I’ve moved!!!!

Find me at https://abigailsusanna.com.

Popsicles and Kinship

"Kinship--not serving the other, but being one with the other. Jesus was not 'a man for others;' he was one with them. There is a world of difference in that." 

--From Tattoos on the Heart by Father Greg Boyle

The line wrapped around the building: Families, kids making up games to pass the time, grandparents trying to corral the same kids. I looked down at the two little girls holding my hands, then shared a knowing glance with their mom. This was going to take a while. We were at a back-to-school event, one that promised a backpack full of school supplies to every child who waited the two hours it would take to reach the front of the line. The four of us had only known each other for a couple of months, but ours was a relationship that had progressed rather quickly out of necessity. When I met her, I thought I was going to serve her by inviting her girls into my home for several weeks. What can I say? The savior complex is hard to dismantle. 

We had been waiting for maybe an hour when she told me she was going to run back to her home across the street for some snacks to feed the girls. I held our place in line, inching forward and trying to keep the girls from running out of my sight. When she returned, she carried popsicles and water bottles because back to school in Indiana means sweat and mosquitos. She extended me a popsicle and water bottle, a generous gift from what little she had. Without even considering my response, I turned her down. I swear her face fell a little, and when I realized the gravity of what I had just done, my heart sank. 

I still consider that moment to be one of my biggest regrets. In that popsicle offering, I believe she extended more than frozen sugar water. There was opportunity for mutuality, for friendship and shared resources. In the many months that have passed since that day, I have thought a lot about this idea of kinship: "Not serving the other, but being one with the other." Am I willing to step down off my pedestal of privilege, to learn from the wealth of knowledge and experience generously proffered by the other? Can I show up with empty hands and allow them to be filled?

I am most broken when I think I have it all together, destitute when I think I am rich. 

And I find that my hands overflow when I let go of all I think I have to give and choose instead to stand in kinship with the other, receiving out of her generous bounty.

Singleness Is Not A Condition to Be Cured

We had just finished playing a board game at his kitchen table when it happened. I thought, “Maybe being single isn’t so bad.” The past few days had landed me on a roller coaster of emotions, riding the hills of giddy excitement all the way to plummeting valleys of disappointment and even anxiety. The last hour had confirmed that exchanging my singleness for a relationship with this specific person was not a good idea. But even beyond that, I began to see the beauty that had been cultivated in my life specifically because I was single.

My name is Abigail, I am 28 years old, and I am single.

Why does that sound like a dreaded confession? Maybe because we treat singleness like a condition to be cured, rather than a season to be lived.

For those of you who are married, can I have your ear for a couple minutes? Goodness knows I’ve sat through countless sermons on marriage and parenting. (You probably don’t need to ask how many I have heard on singleness. Oh, and by the way, the two I sought out and listened to were taught by men who got married in college....).

For the sake of your kids, your bachelor brother, your unmarried friends, even that crazy cousin you don’t talk about…we have got to change the way we talk about singleness. Or, in some cases, maybe just start talking about it at all.

When I was a little girl, all conversations about the future went something like this: “When I am married and have a family of my own…” Every single decision I made assumed that narrative would unfold somewhere in the pages of my life. Not only was that story affirmed by those around me, it was encouraged. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had in high school and college about purity (solely for the sake of my future marriage) and healthy dating relationships. No one talked to me about the beautiful parts of being single.

Maybe that's because we treat singleness like a condition to be cured, rather than a season to be lived.

So in case you haven’t heard, some men and women will never get married. In fact, as of two years ago, 53% of women in the U.S. and 47% of men were single. That means I am in the majority, not the minority. Can we stop operating under the assumption that marriage is in the cards for everyone? Also, news flash! There are amazing benefits to being single.

A year ago, I quit my job and moved across the country. In the months that have unfolded since then, I have taken spontaneous weekend trips, played countless late night games of pinochle with my roommates, snuggled a sweet new babe who is not my own (and handed her back at the end of the night), and devoted hours of my time to learning from families at the local homeless shelter. My life is full and beautiful, and I am confident that all this never would have come to pass if I had exchanged "Miss" for "Mrs." even a few years ago.

There are so many things I want to tell you about what I have learned from this journey of singleness, but I will keep it to just a few points right now:

      1)    Be intentional about learning from the single people in your life. Don’t assume that they have nothing to teach you about relationships or parenting. I may have very little firsthand relationship experience, but I have spent the last decade carefully observing a LOT of relationships. I have lived with multiple families and learned enough about parenting to fill many books. I have had to figure out how to function as an independent (or at least semi-independent, ha!) adult apart from another person. You know that single person in your life? You might be surprised by the perspective he or she can bring to your marriage, your parenting journey, your life.

2)    Propose singleness as a viable life plan. Introduce your kids to single adults who are doing amazing things. Talk to them about the benefits of being single. Celebrate the accomplishments of the single people in your life. And when that single person laments the challenges of being single, please don’t respond with some variation of “Don’t worry, it will happen eventually.” Because that’s not necessarily true. Instead, try this approach: Listen. Acknowledge the difficulties they are facing. Offer practical support. Include them in your life and family.

3)    Particularly in a church and ministry context, be intentional about integrating singles into your community. Of all the churches I have attended over the years, I think I can count on one hand the number of single people in positions of leadership. Whenever there is a lack of diversity of any kind within a leadership structure, the message proliferated is likely going to be biased. Consider diversifying your leadership structure (in every way!).

       4)    Single friends, let’s not feed the lie that singleness is a condition to be cured. Live your life, and live it to the fullest! Whether it is a season that will pass or a season that will last a lifetime, take advantage of your singleness! Find ways to serve others with the extra time you have. Do fun, spontaneous things! Live in community. For sure, lament (again and again) the challenges and unfulfilled desires...But don’t waste your singleness pining for what you do not have. If you do, you will miss the beauty all around you!

There is a sweet dissonance to life, isn't there? Those moments of aching beauty that rush in right alongside a deep well of pain, sadness, or longing. I'm sure you have experienced a moment like this at some point or another. Nothing has taught me about this dissonance quite like my singleness has. It is good, and hard, and lonely, and filled to the brim with adventure and intimate community. Both/and. That is the message I want to hear about singleness, and the message I want you to share with your kids.

Single friends, what would you add? Let’s keep the conversation going.

What It Looks Like to Respect a Woman

"A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.'" 

The woman said to him, 'Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.' Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.'" (From John 4)

He never should have talked to her.

She was a woman, and it was well understood that a man never talked to a woman alone. To do so outside of a family context, then to drink after her? Scandalous. Not only that, but her ethnic background would have induced marked hostility between their communities. For both of these reasons, she would not have been permitted to engage in what the Jewish people defined as true worship. She would have been considered impure. Whether her five husbands had come and gone from her life by way of divorce or death, even her own community would have seen her either as a rebellious sinner or cursed. Probably both, since she was living with a man who was not her husband. 

She could not have had more strikes against her if she had tried.

Which is probably why she was at the well in the middle of the day. It would have been unbearably hot, reason for most everyone else to avoid hauling water at that time. I imagine she was highly accustomed to being shamed and excluded, and maybe she hoped to avoid the sharp glances and muttered remarks from the other women for just one day. Instead, she encountered a man who would slowly dismantle every single reason for her shame and exclusion. 

He engaged her, extending her respect and dignity as an intelligent human being. 

He invited her into radical inclusion, revealing his divinity and inviting her into a worship even truer than the temple worship from which she would have been barred. 

He extended her the most radical kind of grace. Grace that acknowledged her broken past while inviting her into a better story. Grace that allowed her to become a mouthpiece for Jesus' divine identity...a role that, in that culture, should have been reserved for a man because no one believed a woman's testimony. But Jesus believed her. Jesus accepted her without condition or merit. Jesus included her in a radical new community of worship. Jesus engaged her when no other man, not even a man from her own community, would. Jesus dismantled her shame and replaced it with dignity. Jesus stood against the rules of culture, religion, and social convention to redefine her worth and identity. 

If you want to know what it looks like to respect a woman, Jesus captured it pretty well. 

Let's park our carts for a bit and breathe, shall we?

I was standing on a street corner, and across the way I saw him. It wasn't really his person that caught my eye as much as it was the grocery cart he pushed in front of him. It was piled precariously high with an odd assortment of things. I couldn't distinguish what those "things" were, but they must have been important to him. As the light changed, signaling that pedestrians could cross, he started pushing the cart into the street. He soon disappeared behind the mound that had to reach at least seven or eight feet in height. I noticed as I passed him that he had strategically used bungie cords to hold everything in place, almost like an odd sculpture of sorts. I continued walking toward my destination, but even after I could no longer see him nudging his cart forward, I thought about that man. I wonder if he ever grows weary of juggling his heaping load. Does he ever consider just leaving it behind?

I do not have to manage a grocery cart full of belongings throughout my day, but I certainly feel like I am often precariously balancing relationships, responsibilities, and expectations. I have lists to check off, friends to check in with, and phone calls to make. And that doesn't include the numerous responsibilities of work. Oh, and the future! There is always something to worry about. More and more gets piled on, to the point where I have to pull out my bungie cords and start tying things down just to keep everything together. What about you? Does your cart feel like it is going to topple over at any moment? Can you see the people in front of you, or are you hidden behind a mound of responsibilities and expectations?

Today I am sipping tea and snuggling a fussy babe. She won't be put down, and she is reminding me that sometimes it is okay to ditch the cart so you can see your people. It's okay to leave the load of laundry in the basket overnight. After all, wrinkles never killed anyone. It's okay to leave that item on your to-do list another day so that you can sit across the table from someone you love without being interrupted. It's okay to take a night off, to read your kiddo a bedtime story or rediscover a book sitting on your nightstand. You don't need an excuse to park your cart and just breathe for a couple minutes.

In fact, my weary friend, there is much to be missed hiding behind that grocery cart sculpture of responsibilities you are pushing around. Let's just agree to park our carts for a bit this week so we can pay attention to our hearts and the hearts of those around us. 

Thoughts on Wilting Plants and Friendships that Die

It had been a slow fade. There was no heated argument, no obvious transgression that separated us. We went from spending hours upon hours together every week, to talking on the phone only every once in a while. Soon our communication dwindled to nothing, and our friendship started to remind me of the potted succulent wilting on my windowsill. Admittedly, I have never been very proficient at growing plants. But it seemed like no matter how frequently I watered the little sprout or strategically positioned it to receive more sunlight, it continued to wither. Eventually it just shriveled up and died.

Friendship can be complicated. As someone who cares about people deeply, I don't easily adjust to relational change. If I had it my way, friendships would never change. I would have a window line-up of the same potted plants and they would for SURE never die. But relationships don't work that way, do they? Because people change, and I change, and sometimes what I need or desire even changes. Sometimes I need to be transplanted to a new pot because I am growing beyond the bounds of what my current environment can support. Sometimes I need more sunlight, or less water, or a different kind of soil. Sometimes change—even relational change—is not only good but necessary. 

That plant-less pot of dirt still sits on my bookshelf, a reminder that sometimes I need to just let go. Nothing will diminish the joy that little succulent brought to my space and life, though...even for just a short season. In the same way, that friendship was everything I needed for a brief time in my life. We got to sit together on the windowsill of life for a few short months, encouraging each other to grow and drink deeply of the water being offered to us. I've since been transplanted to a new pot, she to a different windowsill, but I will never forget those months we had together and the ways in which she fertilized my soul. I am a stronger and more compassionate woman because she was in my life. For that I am forever grateful, even if we never sit on the same windowsill again.

Can you and I discover the magic of childhood again this weekend?

Oaknoll: My childhood wonderland

To my young eyes and heart, my childhood home was a magical wonderland: Eleven acres of knee-high pasture grasses, a wandering creek, and majestic oak trees that seemed to reach the clouds. I did not often wander from the fenced perimeter, but it did not feel like a boundary to me as much as a gift to explore. My grandparents appropriately named this childhood haven Oaknoll, "the oak on a small hill."

When I was a little girl, my world was small...but it felt expansive and free. My siblings and I would play tag, kickball, and make-believe for hours on end. I didn't need an Instagram-worthy photo to curate the moment; my living and breathing it was enough. As I have gotten older, my world has grown more expansive but has felt progressively less free. There are bills to pay, errands to run, friends and family across the country to keep up with, and an anxiety-inducing future to consider. 

What if we learned to return to the magic of childhood every once in a while, though? 

What if we could set aside the trappings of adulthood for a weekend and explore our expansive world like that little girl inside? 

What if I set aside my phone and really lived, even if just for a day or two? 

Next to one of Oaknoll's perimeter fences, we had a wooden play fort that became my make-believe house on some days and my holdout in battle on other days. There was a slide from the second story to the ground, and I remember playing "table hockey" with walnuts on that slanted board. The creativity of childhood is unparalleled, isn't it?! When I think about the hours and hours of imagination and dreaming that took place in that corner of the world, I can think of no other time in life when my creativity has carried me so far. 

But what if we could access that depth of inventiveness and unfettered conception again, here and now?

Unfortunately, I can't run around Oaknoll this weekend. I am thousands of miles away, and the trappings of adulthood prevent me from hopping on a plane and returning without extensive prior planning. But I am surrounded by mountains, trees that are slowly starting to shift color palettes, and lakes that dazzle in the sun. My world is far more expansive these days; what if, just for the weekend, I chose to access the freedom of my childhood as well? 

What was your magical place as a child? 

What can you do this weekend to recreate that enchantment? 

Hey you! Yes you, the ordinary radical.

I used to think a person had to do something grand to change the world. You know, start an orphanage overseas in some poverty-stricken nation. Lobby for policy change on Capitol Hill. Operate a nonprofit with impressive influence. At one point during nursing school, I even considered quitting and moving to Africa. I remember thinking, "Maybe then I can really make a difference for someone." Of course there are so very many problems with that line of thinking, but do you want to know one of the primary reasons why I can't help but laugh, groan, and roll my eyes at my younger self? I myself was raised by a band of ordinary radicals. 

Can I tell you a story? Once upon a time, there was a man who poured out his life day in and day out loving people. It wasn't glamorous work, though. In fact, most days it looked like climbing in the car and driving to the local middle school. It looked like memorizing the names of squirrelly middle school students before they ever walked into his classroom just so he could call them by name on the first day. It looked like writing long letters to people he loved and people he really didn't even like all that much, just to tell them they were valuable and a gift to the world. It looked like returning home after a long day and playing kickball with his kids, even though he probably would have preferred drowning out the chaos with a blaring television. It looked like giving rides to the elderly man who had no friends or family. His love was not extravagant or flamboyant. It was simple, quiet, and revolutionary.

My dad changed my world with his love. And because of his ordinary but radical love, I hope that I am more likely to ask my waitress her name before she takes my order. I hope that I am more intentional about asking the man I meet on the corner about his story. I hope I value and accumulate moments of deep relational connection with others over money or possessions. I hope that my dad's ordinary radical love continues to change the world through me.

If I could sit across the table from you, my friend, I would grip your hands and ask you how you are changing the world today. Because you are. When you pick up that screaming babe and feed her for what feels like the thousandth time today, you are changing the world. When you climb in the car to tote your kiddos to yet another soccer practice, you are changing the world. When you ask intentional and thought-provoking questions at a work meeting you wish you could have skipped, you are changing the world. When you ask your neighbor how he is doing and wait to hear his answer, you are changing the world. When you hone the perfect poem, or arrange a beautiful bouquet, or brew the perfect cup of coffee to be sipped and enjoyed by someone else...you are changing the world. I know this because I myself was raised by a band of ordinary radicals, and my world was transformed because of their faithful, intentional, mundane acts of love. You and I? We can be ordinary radicals. All it takes is faithfulness in the mundane. Intention in a haphazard world. The gift of time when so many are wasting it.

You and I? We can be ordinary radicals. So whose world will you change today?

If Courage Leaves You Floundering in the Deep End

When I was a little girl, I was terrified of the pool. No matter how many swim lessons my mom forced me to attend, I could not find freedom from my dread of the water. By the time I had reached second grade and STILL could not let go of the wall, my mom signed me up for weekly lessons at the Y. I dreaded Tuesdays. My mom could probably tell you that, more often than not, I cried the whole way there. I'm pretty sure I even left my swimsuit at home one week thinking I could get out of the lesson. Instead, my mom got a speeding ticket...and I got a scolding AND a swim lesson.

Before long, my younger sister was swimming circles around me. I had figured out how to doggy paddle enough to not drown in the deep end, but the next hurdle was jumping falling off the diving board. The thought of willingly climbing what felt like a whole flight of stairs only to hurl my body off the end of a plank was absurd to me! But I was required to complete the feat before I could "graduate." I didn't care about "graduating" as much as I did putting the whole weekly Tuesday swim lesson thing to rest.

It took WEEKS before I would even climb the steps to peer over that dreaded plank. Finally, my teacher (probably equally exhausted by this routine of resistance we had going on) looked at me and said, "Abigail, it's okay! It's okay. I'll lower you into the water!" I probably should have rolled my eyes and immediately called her bluff, but I think I saw her offer as a way out. What if she could lower me that impossible few feet to graduation? I started trudging up the steps trepidatiously, my heart pounding in my throat. I tried not to look down, but I also didn't want to trip over my big feet. It felt like the plank was shaking as much as my hands, and I could have sworn it was getting longer and longer. I reached the end and gripped the edge with my toes, simultaneously squeezing my eyes shut as if I could float away from this place on the boat of my mind. She put her hands under my arms, and I remember her counting:

"One, two...." 

Before I had time to think or cry or scream for help, she shoved me off the edge and into the water below. So much for our agreement. I panicked, floundering in the water and trying to figure out which way was up. I still am not totally clear on how I made my way to the surface, but I eventually choked and sputtered and doggy paddled my way to the side...and to graduation.

***********

Perhaps courage would have been marching up those steps and throwing myself over the edge. But when I look back on the life I have lived thus far, I think more often than not courage has looked like a bribe and quick shove into the water below. Courage that cries and shudders and climbs those stairs anyway? Courage that leans into the arms beneath you even if you can't be totally sure they will catch you on the other end? I find that kind of bravery to be the most magnificent of all. And so today, my friend, if the best you can do is lean into the shove? Bravo.

Your courage is beautiful, and I am so thankful we can flounder in the deep end together. 

Where is that smell coming from?!

Yesterday I cleaned out someone else's refrigerator. It has become a weekly tradition, but this week I walked in the doorway and was hit by a particularly rancid smell and knew the job needed to be done. I opened the industrial-sized doors and could have groaned out loud. Bins of food were haphazardly shoved together, and there were open plates and containers of food stacked on top of those. My friend and I started going through the bins one by one, pulling them out and sorting the rotten food from the fresh. It would be difficult to name a culprit of the smell. Perhaps it was the raw ground beef clearly past its expiration date, or any one of the curdled gallons of milk, or possibly the mushy plums dripping juice on the shelves below. And yet, it would not have been easy to find any of these things without digging through the fresh food that had been stacked on top of the rotten.

I wonder, how often do I just bury what is rotten in my heart, leaving it to taint everything there? It had been months, probably years of bitterness toward someone I love festering there. It wouldn't have been obvious to anyone; I had stacked lots of fresh and tasty foods on top of the rancid beef. But it affected my interactions with this person like that fruit fly-infested plum juice dripping on everything beneath it. It wasn't until the refrigerator of my soul started oozing the rank odor of bitterness that I realized I needed to do some deep cleaning. I slowly started unpacking the initial root of hurt that had been left there years before, examining the cause and allowing myself to feel the pain in a way I hadn't before. It wasn't fun, but slowly that putrid smell started to dissipate and my interactions with this person felt less strained. 

Maybe I should start taking weekly inventory of my heart, just like I do that refrigerator. And perhaps I need a friend around to help me from time to time, someone to smell the milk and tell me if it gets to stay or needs to go. What about you? Is there a faint smell leaking from your soul? Is it time to separate the fresh from the rotten? And who can you ask to smell the milk? Let me tell you, cleaning out the fridge is a lot easier when you have someone to help you. 

Dear Woman,

I read that yet another celebrity has been convicted of drugging, assaulting, and taking advantage of you. It seems there is not a day that goes by without a story like this unfolding. The world would like to reduce you to a flat caricature of beauty that can be exploited, devalued, and controlled. I know that is not true, though.

YOU are my friend, who throws open her door and welcomes refugees with a wide embrace even though it would be easier to climb into bed and watch Netflix after a long day.

YOU are the strong mother I met at the homeless shelter who walked all over town today attending appointments and fighting for a better story for your kids.

YOU are my dear sister, who creates and fashions blooming works of art so that others can fill their homes with fragrant and smile-inducing beauty.

YOU are so many of my friends who wake up far earlier than they would prefer to selflessly meet the needs of the tiny humans relying on them.

YOU are my wise and courageous friend who defies all obstacles set before her to teach teenagers how to use the written word to change the world. I am convinced I would not occupy this space if it were not for the hours I have spent with you.

YOU are my friend donning a raincoat and taking up a sign that says "Free Mom Hugs" in rainbow lettering, making sure every single soul you encounter knows his or her dignity and worth as a valued human being.

YOU are my coworker standing before committees and calling government leaders to advocate for those in the clutches of addiction.

YOU are my teachers, my sisters, my mentors, my mama. I sit next to you in coffee shops and pass you on the street. You are fierce, wise, gentle, bold, and creative. You have a fire in your soul, but you also take care to kindle a flame of burning passion in those you love. There are some who will try to hurt, exploit, or steal what is not theirs to take. Here is what I know, though: No man, political entity, religious institution, or paradigm of oppression can ever rob you of that fire inside you.

Shine bright, Woman. YOU have a gift this world needs.

Perhaps No Subtext Is Necessary

"Don't say anything nice about me. I don't like it when people give me compliments because I know they are not true. I hate myself."

I cringed inwardly as the precious girl in front of me said these words. If I wasn't already familiar with hearing this deep-seated shame oozing out of her, I think my face would have contorted into astonishment. The world had taught her to hate herself. It would surely be an uphill battle to invite her into a different story.

When I look at her, I see clever wit, impressive athleticism, and an easily identifiable beauty and intelligence. She had come to embrace a different set of identifiers, though:

Failure 

Ugly

Nuisance

Stupid

Nothing

I try to imagine her as a little baby. When I scoop up a newborn, I do not trace her with my finger and identify all her faults. No matter how wrinkly or red-faced she is, I can only inhale her preciousness. What if we looked at all of humanity through this same lens? What if we took care to mine the preciousness from every human being we encounter this week? 

In marvelous poetic form, the author of Genesis tells a story of the Divine fashioning a majestic creation, of which humanity was the crown. What was spoken over this incredible work of art? "It was good." It was good.

Pleasant

Excellent

Valuable

Right

How would our interactions with people change if we led with this foundation of love? It was good.

That driver cutting you off? The Divine called her good.
That sweet child throwing a temper tantrum? The God of the Universe called him valuable.
That coworker driving you nuts? Fashioned to be excellent.
That person with whom you disagree? She is the crown of all that was created, pleasant to God.

That person you stare at and sometimes degrade in the mirror? The Divine looks at you and says, "You are good." 

Too often I think we land on the broken and depraved, dismissing this notion of goodness planted inside humanity by the Creator of all that is. That precious girl who told me she hates herself? Yeah, she hurts people and punches holes in walls. She runs away and screams profanities at those trying to love her. It's not difficult to identify her brokenness. But God first proclaimed goodness over what was created. Sometimes I think the most sacred and important work is uncovering this goodness.

What if we responded to brokenness by re-identifying what is good and precious, rather than highlighting what is broken? When that sweet one lashes out at me, she doesn't need to be told that she is broken and bad...it is that message of brokenness and badness that likely caused her to hurt me in the first place. She needs to know that she is excellent, valuable, and worthy of love. She needs to know that I see her for who she really is, what she was fashioned to be:

Good.

Loved by the Creator of the Universe. 

...I tend to think there is no subtext necessary. 

The World Needs Your Scars

I had but one favorite pastime when I was a little girl. At the very back of my childhood home there was a small, cement-floored room that we dubbed the "play kitchen." It had book shelves along two walls, but the rest of the space was occupied by my imaginary world. Dolls became my children, and let me tell you, I could dote with the best of 'em! I fed my babies, changed diapers and outfits, and boy did we have a lot of appointments to attend! I practiced my dream life day after day before I could even read. I imagine if I had told little Abigail that she would be living a very different life at almost 30 years old, she would have looked at me with wide eyes and said, "No! I want THIS!"

**************

It was only a month after I watched my dad take his last breath. I felt like a fragile tower of blocks propped up against a wall and just waiting for the slightest little breeze to topple me. At 19 years old, I was desperate to make connections in this new town where I found myself. At the same time, I felt like I was swimming in mud, moments away from suffocating. I decided to join a young adult church group on an excursion to the local Labor Day fireworks display. As I sat on the floor of the van, surrounded by strangers and listening to them prattle on about youtube videos and stupid things pet owners had trained their animals to do, my skin crawled and left me wishing I could crawl back into bed! 

I have always had an "old soul." I remember despising my place at the "kid table" from the time I was pretty young. But the trauma of watching my dad slowly wither away from a terrible cancer aged my soul on overdrive, I think. The world, once my oyster, now seemed a very dark and unsafe place. I went from giddily pursuing my dreams and the possibility of independent life in the big city to attending oncology appointments with my beloved hero. I struggled to relate to this group of my peers who seemed to be more concerned with what others thought of them than the fact that we were all slowly dying (morbid but true). 

I am in a different place now. I can be silly and appreciate the beauty of a sunset. I can engage in frivolous conversation and plan for the future. Cancer changed me, though. My eyes were opened to suffering and brokenness in a way I never desired but deeply needed. I developed a gut-churning empathy for others meeting the shadow side of this world. Do I wish within the deepest part of me that I could reclaim the innocence and dreams of that little girl in her "play kitchen"? Yes. As I look back on the last decade of my life, though, I am deeply humbled by this mark on my life. You may not be able to see the cancer-scar on my heart, but it has afforded me relationships and experiences that little girl would not have otherwise experienced in her future. I have held the hands of the suffering, smoothed the brow of the sick and dying, scooped up traumatized babies and soothed grown-up traumatized babies with nothing but my gaze and voice. 

Do you ever wish you could live a different life? Claim the skin of another? Maybe you, like me, bear scars you never dreamed of wearing. You may wish you could dig those scars out with a scalpel. But friend, hear me: The world needs your scars. This broken, beautiful world needs you and your marvelous story, wherever you are within the pages. Your brave, bold scar will remind someone else that she is not alone in the breaking, and it may be that message alone that revives her for another day. So today, my friend, let's show up for each other...scars and all. 

Defrosting My Windshield...and My Heart

With the sun rising behind the mountains beside me, I climbed in my car this morning and realized my windows were frosty. "Ahhhh...back to this again," I thought. I turned my defrost on full blast and waited approximately nine seconds before putting my car in reverse and easing down the driveway, only to realize my nine second threshold of patience had done nothing to melt my obstructed view. I rolled down a couple windows, looked both ways, and pulled into the street. As I turned out of the neighborhood, the big ball of blinding light that had only seconds earlier been hiding behind the mountains now beamed directly at my face.

A couple years ago, my then-roommates scolded me about my dirty windshield. "How can you see ANYTHING out of this?!" they exclaimed. I believe my response was to shrug my shoulders and smirk. It's not that I don't want to see, it's just that sometimes the work of clearing the obstacles seems less important than other tasks. Until I'm driving down the road and realize I am operating a four thousand pound machine without the help of a very crucial sense. Like this morning. (Don't worry, I pulled over and waited another nine seconds for my field of vision to be restored).

Isn't this just how I am with heart tasks, though? There's that pesky feeling of sadness, or anger, or regret, but I don't have the time/energy/guts to deal with it right now. There's that familiar ache in my heart over a once again unmet desire, but it's easier to just keep driving and pretend I don't need to clear the frost in order to drive. Until I can't. Until I'm half a spoonful deep in a carton of ice cream and realize my sudden appetite for Ben and Jerry's is really my heart crying out to be defrosted. Until I wake up one morning with a crick in my neck and wonder if my aching but dampened spirit decided to leak the ache out my muscles.

I can ignore my blocked vision until I need to, well, SEE in order to survive. I can ignore my aching heart for longer, but she will only be cast aside for so long before she will come calling in other ways. Maybe taking an extra minute or two to defrost my windows and tend to my heart is more crucial than I am willing to admit.

What about you? How do you tend to your spirit, and what happens if you don't?

At the End of Myself

The night started out well enough. I endured the usual bedtime drama routine I had grown accustomed to over the last several weeks, and afterward sank into the couch with my roommates consuming blueberry muffins and blackberry lemonade (the adult version). I was in the thick of the why-did-I-think-I-could-do-this stage. I mean, it wasn't like I was bored. Exhausted might have been a better descriptor. I was working full-time as a pediatric nurse and simultaneously running a small but chaotically busy chapter of a ministry caring for families in crisis. I also didn't know how to say no or "I can't help you," which turned out to be my Achilles heel. Two little girls with nowhere safe to go and no other willing volunteers to host them. So, they were (finally) asleep in beds upstairs and I was drinking hard lemonade. Fist bumps to all the people pleasers and wannabe heroes everywhere.

It wasn't until the middle of the night that I reached the end of myself. Bedtime with two kiddos who have experienced trauma is no cakewalk, but we had endured it and made it to the other side. I fell in bed and woke up some three hours later with my stomach in knots. Uh oh. As my stomach roiled from the disturbance of some nasty virus, I also heard wailing from the upstairs bedroom. Double uh oh. How does one hold her head over the toilet while also comforting the distressed, AWAKE child in the next room? I felt like curling into a ball and moaning continuously, but instead dragged myself from bathroom to wailing child over and over again. I'm sure I prayed for relief at some point, either from the stomach cramps or the wailing disturbance next door. Neither came, though, and my thoughts shifted from "Why did I ever think I could do this?!" to "Dear GOD, I can't do this." I finally pulled the wailing child out of bed and into my arms as I collapsed on the bedroom floor, begging for morning to come quickly.

I've often wondered what would happen when I reached the end of myself...when my ego, pride, and all guise of put-togetherness was stripped away. Naked of these, who would I become? It's easy to be kind and compassionate when you are surrounded by goodness and easy living, but what ugliness would surface when I could no longer hide behind comfort and security? The next morning, after dropping the girls off at daycare as soon as the doors were flung open, I collapsed in my bed again and considered what was left of the Abigail I thought I was after a grueling night of facing my demons alone.

I thought I was doing something good. But why?

I thought I knew how to tenderly care for kids who have experienced trauma. But what if I'm too selfish?

I thought I didn't need a partner to play the role of parent. But are two hands really enough?

I thought Jesus called me to LOVE extravagantly. But is love sufficient to heal ALL wounds-theirs AND mine?

I thought I knew who I was and what I could handle. But maybe...maybe I don't.

I think about that night a lot. I think about what it means to truly love everyone always...even when I feel like I have no love left to give. I think about what my true motives are and what it will take to unveil them. So often, I live the safe and comfortable. I choose the easy road because it feels, well, easier. Every once in a while, though, I decide to take a risk. Sometimes I do so because I think it's the right thing to do, or I want to make someone else happy, or I think I have the resources to take the risk. Sometimes I'm dead wrong and I find myself hanging from the tightrope I thought I could walk. It is in those moments that I find myself whispering, "There you are, Abigail. Nice to see the REAL you. Now let's get to work." Maybe there are worse things than taking the risk (whatever my motivation may be) and finding myself dangling from the tightrope by nothing more than a finger and slither of hope.

One year...

Getting silly on the roadtrip across the country

One year ago today, with my car packed to bursting, I set out across the country toward a new beginning in the PNW. Most of the time, that day seems so long ago that it is hard to remember the feelings I experienced pulling out of my childhood home that day. I think I had a great sense of nervous anticipation. I remember hugging my family tightly, unsure of when I would see them next. I remember being excited for the unknown, but also anxious that I would not be able to accomplish what I was hoping to accomplish or survive "on my own." What a difference a year makes. In what will, I'm sure, be a somewhat rambling post, here are a few of my reflections over this last year:

1) This life is so richly a both/and experience.

One of the families I lived with for a brief season had a dinnertime tradition where they would go around the table and share "thorns and roses" from their day with each other. What a great reminder that life is a both/and journey! I try to be pretty intentional about what I reveal about my experience over the internet. Chances are, unless you are a close friend or family member and in direct contact with me, you probably won't hear a whole lot about the "thorns" of my life here. I am not trying to live into the filtered, fake social media experience. But I also haven't wanted to come across as a victim or martyr while making this big life change for ministry reasons. I CHOSE to leave my family and stable job and cozy little house. I CHOSE this path, and I fully own that with joy. That said, there has been a lot of both/and this year! Desperately missing my family while also experiencing rich and sacred new experiences and friendships. Longing for Indiana thunderstorms and sunsets while also experiencing the awe of majestic mountains all around me. Missing the stability of a steady income and predictable job while also finding new joy and fulfillment in using strengths and gifts I have never before gotten to use. Both/and. Beautifully, achingly, richly both/and. Discounting either the thorns or the roses would make this last year far less beautiful and rich.

2) Community makes a home. One of the absolute greatest gifts I have experienced in the last year has been community. I almost feel sheepish sharing this, because I know so many people who really struggle to find good community (and I have been there before myself)...I stepped into the most incredible community here. And in many ways, it really felt instantaneous. I think that's part of why that moving day a year ago feels so much further away. From my roommates, to my church community, to the incredible leaders I have had the privilege to learn from...and it certainly doesn't hurt to have my dearest childhood bestie here too. For all the aching of missing family, this incredible community has really been a special kind of balm. Both/and. This really just reiterates to me that it doesn't matter where you live or what you are going through, community makes a home. I had incredible community in Indiana, including dear friends as roommates in my little white house. Most of the time when I miss Indiana I'm not missing the PLACE, I'm missing the people. What a gift to now have home in two parts of the country.

3) My emotions are not always trustworthy. I have mentioned before that I work part-time as a nurse to help cover my living expenses. It took me close to seven or eight months before I stopped checking online job sites every day for a different job. It was HARD. Dealing with teenage girls who have experienced significant trauma comes with a lot of secondary trauma and stress, and I felt it. BUT, I have really been pushing myself not to drop out of something just because it feels bad or hard. All of life will hold bad and hard...you can't escape it forever, even if you temporarily remove yourself from a difficult situation or relationship. I found myself falling back on my dad's motto (that he quoted to me nearly every day in the car on the way to junior high because if ever there was a place I longed to escape it was junior high! BLESS): "Just show up, Ab. Showing up is half the battle." I kept showing up (even while I was searching for other jobs, because there's only so much you can ask of me 😏) and reminding myself that my emotions are not always trustworthy. Eventually, it didn't feel as hard or bad. Sure, I still have rough days, but it really felt like a cloud lifted after a while and the challenges became ones I could handle. I am thankful I pushed through and didn't just run away, because I likely would have just run right into different hard or bad.


4) Relying on the provision of others is very humbling. Wow. I quit my job last July, sold my house, and moved across the country with no guarantee of any income once I got here. I lived on my savings and the generosity of others for close to three months while moving and finding a part-time job here. And I continue to rely on the generosity of others for half my income. I don't really have words to express how deeply and profoundly this has moved me. To watch others so selflessly give out of their hard earned money because they believe in me and the ministry I am doing is both incredibly nerve-wracking and immensely humbling at the same time. I have no idea how long I will be able to continue in this role. I will keep at it as long as the resources are available, I imagine. Regardless of how long that is, I have been utterly blown away by how God has cared for me through the hands and resources of others. While I have really always been at the mercy of God's provision, the illusion of control and stability is a powerful one. To live an entire year without that illusion to cling to has been a transformative experience, one I hope I continue to press into throughout my life.

My heart is so, so full. By taking what felt like the biggest risk I have ever willingly taken, I have grown and flourished so much in the last year. I have seen and experienced beautiful new places. I have traversed challenges and stress and come out stronger on the other side. I have forged new friendships that I hope will last a lifetime. I have ached with the missing of loved ones back home, an ache that only serves to sweeten the time I do get with them in the flesh. I have learned so much about myself and the God I continue to pursue. The wild, untamed, GOOD God who continues to stir up in me a deep love for the abandoned and forgotten. I have learned that really nothing in this life is black and white. Who wants black and white anyway, though? There is so much vibrancy and life in this colorful, expansive existence that is a journey with the Divine. Both/and. Thorns and roses. Glory in this everyday mundane. What a gift to experience another year of it. Onward, friends.

Birthright Gifts

I woke up this morning before my alarm, my mind spinning over both sides of this circle of humanness we find ourselves in...a friend in the hospital birthing new life, a family member in the hospital slowly losing life. With sunlight streaming in the window and a mug of coffee in my hand, I read these words from Parker Palmer in his book Let Your Life Speak: "We arrive in this world with birthright gifts--then we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disabuse us of them...Then--if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss--we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed."

I pulled up videos of "my" babies, little ones I cradled and cooed over from the day they were born. I watch silly antics and unformed words and think about how their birthright gifts have unfolded into blossoming little personalities. Oh, that we would nurture those gifts instead of strip them down to some cultured and socially acceptable way of being! This world needs her spicy stubbornness, his unfettered joy and curiosity.

What were my birthright gifts? And how do I reclaim them? I hear that I was tender hearted, sweet and always looking to befriend the person in the room with no companions. I had no regard for age or social status; every human being had potential in my young eyes.

One of my earliest memories was of my younger sister breaking her thumb. My parents were out of town for the weekend, and we were staying with family. She fell out of a utility vehicle we were riding in and landed on her hand in an awkward fashion. I remember feeling so scared for her. She was only about three years old, and I wanted to protect and mother her. A family member snapped at me, though. Told me to stop worrying, not to cry...that she was fine. She wasn't fine, though. Even then, as a little girl, my instincts told me she was not okay. We later found out her thumb was broken. That silly little incident is the first memory I have of someone "disabusing" my birthright gifts, telling me to suppress my tender hearted compassion in a way that would be more acceptable to the adults in the room.

Do you remember? What was your purest self like? And how did the world try to mold and shape that little person into a more "socially appropriate" human being? I think about my friend's little one who will enter the world in a matter of hours. What will this little person be like, without the influence of a world that wants to rob her of her truest, most pure essence? I want to cultivate and nurture those beautifully unique gifts she will offer this world rather than break them down and re-render them. As I consider how to return to that little Abigail I once was, I hope this new little babe can forgo the stripping and compressing so many of us experience as we encounter the world.

Thoughts on choosing not to scroll...

Six months ago, I decided to take an extended sabbatical from social media (well, minus instagram because that seems to be my poison of choice). In the life I am living, that choice was probably counterintuitive and even, some would say, stupid. After all, I had just moved across the country, and I am in a ministry role that requires me to share my vision and partner with others so that I can, well, live. I knew that choosing not to post ministry updates, heartwarming pictures, and personal struggles had the potential to negatively impact not only my connections with people I love from back home, but also my ability to make a living. However, I was being drawn into a season of quiet, a heart hibernation that would remove me from the vitriol and careful curation of lives that so often reigns on the interwebs. I wanted to experience the full weight of life--this journey I am walking--without constantly getting swept up in and distracted by the pieces of other people's lives I was encountering through social media. ***My ability to practice good boundaries while engaging in social media is probably far less developed than that of others...No judgment if you are choosing to engage! More on this at the end.***

I don't know how long my season of hibernation will last. Maybe it is coming to an end, but I have learned so much in these last six months, and I am breaking my unintended silence in this space by sharing some of what I have been learning.

1) Sometimes life feels too full and sacred for words. Sometimes the journey seems far from clear, so maybe it is more that I find it difficult to distill cohesive words and sentences from the movement swirling around me and inside my heart. Either way, there is a particular kind of beauty to holding some things close to your heart. Living a life that is totally exposed to the world, or at least the world of social media, circumvents the deep growth that can occur in the quiet, uncurated spaces of your heart.

2) There is a false sense of connection that pervaded my social media use. I have felt a new level of freedom in not exposing myself to the pictures and snippets of people's lives I used to scroll past several times a day. Don't get me wrong, I care about the lives of those I love. But that's exactly why there has been such freedom in avoiding social media. I have had real conversations with people, been pursued by those who care about me through letters and texts and phone calls, and learned about life happenings from those who have desired to stay connected to me.  Prior to my hibernation, it was so easy to feel connected to someone based on a typed out comment, when in reality I knew next to nothing about that person's life. I want my life to be about real relationships with real people, not virtual interactions that delude me into thinking that phone call, letter, or in-person hug was not necessary because we liked each other's pictures on Facebook.  

3) The poison of comparison is subtle. I don't think I realized how deeply I was being affected until I wasn't. In this season where I have chosen not to scroll, I have found new freedom in embracing MY journey in MY body pursuing MY calling and living into MY beliefs and convictions. I feel more confident and loved as I am when I am not exposing myself to a constant influx of pictures and posts about the rosy parts of HIS journey or HER body or THEIR calling or THAT PERSON'S beliefs and convictions. It goes both ways, too. I know that you did not see the WHOLE of my journey, body, calling, and beliefs in what I was posting. It is just impossible to fully capture a human being on a profile page. 

4) God has provided for this last year of ministry and physical distance from those I love even in spite of my seemingly "unwise" choice to abstain from social media marketing. There is a sifting that happens when you distance yourself from social media. The relationships and parts of life that are most important survive that sifting process; everything else falls away. The people who desire to stay connected with and invest in me continue to do so...even without the crutch of social media. And somehow, even without me sharing pictures and heartwarming ministry stories, God has brought a team of people who believe in what I am doing alongside me to make this life of ministry possible. Has it been more difficult? Maybe. I guess I will never know. But the real connections and heart work that has resulted in the last six months have been abundantly fruitful.

By admitting to all of this, I know I am probably the most un-millennial millennial walking the face of the planet right now. And I want to acknowledge the incredible gains and benefits that come from social media. Our society and culture have most certainly been transformed by the incredible advancement that is social media. Paths that are seemingly worlds apart have crossed as a result. People are learning and DOING something about issues of social justice that they never would have been exposed to without the help of social media. Young people are more informed and aware of what is going on in the world than perhaps ever before. I have reconnected with people I never thought I would have the opportunity to see or talk to again. The gains are great, and maybe your life has been positively impacted in ways I could never imagine! Regardless of where you stand with social media, my encouragement to all of us is to live with intentionality. Notice how your heart responds to scrolling. And be willing to click "close" in favor of real connection and relationship once in a while.