welcome to midnight.

Do you ever feel like your path with God is a big ol' question mark, instead of a straight line like it seems it should be? 2018 has been that for me. Don't get me wrong, it has been one of the best years of my life, but it has also been one of the most trying years in every way. This year has been wibbly-wobbly, unsteady, and constantly changing.

I found out my school was closing. I left my job. I got married. We moved to a new city. He got a job, I didn't. I was unemployed. My sister left the country for two years. I worked part-time. We found a church. We found out my mother-in-law's cancer came back. We had to make new holiday plans and traditions. We had our first holiday season without Lauren.

It's been a lot of change, and I've been a heck of a mess. Through it all, through all the tears and doubts and questioning God's purpose in this wiggly question-mark-of-a-path, I found He was building a new foundation of trust in Him. I realized He was building my faith muscle the only way it can be built- by working it out. He was training me in discipline and faithfulness. All those days of wondering where He was leading and what my next step should be were like the marathon-training before you actually take the steps down the road. I felt like I was running in place, and I kind of was, and maybe it benefitted me.

I feel like I've grown more in 2018 than I have in many years. Thinking back across all of these months, I began trying to sum up the main lessons I've learned this year. I won't ramble too much about it, but if you'd like more details or would like to talk about any of these points, I'm more than happy to hear your thoughts and questions and share mine as well. 

Some things I learned and grasped tightly to in 2018: 

• I refuse to spend my life trying to make myself skinnier or smaller or less. I will not be mean to my body just because I have been conditioned to believe that big numbers are shame-inducing and fat is bad. Body positivity and fatness are such complex issues that cannot be neatly summed up, but this year I really started to live happily in my body and be proud of it and treat it well. Fat is not bad. My body has much more purpose than pleasing others. I like to work these abs out, and also feel my belly soft and squishy when it's relaxed. This year, I finally stopped wanting my body to be something other than what it is, and it has been so freeing to not constantly live at war with myself. 
• Responding to conflict with rigidity and harshness only worsens the problem. The only 100% effective method to solving interpersonal issues is selfless kindness. Whether you're a teacher, a friend, a sister, a coworker... all the people around you want from you is kindness. The only way to soothe and resolve problems is to approach them gently and lovingly.
• God is always always always providing and caring for His flock. Even when it feels like He left. Even when you made a decision and then realize it might have been the wrong one. Even when it is down to the very last second. Even when it has been three years, and you thought that stir in your heart had died... He is growing you. He is providing you with lifelong treasures. He is teaching you the priceless gift of learning to walk with sorrow and suffering as your closest companions. He is gifting you a present, painting you a future, and redeeming you a past more beautiful than any earthly accomplishment or item you could ever covet.
• The best gift you can ever give anyone is to be a soft place for them to land. My favorite moment this Christmas (maybe this whole year) was sitting across the kitchen table from my mom, cutting up food for Christmas recipes, talking about our pain and being a little weepy together. You can take all the jewelry, books, tickets, clothes, and cute stuff away from Christmas, and that's enough for me. If you're left with time spent beside loves ones cooking and watching tv and talking about tough subjects, it was worth it all. In three years- heck, 3 MONTHS- I won't remember what I got for Christmas, but I'll remember sitting in the Alabama Theatre sandwiched between my brother and my husband, watching my parents hold hands, singing Hark The Herald Angels Sing and feeling like I was living in It's A Wonderful Life. The best parts of this year were when I was able to be fully myself, ugly parts and all, and was embraced and loved in the midst of it. 

I hope you found some hopeful lessons and grasped tightly to them, too. I hope you discovered parts of yourself that you didn't even know were so strong and beautiful. I hope you began to see another human's extraordinary magic (to steal Ben Rector's words) and felt the miracle of love. I hope your eyes were opened to areas of God's heart that are so much deeper and kinder than you were ever taught.

This year, I met some darkness that I didn't see coming. I felt, for a bit, like more of a burden than a light. You've probably felt that way before, too. Before this year ends, take some time to celebrate the small victories and pinpoints of light in your life. Don't give up. Let this new year be one that you look back on as the year everything changed for the better. On New Years Eve, I always think of these words from one of my favorite authors, Jamie Tworkowski. 

"Wouldn't it be nice if change took just a moment?

Wouldn't it be nice if it were that easy?

Midnight and we're new. Midnight and the past erased. Midnight and we're free.

It seems to come slow. It seems to be a surgery.

Forgiveness. Healing. Sobriety. Letting go. Starting over.

It seems to happen slowly over time. 

One day at a time, the choice made new each morning.

Will you fight?

Will you fight to be healthy?

Will you fight to be free?

Will you fight for your story?
Will you fight to get the help you need?

Change takes more than a moment, but maybe there's also something to this celebration of a moment, something to the way it speaks to us, something to the way we fear it, and dream it to be true. Maybe it's the most honest moment of the year.

It's possible to change.

Welcome to Midnight."

--------

I cannot close this blog without mentioning some of the art and artists who made this year lovely for me. Not sponsored, just honestly enjoyed:

books
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Remember God by Annie F. Downs
Come Matter Here by Hannah Brencher
Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe

albums
Magic by Ben Rector
Look Up Child by Lauren Daigle
CRAZYTALK by Mat Kearney
Let It Be Jesus by Christy Nockels

songs
I Was Here by Beyoncé
Pieces by Amanda Cook
The Heart That Slows Down by Canyon City
Simple Gifts (American Shaker song)

through my weary eyes, You're giving vision for Your Kingdom.

Let me start by saying I don't feel that these words are eloquent or edited or polished enough, but for some reason I feel the need to share them raw, so here they are.

     They say every person sees colors differently. If I pointed to a leaf, we would both recognize it as green, but your eyes will see it a slightly different shade than mine will. Of course, we don't have language complex enough, or adjectives specific enough, to differentiate the exact differences we see; however, I think we could all agree that this seems like a truth to us. We can't prove it, we can't explain it, but we know it must be true.

     This morning, as I was driving down the interstate, I started thinking about spiritual sight. From out of nowhere, I realized there has only ever been one human who had 20/20 spiritual vision. Only Christ was naturally able to see absolute truth, because only Christ was fully God and fully man. The rest of us, with God's power and Spirit at work in us, are walking around with glasses and contacts. We don't just see varying shades of the same spiritual activity- our eyes are blind to God's heart and spiritual truths until we choose to see through His vision. We are born blind, born into darkness, born into sin. It is only through the Light of Christ that we are able to see.

     Some of us are lucky enough to have been raised around people who had seen the Light and were able therefore to cast Light into our lives. Some of us are more like those Isaiah refers to when he says, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone." (And, sidebar: I love the wording of that second phrase. We dwelt, were comfortable staying in, a land of deep darkness. Yet He shone His light on us.) Just as we all see varying shades of the same colors, we all come from various shades of darkness. Some come from deep darkness, and some come from dusky, there's-a-lamp-on-in-the-next-room darkness. No matter the shade of darkness we come from or currently reside in, we all need a remedy.
If you've ever walked from a cozy, dark house into the brightness of midday, you know what it feels like physically to go from 'deep darkness' to 'great light'.  Maybe you've been deep asleep in a pitch black room and had a flashlight shone straight in your face. It hurts your eyes, they might water, you have to squint or shield your eyes for a solid minute until they adjust. The only remedy is to stay in the light, because once your eyes adjust to it, it stops hurting. If you go out into the light, realize its brightness, then say "Nope, going back inside," the only thing that does is delay the discomfort or pain. At some point we each have to face the light.

     For each of us, the Holy Spirit becomes the vision correction we need. Whether He is correcting nearsightedness, farsightedness, or anything in between, the beautiful part is that He isn't just the go-between for us to approach the Father, He is our teacher. He isn't just our 'glasses', He is our eye surgery. He teaches us, slowly, to see everything in the light of God's truth. To see things in the light of Christ. As He teaches our eyes how to see, He is healing them. With each opportunity to see our world and our lives God's way, He is giving us an opportunity for our impaired vision to be redeemed and healed a bit more. Each time you and I choose to step out of our darkness and filter our lives through the truth and light of God's Spirit, we become a little less impaired, and our spiritual eyes see things a little bit more like He does.

     The problem is, sometimes I don't want to do that, because that is when I see myself most clearly, and I don't like that self a whole bunch, especially in comparison to Christ's unblemished perfection. I'm realizing, however, that seeing my attempted 'righteousness' as filthy, excrement-covered rags is really good for my puffy, prideful heart. We all need that dose of humility from time to time (for me, from minute to minute). When I see my flesh and human heart as they truly are, it makes me incapable of puffing myself up above others or against Christ. It flattens me, and pushes my teary face down to the foot of the Cross. What's insane is that God is more good-filled (is that a thing? Does that make sense? I'm making it a thing) than just that. He doesn't leave us crying at our own filth. He washes us and clothes us in His true righteousness. He give us His eyes. Thankfully, just as God gives us the ability to see the things around us with His vision, when He saves us, He also gives us the ability to see ourselves as He sees us- washed by the blood of the Lamb. By His grace and sacrifice, we too stand unblemished but humbled by His goodness.

     I love that His vision makes it impossible for us to take Earth too seriously. You know how when you get self-focused, it's easy for everything good to puff you up with pride and everything bad to make you wail, "this is the end of the world! It has never been worse than this!"? I'm noticing that when I see with His eyes, it balances out the highs and lows. Keeping my eyes focused on eternity and Christ's absolute truth keeps my heart and spirit stable. When I'm viewing my life through the eyes of Christ, I see just a few things that are truly meaningful, genuine, or worth anything. It's like that old hymn says, "The things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." I wonder if seeing with God-vision is part of the easy yoke Jesus mentions in Matthew 11. "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” When I look around at this world with my self-vision, it weighs me down. It makes me feel heavy- do you feel that sometimes, too? Yet when I 'put on' God-vision, it is so much easier to rest. To see and react with gentleness and meekness and calm, soul-rest.

     My eyes and yours may see things differently, but when we view life through His eyes, all the shades and variations don't matter. His view of sin, of sorrow, and of joy don't change. He is always giving His children good and perfect gifts, like the gift of His vision. He is "the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change," James 1:17 says. The world around us may change, may bring us to our knees, may knock the air from our lungs, but He is constant. We may not like or understand the way he's working in us- that's how you know it is good and true work, when it is agonizing and uncomfortable. But the bottom line us that He has given us the ability to see clearly if we choose to. "God doesn't give smog, He gives clean air," as J. Vernon McGee says in his commentary on this passage in James (which I highly recommend listening to.)  It is up to you and me if we want to see the world through the smog of humanity or the the clear vision of Christ.


_______________________________
music that inspired these thoughts:
Mighty by Commune (from which I got the title for this blog. AND the band is some of my incredibly talented friends! Search them on iTunes!)
Today by Common Ground Band
Reckless Love by Cory Asbury
You Are My One Thing by Bethel
Be Thou My Vision by Ginny Owens
I Will Lift My Eyes by Bebo Norman

on pilot lights, being a garden, and springtime.

It’s testing month at school, which means every day this past week I have had a few hours each morning to just sit and breathe and think. Which you know, if you get me at all, is quite dangerous for me.

But last week it was beneficial.

“Somewhere along the way, my dears,” (she says, quoting a favorite musical just because her brain turns everything into song) my little flickering flame inside me got turned up, I think. For a long time I relied on the pilot light of my spiritual gas heater to keep me okay. I know it’s not a good consistent state to be in, but I also think it was a necessary phase and for a while it was the best I had, so it was good enough. But somewhere in those months of relying on the pilot light to warm the house, God refilled the tank and turned the heat up. And I had this realization the other night that my soul, at some point, settled into a toasty 4 on the heat dial and is thawing out the numbed extremities.

Please understand me; this is not my “I’ve made it and have everything together, guys, so you can stop trying to help me” speech. I am far far far from making it and having things together (the very thought of which ever being possibility for me literally makes me laugh). I don't think I will ever stop needing people and flailing around in life a little bit (or a lot-tle bit) as I go.

This is simply a public recognition that the clean-up work in my heart, the renovation, the Big Remodel, the turning me into His cathedral is happening. It has been, little by little, unrecognizably so, until a glimmer caught my eye and I took a peek back into the land I’ve been trekking these past three months.

There He said, “We’re moving. Do you see that we’ve moved? You’re thawing out. Your weeds are being pulled. I am tending you every day, my little garden, and Spring is on her way to us. Life is ebbing in.”

Sure enough, as I looked down into my own often-too-small heart-garden, I saw He had expanded it a size or two (enlarge my borders, Lord! including my Grinch heart that needs so badly to grow!). I saw He had planted a few things- I know not what they are or will yield yet- and the little bumps under the soil promised fruit soon enough. I saw a few more holes in the ground where the deep-rooted weeds had been excavated; I saw new weeds trying to settle into the newly fertile soil.

Rain and sun that fall into me are nurturing all they touch, and He reminds me we- He and I- must be careful to tend this garden every day. We must be careful to arise early and pull the new weeds out before they have a chance to be nourished by the smiling sun or crying rain.

The cathedral has a garden! I love that! I love cathedrals with courtyards and gardens and life!

It’s as if my heart is literally undergoing spring cleaning, and I’ve been lathered up and scrubbed down and rinsed off, and set by the nice, toasty, 4-on-the-dial heater. What a tremendous feeling.

Recently, I’ve been reading a few books that are changing my life (as good books tend to do) and that I think have induced this Springtime.

1. LOVE DOES by Bob Goff. It’s unexplainable how this book both wrecks and revitalizes me at the same time. I don’t understand it. It’s obviously God.
2. Parables of the Cross by Isabella Lilias Trotter. Honestly, this book (or pamphlet, I suppose, as it’s only 23 pages) makes me feel like such a Christian hipster because NO ONE has heard of it. Literally no one. I discovered it because Elisabeth Elliot referenced it in her life-wrecker, Passion and Purity, and it was just a few dollars on Amazon, so I ordered it and wow. Just get it and don’t try to read it all in one day. It’s too deep and rich.
3. If You Find This Letter by Hannah Brencher. I feel like this one explains itself. It’s her story, her weighty words, her heart in a book. So far I have cried every time I’ve picked it up and it is astonishingly beautiful.
4. Winged Life by Hannah Hurnard. Her first book, Hinds’ Feet on High Places has always been one of my favorites- it’s an allegory centered around the journey of Much-Afraid as she follows the Good Shepherd’s leading to the High Places. And man, Winged Life doesn’t disappoint either. So far it’s teaching me a lot about what Love really means and goodness knows I can always use more of that.

if you couldn’t tell, there’s really one main theme in these four books that are transforming my heart and mind:

LOVE.

Which is great because it just confirms in me that this is His work. Because He is Love, so of course it makes sense that the books and many other facets of entertainment in my life right now are just pointing me back to Love- even the ones that seem like they would never be able to teach me anything about real Love. Funny how He can turn anything into a window.

While I am learning about Love and being bowled over by my God at least four times a day, I’m in need of prayer and support and encouragement and life-giving truth.

Here’s how I need you to pray for and with me, beloved people:

Pray for consistency. Pray that I would have a new sticktoitiveness (which I rarely have the motivation to find in a lot of cases). And pray that I would stop making this about me and just abide.

We all know I tend to be a person that throws herself into things. For the most part, I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person.

That has its downfalls, certainly. I tend to give up on things: I start projects and never finish them, I start books and stop ⅔ of the way through, and when I start a new friendship/relationship I either give up too soon or go a little overboard showing that person love. It also means I tend to ramble, as I’d rather give too much information than not enough. Additionally, people think I’m constantly exaggerating. Granted, I exaggerate all the time (irony). But in the moments when I’m not exaggerating and I’m genuinely IN LOVE with a lovely plastic box of perfectly yellow paper clips, it’s easy for my words to mean less than I want them to, because so often I use the same exaggerated words when I’m trying to make a point or tell a story, and now all the sudden no one understands just how much a tiny clear box of yellow-coated metal thingys can cheer me up.

However, I am also beginning to see a lot of strengths in my throw-myself-in-with-no-looking-back personality. I’m GREAT at starting projects or books or road trips. I love easily (or maybe ‘quickly’ would be more accurate, because GEEZ don’t I know that real love should never be easy) and wholly and, if need be, fiercely- that also means I tend to forgive quickly. Everything in my world is rose-colored, and I don’t even need glasses for that; it’s just constantly rose-colored and I love it because rosy hues are probably my favorite of all the hues.

(she realizes even in her explanation of how she loves easily that she proves how sickeningly optimistic and enjoying-life-at-all-times she tends to be)

And here comes the part where I know I need the prayers and intercession::

I throw myself into projects and relationships and even God’s Work.

And then when it starts getting kinda hurt-ey, when I’m getting cramps in my Faith muscle or when someone hurts my heart or when I realize I still have to go back and edit and re-write the entire paper, I stall.

I find it really really tough to stick to it. To be consistent. To be a train and chug ahead.

I say, “eh, good enough” and turn the paper in because it’s 4 AM and if you include the bibliography it’s 8 pages, so that should pass, right? or because I’m a pretty good person and God loves me and there are other, better Christians out there who can do it better than I can anyway. or because that was the third time they have spoken hurtful words to me in the past month, and I don’t need people like that in my life bringing me down.

“Brothers and sisters, this should not be.”

I need to do the paper to the best of my ability. I need to do what I feel God tugging me to do, even- no, ESPECIALLY- when it makes me feel inadequate or uncomfortable. I need to love and treasure that person anyway, because the only thing that can drive out darkness is light, and the thing that draws me closest to the heart of God is my own pain.

In the end, though, I know it’s not about me. That’s a thing I’m having to remind myself second by glorious second. Abiding in Christ and making much of Him is my ultimate goal. This is a portion of my journey in which I’m extremely introspective, but my end goal is not my own profit or gain or goodness but simply CHRIST.

So yeah, it’s Spring in my heart again, and for that I am unendingly grateful. But there are weeds to be pulled and work to be done in this garden. Feel free to step in and water the soil and help me pull up weeds when you’re around. I’ll need a reminder to stick to it, to abide with His nourishment so these plants can grow.

everything. perhaps we should call it The Big Remodel.

Somewhere along my way here, something told me that I had no right to talk about my pain. I started believing I shouldn’t acknowledge or talk about the things that hurt me and the season of death I’m encountering (leaving?), because mine is so ‘easy’. Which, I guess, is true.
In comparison-- ground gets shaky and dangerous once that word enters the picture-- to much of the world, my pain and sorrow is negligible and laughable.
But believing that I have no right to be open about sorrow I experience is just SATAN.

Let me back up.
Over the past three weeks that I've been blog-less, God has been whispering so much I can hardly hold on to one thing long enough to sketch the most vague idea of it down before another wafts my way. Living in a community of God-lovers (which I love so much, don't get me wrong!) is exhausting in times like these because I am CONSTANTLY being asked, "What is God teaching you lately?" and I always want to respond, "EVERYTHING."

He's teaching me to die to self every day, pick up my cross, and follow Him.
He's teaching me to dwell on things of God and not on the things on man. (Romans 8:5)
He's teaching me that losing my life & dreams is the only way to find life & come alive.
He's teaching me how critical it is for me to surround myself with words of Life, people who speak Truth, and music that breathes Hope.
He's teaching me to hide His Word in my heart, and how greatly it affects my desire/lack of desire to sin against Him.
He's teaching me to see people and listen to them, even to things they don't say.
He's teaching me redundancy is okay.
He's teaching me to live a messy life reeking of redemption and splashing on passersby.

He's teaching me to pray.
He's teaching me to cry.
He's teaching me not to hide.
He's teaching me to stop trying to be tough and sassy.

He's teaching me to be honest with myself.
He's teaching me to love myself AND others.
He's teaching me to rely on Him and abide in Him.
He's teaching me to bear fruit.

He's teaching me to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but to humbly consider others better than myself.
He's teaching me to look out for others' interests and heartbreaks.

He's teaching me to stop comparing.
He's teaching me to replace, "How am I better? How am I worse?" with "How can I bless them? What can I learn from them?"

He's teaching me to stay.
He's teaching me to speak.
He's teaching me to be renewed.
He's teaching me to leave shame behind.
He's teaching me how to study a living, breathing Word that reads me even as I read it.

He's teaching me to see His patterns.
He's teaching me to hear His voice.
He's teaching me to read His signs.
He's teaching me to question.
He's teaching me to measure everything I see, say, hear, and do against His Word.

He's teaching me to empty myself.
He's teaching me how to be filled.
He's teaching me what to let fill me.

He's teaching me to be a cathedral.
He's teaching me what it means to be a cathedral.
He's teaching me to say, "OK," through the tears.

He's teaching me love.
He's teaching me to love.
He's teaching me how to love.
He's teaching me how to be Love.

((if you didn't stop and think about at least a few of those, please go back and do so. Let Him whisper to you, too.))

And you know, there are probably more things He's teaching me that I haven't thought to put words to yet. I am, at all times, as constantly as I have ever experienced in my nearly twenty-two years of life, being amazed by Him.

I would love to be able to wrap that in a pretty little box for you and tell you that all the things I am learning and being amazed by are so fun and lovely and painless.
HA.

The searing pain of spiritual discipline is deeper than any other pain I have ever known.
It's life-wrecking.

It's the kind of pain that leaves you
sitting in the big chair in your new apartment's living room,
a roommate on either side,
shaking and crying and attempting to breathe,
while the world passes by on the road outside our window
with no knowledge of the revolution going on
in the little girl's heart that lives in that old house.
No matter how hard I try to convey that spiritual pain to you, it's not one you can understand until you've experienced it.

I've said this many times in my recently-passed conversations about the God-things in 2015 so far:

I always thought I knew what self-sacrifice meant until now.

I thought I knew what it meant to undergo spiritual discipline.

I thought I knew what Love was and what Love did and what Love looked like.

I thought I knew what that pain felt like.

But I didn't.

I know now: I never knew. 

I still don't know.

I see a tiny, tiny, beautifully tragic fraction of what it looks and feels like.

When I get to this point in the thought process, I always try to boil it down to one big thing. And right now, it all comes down to this:

be His cathedral.

the commandment of my year. my heart.

I'm still not entirely sure what it means or should look like, but I know this:

without the presence of God in it, a cathedral is just a sad, old building.

The only thing that makes a cathedral beautiful, sacred, and holy is the Shekinah Glory of God- the very presence of the Lord- filling it. **side note: I still don't know or understand enough about Shekinah Glory, but if you know nothing about it, read up on it (a little). 

So my quest then becomes: find the presence of God. figure out how to let Him live in me.
Which is a funny thing, because with all that He's teaching me, He's doing the serious remodeling needed to make my sin-filled, self-inclined human heart a place where He can dwell.
I also know He inhabits the praises of His people; He lives in "our praises, filling up the spaces in between our frailty and everything [He is]." (Restless by Audrey Assad). We have a God who responds when we ask "as I sing to You, in my praises, make Your home!" (Audience of One by Big Daddy Weave).

I find it so beautiful that in Exodus when God outlined for Moses and the Israelites EXACTLY how the Tabernacle was to be designed and set up and consecrated (He spent CHAPTERS doing so!), He had a purpose in it. It was ornate and beautiful and sacred and holy- because it was His dwelling place.
Then, when Christ died, the veil, which separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Tabernacle-- literally the only place where redemption of sins could be found, and the only place where God's spirit could dwell (Exodus 26:33, 30:6)-- was torn in two (Matthew 27:51). There was no more separation.
We got to become His dwelling places. We got to be made holy because His glory could now fill us as it used to fill the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:14).
We got the chance to become His tabernacles, His cathedrals; We got the chance to become inhabited by the Spirit of the Living God as our hearts and minds fill with praise for Him.

What an undeserved blessing.
What glorious newness is there to be found amidst the searing pain of self-sacrifice.

In my learning to study His Word, I have found a new connection with several hearts that fill the Old Testament- one of which is Joseph. Mainly because he cried a lot.
In Genesis 41, shortly after Joseph has risen to a pretty significant position under Pharaoh, we see a little section about Joseph naming his kids. Verses 50-52 say:
"Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore them to him. Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. "For," he said, "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house." The name of the second he called Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

Now, I'm obviously not claiming to be on Joseph's level here. But I love finding a treasure like that in an odd place.
I love seeing it and clinging to the truth:
God will make me fruitful in this land of affliction.

{this blog and Becca's current heart-movements inspired by Mark 8, the book of Lamentations, Romans 6-8, and the following albums:

Majestic by Kari Jobe

Cathedrals by Tenth Avenue North

City of Black and White by Mat Kearney}

so for a long time she sat-- remembering, wondering, and thankful.

For some reason, my words never quite fall the way I want them to. Especially when it comes to nights and moments like this, times that matter and that deserve eloquence. I’m just really not the eloquent kind of girl, I suppose.

It’s New Year’s. Happy 2015, my friends!

Apparently there is something about this day that makes me melancholy every time it rolls around. Maybe it’s the vast amounts of reflection it requires, maybe it’s the tidal wave of emotion that sweeps over me as I remember every big & small thing I encountered throughout the past year. 

Whatever it is, it almost bowls me over every year. In fact, last year it really got me.

Last year, God told me on New Year’s Eve that 

“someone will die this year.”

Just that one sentence.

That terrifying fact,

Whispered repeatedly when I asked for an explanation.

I remember it so vividly- I was in the theatre watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug for the second time, and He dropped it on me.

And when I asked “why?’ and “who?” and “when?’ and “WHAT?”, He simply restated Himself.

Sometime in the past couple of months, I have realized it was me He was talking about.

It was me that was to die in 2014.

It is me that sits typing at almost 1 A.M., tired of holding back tears, tired of having no words that adequately explain my heart condition, and dead.

Dead to self. Dead to false hopes. Dead to frivolity. Dead to shallow relationships.

And I think the reason that this particular New Year’s is so melancholy is because I know that I’m not done dying yet.

And I hate dying. And I am so bad at it. And I wish I were a natural.

It almost do wish it were easy for me present myself as a living sacrifice. 

But it’s not. 

It’s freaking hard. 

And I feel like such a wimp because I cry about it a lot.

Because I should have expected this. People told me it would be hard.

But I don’t know, I guess it’s one of those hard things that you don’t understand until you’re under the weight of it yourself… and by then it’s too late. By then, all you can do is cry and hope to find someone along the way who will encourage you and remind you:

It isn’t easy to offer yourself up to be crucified. It’s not supposed to be.

And the fact that you finally are offering yourself up doesn’t mean you’re some awesome, strong person; it means you’ve come to the end of your weakness and realized you have absolutely nothing left to give. You are the utter weakling. At least for me that’s how it’s happened. It’s almost a last-ditch effort, this final surrender. It’s the:

“OK OK HERE, TAKE IT!” that seems to be human instinct when we are met with someone who wants something from us and won’t back down.

On Christmas Eve, Jesus did another of his whispering acts. Except this time instead of warning me of coming death, His words were spoken so softly and tenderly it was almost like a proposal.

But instead of “Be my wife”, it was

“Be my cathedral.”

And I really don’t know why or how or what, but something in my heart understood that. Something clicked.

Before I even really had a chance to think about it, my heart was whisper-screaming and crying out and twirling around before Him the most wholehearted

“YES!” 

I think has ever existed in a human heart.

I didn’t even know it was there; it’s like she, strong little Yes, had been lying dormant and growing stronger as the other things in my little human heart died off in 2014. And when enough of them had finally had died off, she had the space to stand and twirl and leap and shout her strongest.

It was then that I remembered that lovely (though terrifying) C.S. Lewis quote:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

It turns out, Jesus was never interested in turning me into an adequate little residence. He wants me to be His Cathedral. 

And don’t you think it’s fitting that in Cathedrals, you find stained glass windows? 

And that this year of the most brokenness of heart I have ever encountered has surely left some tinted glass bits behind somewhere?… they, I am sure, will be used for the windows.

It reminds me of Joel 2:12, (the first verse I am memorizing this year!) where the Lord calls on His people to come back to him AS THEY ARE: broken/shattered/weeping/etc.

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments.”

If you haven’t heard of it before, that verb there, REND, literally means to rip apart violently. Applied to the heart, it means “to harrow or distress the heart with painful feelings.” (thanks, Webster).

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve completely understood this verse until right now as I type, but here it comes:

He is inviting us to let our hearts be distressed.

COME BACK TO ME, EVEN NOW, he says, WITH ALL YOUR HURT. RETURN WITH YOUR WOUNDEDNESS AND ODD MOURNING RITUALS AND LET YOUR HEART FEEL ALL THE PAINFUL THINGS AT ONCE.

After all, a broken and contrite heart is an offering He will never turn down (Psalm 51:17).

Last NYE, I posted something about sweeping out the dark corners of my heart to make more room for Him, and boy has that proved true. I almost think God is in the business of Corner-Sweeping-Out of Hearts. Mike Donehey, lead singer of Tenth Avenue North, put it this way: 

“We are never trying to win divine approval, Christ has already bought that for us. No, we are in search of simply creating more space where He can fill.”

And all the little corners in my heart need to be swept out and filled with Him.

So 2015 is a year of that. Of continuing to sweep out and let Him fill the vacancy. Of inviting Him to renovate this old shack into not just an “ok” cottage, but a palace, a dwelling place where He alone will reside, a stunning CATHEDRAL.

“What does it mean to be a Cathedral of God?

We are “sanctuary” for each other.

Like those great and mighty structures of old, 

we too can be a place of refuge for those in trouble.

People are no longer a threat.

They are fellow sojourners searching for that eternal spring.

Weary sinners can find a harbor for their souls when they come 

to those who know they have been redeemed.

We are safety for the stumbling and still waters for anxious hearts.

We have tasted.

We have seen.

And now, we can show them the way.” (Mike Donehey)

So with that, let me share my few resolutions for the year:

1.  Become a Cathedral, or at least more of a Cathedral than what I am now.

2. Within that, stop viewing other people as a threat. Stop seeing myself as “small sauce” (thank you, Hannah Brencher, for those perfectly paired words). The time of “we seemed to ourselves likegrasshoppers” in comparison is OVER. Love people, be a hospital, and claim what the Lord has given you and built in you, so that you may use it to bless others.

3. Write one encouraging/thankful note per week.

4. Memorize 24 scripture verses- one every two weeks (I'm doing this with Beth Moore & friends...  "SSMT 2015", they call it. Please join. It's going to be a tough and so worthwhile commitment!)

I’ve only recently finished re-reading an old favorite book of mine, Hinds’ Feet on High Places. 

At the end of it, when Much-Afraid has reached the High Places and received her hinds’ feet and had her name changed to Grace-and-Glory, she runs around on the High Places rejoicing.

And then, at the close, it states: 

“So for a long time, she sat silent—remembering, wondering, and thankful.”

May that be each of our hearts’ attitudes today and throughout 2015.

Holy is He, Blessed am I.

For some reason, I have come to really love all those quirky, never-heard-of chick flicks on Netflix that are somewhat deep and depressing and not really chick flicks at all (E.g. The Diary of Preston Plummer, Liberal Arts, Like Crazy, Girl Most Likely, One Day, The Giant Mechanical Man, The Pallbearer, etc.) I've watched an abundance of them over the past month; don't ask me why because I couldn't give a reason. They just appeal to me, probably because I don't know what my life is and the characters in the movies don't seem to either.
Today as I was watching Liberal Arts, the female lead, Zibby, said something that resonated with me.

"I sometimes feel like I'm looking down on myself. Like there's this older, wiser me watching over this 19-year-old rough draft, who's full of all this potential, but has to live more to catch up with that other self somehow. And, uh, I know I'll get there. It's just sometimes I think I want to rush the process, you know? "

And though I am quickly approaching 22 years, I still feel like a rough draft. I, too, feel like I have loads of potential that I don't know what to do with and don't know how to catch up to the older, wiser, finished-product Me. 
Maybe I never will. Maybe I'm not supposed to. 
Maybe I will always feel like Taylor Swift did at 22 years old: happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time. Miserable and magical. 
I don't know for sure, but I'm hoping with everything I've got that "fake it till you make it" is an acceptable mantra for an adult to sing repeatedly, and that it's ok for me to always be the emotional basketcase that I am.

Yesterday I went to my church's Christmas program. There were several times where I was brought to tears by the sheer beauty of it all- the music and instrumentalists combined with the drama and the dancers just cut right to my soul, right to the spot that recognizes beauty and alerts the rest of your self. I was overwhelmed with it all. 
Then the girl playing Mary sang this song.
And it kind of wrecked me. I was one big blubbery mess of tears and streaking eyeliner and it was like my soul was singing, desperately, back to God as I cried along with the song- "Be Born in Me" by Francesca Battistelli. 

The music video depicts Mary's heart through everything. 
Not that I am in any way to be compared with the mother of Jesus, but this song resonated with me so much.
God has been using Mary to teach me an abundance of things, over the long stretch of road that has been Our Journey since January 2012 (and if you want to hear about that I'd be glad to ramble to ya). But one thing that has been truly cemented this year is that He wraps himself in the unexpected. The song says:

"All this time we've waited for the promise
All this time You've waited for my arms
Did You wrap yourself inside the unexpected
So we might know that Love would go that far?

Be born in me, be born in me
Trembling heart, somehow I believe that You chose me
I'll hold You in the beginning, You will hold me in the end
Every moment in the middle, make my heart Your Bethlehem
Be born in me."


and, really, how perfect is that? How fitting is that to my life?! 
"It's INCREDIBLY FITTING, Becca!" is the correct answer.


I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I feel like I have so much in common with Mary. I feel like I have this unexplainable favor from the Lord resting on me and I have no idea why (Luke 1:30). All I know is that "I am not brave, I'll never be- the only thing my heart can offer is a vacancy. I'm just a girl, nothing more, but I am willing, I am Yours."

That's kind of the theme of my life these past few years. Realizing I am not fully His yet, but I am on my way- I am becoming fully His (John 1:12). Realizing my feet are mangled and misshapen from the sin I have trod in time and time again, and that He offers to make my feet like hinds' feet and take me up on the High Places (Habakkuk 3:19). Realizing that He calls us to lay down so many things in the grave, that better things may be resurrected (Luke 9:23, John 10:17).


This year has been the Year of Death (I'll write more about that come New Years' Eve) and it has, quite literally (spiritually) killed me. It has been the Death of Becca and it has been so incredibly, painfully glorious. And as I cried along to that beautiful song and really paid attention to the lyrics, I realized what may be the final realization of this series/journey: I HAVE DIED THAT HE MAY LIVE IN ME. 
I know, I know; I'm slow to realize this point that probably EVERY other Christian has gotten to by now. Whatever. He teaches us different things at different times. 

BUT GUYS.
This year, He killed me.
So that I would be empty.
So that I wouldn't have to be the innkeeper that said, "No room."
So that I could say, "Well... I don't have much, but I DO have vacancy."
So that He could be born, here. In me.

So that my clinging to Him now and holding Him so very dear could eventually become Him holding me when I have not the strength to cling any more (I look forward to that day).
So that in between now and then, my heart could literally be His hometown.

He is making me His.
He is making me His home.

And knowing that makes me realize: it's ok to be a rough draft. I am His rough draft. I am being hewn and sharpened and purified and shaped and smoothed out, among my moments and years of seeming not to know anything but tears.
It's ok to watch a lot of sad movies because I don't know what my life is yet; He does.

"Everything inside me cries for order
Everything inside me wants to hide
Is this shadow of an angel or a warrior?
If God is pleased with me, why am I so terrified?
Someone tell me I am only dreaming
Somehow help me see with Heaven's eyes
And before my head agrees, my heart is on its knees
Holy is He;

blessed am I."

can I say that once more for my own heart's sake?

If you know nothing else, weary heart, know this:

Holy is He.

Blessed am I.

choosing joy

Most days choosing joy is a chore. It's hard work and no one talks about that, and you feel wimpy for being worn out by choosing joy over and over again when it hurt and was inconvenient and tough. Most days your love tank doesn't get filled back up the way it used to when you were six and all the world was good and agreeable. Most days you're a pathetic mixture of hopeful and doubting, just waiting to be told that everything WILL be ok. Most days it's easier to lay there and watch Netflix and pretend your hurts and worries are nonexistent. Most days you try to get by with the least amount of effort and pain and the most amount of shallow "I'm good, how are you?"s. Most days you want to be the prettiest and the smartest and the wittiest and the best-known and the most-loved and the One That Everyone Knows Will Be Someone.
No one else talks about the little electrons of life, the tiny negative things that feel like they shouldn't make a difference at all, when they ultimately change everything.
Most days it's hard to find people who will talk about the electrons with you and listen to your electrons and tell you I FEEL THE SAME WAY.
But "we are all the same, really. When you close the curtain, I see me in you, I see you in me. Struggling and stressed, reaching for the best. You remind me of me."
Most days it's hard and it takes a lot of effort and a lot of choosing joy and a lot of rejecting the electrons. And let me tell you: all days, that is worth it. All days, the warmth in your heart at the end of a day that exhausted you with all the love you poured out is worth every tiny electron. All days, when the sun shines on your face, remind yourself that choosing the tough option is always the best. The ache and the struggle and the tears and the grunt work are producing beauty in you. Hold on to your hope and scare people with how much you love them and tell the negativity it can't come 'round here no more.
You beautiful things, choose the tough joy.