresser and then a hide-y hole. I also happen to keep my printer there for pluggage reasons. So today I crawled over the growing mound of dirty clothes (which usually spans across the entirety of my half and occasionally my room-mates) and into the hide-y hole to print a paper. One of my friends, watched me disappear beneath my bed and commented on the coolness of my hide out. I laughed and replied that it was pretty nifty and perfect for crying in (hey, don't judge me for crying in dark closed spaces). She frowned slightly and said "do you know where else is perfect for crying?" She patted her shoulder. Cheesiness aside, I would have tackle hugged her (except for the desk, dresser, and stinky heap between us). Intentionally or unintentionally, my friend reminded me of a lesson I seem to be incapable of remembering. She reminded me of the importance of being universally weak.

You see, we are all weak. And we all cry. Some of us choose to do it in dark closed spaces, others of us overcompensate, and still others of us pretend that the dribbling drops of hot salty water pouring down are face aren't tears at all. We are ashamed. We are embarrassed. But there is no reason to be! None of us are perfect and we are all too familiar with the racking sobs. We can hide these faults or blatantly and ignorantly ignore their existence, or we can use them for their original intention: to bring us into community with one another.

Think about this for a moment. As cheesy as the shoulder-to-cry-on image is, it is also very intimate. It is two people choosing to place themselves in a position of discomfort for the sake of another. The crier has to reveal what society demands is to be hidden forever, our weakness, our shame. The shoulder is not only choosing to be covered in snot (ew) but is choosing to enter into that most sacred place of grieving with the crier. They are binding themselves physically and emotionally to the crier so that the two become one. In essence, both are choosing trust and in doing so they are building community.

I know I have told you this before, and I will probably say it many times more because it is of that much importance. Community is everything. You cannot do life alone, but the beauty of community is that neither can they. So let us all learn to be like my precious friend. Let us learn to offer to join those in mourning, let us choose to trust and choose to build. Let us be universally weak so that we may become individually strong.

Step Fifty-One: Be Loved

Dear Readers,

I think to this point, the best part about college has been being completely engulfed in the love of my Father and the love of the women all around me.

To be surrounded by these girls has been one of the most uplifting and encouraging experiences I have ever had the pleasure of partaking in. They are full of words of encouragement and praise. They want nothing more than to speak words of adoration.

I have had so much fun with them. They challenge me to be a kid in ways I never thought possible. For example, today we had a power outage. I am terrified of the dark. A power outage is the worst imaginable scenario for me. But what do my lovely wing mates decide to do?! They take a flashlight into the pitch dark bathroom and start telling "ghost stories" (which, of course, really means we were all just cracking up in the bathroom). They brought me out of my initial fear and invited me to do something very childlike. It was awesome.

But all of their efforts would be worthless if I could not accept them. I had to learn how to open my heart to the girls in my wing, I had to choose to trust them. I had to choose to let them love me. I had to chose to be loved.

I'd be willing to bet that someone somewhere is trying to love on you. I challenge you to accept their love. To marvel and delight in it. To simply enjoy it. Because you are worthwhile. You are loveable. And people want to love you, so let them.