The Day I Let Go

I was throwing a tantrum that would put the terriblest of two year olds to shame. I kid you not. There are those who could testify. Earlier in the day, I literally texted my sister this: "I hate my life. And I'm eating ice cream for lunch." Wah wah wah. With a side of ice cream. I was frustrated, mad, deeply hurt, and looking everywhere but straight ahead. 

I begrudgingly drove to the local IF gathering I had signed up to attend, honestly because it would have taken more effort to explain to people why I was absent than it did to just put on my big girl panties and go. So I went. And Jesus met me there in a way I have only experienced a few times in my life. He grabbed my puffy, tear stained, pouty face and said, "GET UP. Get up off the ground. STOP with the whining." Then God met me in the middle of my pity party and infused me with the exact message of vision and hope my heart needed to hear. I have struggled since then to put it all into words. There is so much I still need to process, and honestly, most of what God spoke over me will probably remain treasured up in my heart. I long to share my journey authentically with others, though, because I believe in the power of story to change lives. And perhaps you need to hear the same words? So today I'm going to share what I feel like God has released me to share with you. 

For too long, I have had my hands clenched around a dream. Like, CLENCHED. I have threatened, begged, and pleaded with God: Don't make me give it up! Honestly, I have been terrified that I would be asked to lay it on the altar. And though in the past I have told God I would give it up if asked, it was all really just lip service. I have continued to do everything in my human will and power to make that dream a reality. I have pushed and fought and still come up empty. 

Joshua 1:7 says, "Be strong and courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go." Don't turn to the right or to the left. Friends, that is all I have been doing. Looking around. Noticing what everyone else is doing. Wishing my life looked like so-and-so's, or that I had what so-and-so had, or that my calling was the same as that of so-and-so. I have not kept my attention and focus on God's voice. 

It's so like us to veer off course, isn't it?! We live in a world of entitlement and distraction, and we are like kids in a candy shop. I think of how the Israelites begged and begged God for a king, and rather than waiting on his timing and his way, they pressed on, relentlessly discontent, until he gave them over to their misguided longing. I have been the whining Israelite. I have only halfheartedly sought his counsel and guidance, and instead searched for and pursued the fulfillment of my weak dream. 

The thing is, my dream, my vision for me life...it is so small. When you are looking to the right and to the left, when you are stumbling around and allowing yourself to be distracted by what everyone else is doing, it is impossible to walk the path God lays before you. And THAT path? It's so much better than any detours I could ever choose. God's vision for my life is so much better than my own, not because it is more grandiose or inspired (though I suppose it could be), but because He knows the whole story. He owns the pen to the eternal story, and it is only where my story intersects his that I find my true purpose. 

The Israelites, they got their earthly king. They also got heartache and disastrous problems they never bargained for. God wanted to give them himself, but they traded in intimate guidance from the King of the universe for limited and often unwise advice from an earthly ruler. I could exert my will and force my dream into reality, sure. But what I'm learning is that the risk is too great, and in the meantime, I would miss out on deepening intimacy with my God. 

So Friday night, with tears pouring down my cheeks, I opened up my fists and let go. I'm not naive enough to think that the letting go will be a one time event. No, it's going to be a daily giving over. And I don't know what is going to happen. Someday, my dream might coincide with God's eternal story. But it may not, and I may never see that dream brought to fruition. I am resting, though, in His promise to me that "I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm 27:13). My dream may never come true, but God's dream for me will, and that story is going to be so much better. And honestly? I'm learning that it is not about the destination anyway. It's about the journey I will take with God. It's about knowing Him on that path. 

So what does today look like, where the rubber meets the road and now is reality? Today I'm going to pour myself into God's Word. I'm going to devote myself to listening to the voice of Jesus, not the thousands of other voices all around me. I'm going to focus straight ahead, not allowing myself to be distracted by those to my right and my left. Friends, I don't know much, but I do know that God's going to meet me on this path, MY path. IF God holds the pen to the eternal story, his story for me will be so much better than anything I could ever write. And in the meantime, everything is mine in Him. 

"Everything is Mine in You"**

Everything is mine in you, even when my heart is breaking, 

Everything is mine in you, even when my hands are empty. 

Everything is mine in you, 

and I can trust you with my longing. 

Everything is mine in you,

even when the road is lonely. 

'Cause you are Master over all and you say, you are my inheritance and in you, I have everything I need. 'Cause you are seated in the heavenlies and you say, forever you're my Hiding Place and in you I have everything I need. 

Everything is mine you, and I know my future's bright. Everything is mine in you, past or present, death and life. Everything is mine in you. 

Against all hope, help me to hope. 

Against all fear, draw me near. 

**Lyrics from a song written by Christy Nockels and Ellie Holcomb, coming out on Christy's new album in April. She sang it during the conference and of course it was exactly what God needed me to hear.**

 

I want you to meet someone

I want to introduce you to someone.

She and I, we met in a classroom, that space that can either be magical or miserable, depending on the occupants attending within its walls. When I entered her classroom, I didn't realize that place would become so sacred to my journey. Nor did I realize the integral role my then-teacher would have in my life. 

If the seed of passion for writing had been planted in me, she watered it and nurtured it until it bloomed. She brought a room full of unique, socially segregated and somewhat disinterested individuals together and somehow--magically--created a family. That room became a safe place to share stories, poems, deep wounds, and seemingly unreasonable passions. Looking back, she gave me one of the most precious gifts I have ever received, and little did I know just how valuable that gift would be to me just a few years later. She birthed in me a love of writing. 

She also reached out and offered me the sweetest of friendships. I don't even really understand how that next part of the story unfolded, but I do know that I was changed for the better. The workouts and post-workout coffee chats, the warm summer days spent licking ice cream off of spoons and soaking up each other's lives and stories, the bantering email messages back and forth...she became so much more than a teacher. She was a dear sister...a soul-deep friend...but always the teacher I first met too. Because life was about to get topsy turvy, and she had walked that road before in her own way. She still had lots to teach me. 

I remember talking to her on the phone after I had moved to Chicago, in those tenuous days between suspicion and diagnosis. I remember telling her the dreaded news, and her immediately scrambling to help me find a way home to my daddy. She knew I needed to be home. I remember sitting with her in my crushing sadness and pain, and her cradling it so gently. Yes, she taught me how to grieve and be brave in my grief. She taught me how to love scared. And I did...for 10 months, I loved fiercely and with everything I had inside. I poured my love out, knowing he might be gone in the end. And when he did slip away in the night, she was the first one I called. She whispered her acknowledgement and again held my heart so gently as it cracked and broke. 

In the days soon after my dad's death, the gift she had grown in me became crucial to my healing. I wrote my pain, the pages bleeding from my heart. What she had watered and nurtured to full maturity now offered the only shade I could find from the harsh rays of grief's relentless pounding. 

Since that night of devastating loss, she has taught me how to live in the broken place. How to get up and keep running...blistered feet and all. I hurt, yes. But I am stronger. I miss my dad, yes. But I am blessed. I live in the in-between, in that place where hard is reality, but so is grace and goodness and God's ever present faithfulness. She took me to that place. She opened up her own wounds and exposed them, then showed me what it looks like to be a wounded warrior. 

I want you to meet someone. She is strong but gently compassionate. She is incredibly gifted but equally humble. She is fiercely loyal and one of the most genuine, authentic people I have ever met. I met her as my teacher, became her friend, and find myself learning from her once again. 

Tonight, I had tears in my eyes as I listened to educators and politicians and university deans point out the very attributes and qualities I have not only witnessed in a teacher but experienced as her friend since I first met her 10 years ago. I am overwhelmed by the great privilege it is to not just know her, but to count her as my dear friend and sister. I want you to have the privilege of knowing her too. 

She is a high school English teacher. 

She is a pianist. 

She is a collector of perfume scents and an avid gymnastics fan. 

She is a published author, and an eloquent speaker. 

She is mom to Elias, her guide dog. 

And she is the Indiana State Teacher of the Year, and a top 4 finalist for the National Teacher of the Year. 

I want you to meet Kathy Nimmer, my forever teacher, friend, and heart sister. A beautiful woman with an incredible story, one God is not nearly finished writing. 

Kathy, I am so thankful God allowed our stories to intersect. You bless my life. 

***Read more about Kathy and her latest achievement HERE***

***photo credit to Lauren Koleff Photography: http://laurenkoleffphotography.com***

Off with the old, on with the new

I'm my own worse enemy. You know what I'm talking about, right? The self-loathing, self-doubt...that voice in my head, always waiting to pounce, is the harshest of critics. I struggle with insecurity just as much as the next person. Maybe that is why the words she somewhat casually uttered in front of our class that day have stuck with me. 

"Every time I walk into a room, I have to  purposefully claim my identity." 

She is petite, but she is powerful. 

She is discredited by some because she is a woman, but she is a doctor of philosophy. 

She is a sinner, but she is saved by grace. 

I am convinced that when she chooses to walk into her true identity as a daughter of God, she pushes back a darkness that is intent on consuming this world...a darkness I have begun to pay more attention to as I look around and engage my sphere of influence. You see, I feel as if I am watching a tragic orphan crisis strike the Church. And as I examine my own heart, I wonder how long I have been living as an orphan. 

Adoption is typically very expensive, whether a child is coming home from across an ocean or across town. Your adoption, though? Jesus spilled his blood to bring you into the Family. He bought you a new identity...And he deemed your redemption to be worth the incredibly steep cost. Yet how often do you and I continue to live the orphan complex? Unwanted, passed over, never good enough...It's the mantra that haunts the human soul. 

As I was reading Ephesians 4 the other day, I noticed in a new way how active the exchange of identities is. Paul talks about "putting off your old self" and "putting on your new self." I read that and imagine stripping off dirty rags, then donning a new, snazzy outfit. While living into our new identities is certainly not as simple as changing outfits, I wonder if Paul knew we needed the imagery of purposeful action to remind us that this identity shift is not stagnant. It is a daily, moment by moment intention to strip off the old and actively put on the new.  

Off with the I'm-not-enough and on with the I-am-chosen. 

Off with the I'm-a-failure and on with the I'm-more-than-a-conqueror-in-Christ.

Off with the I'm-too-far-gone and on with the I-have-been-redeemed-by-the-blood-of-Jesus. 

Off with the old, on with the new. 

Every day, I have to intentionally dismantle the old identity, with its accusations and shame-haunting. And every day, I have to purposefully claim my new identity...because the identity I'm living into shapes every conversation I engage in, every action I take, every thought that crosses my mind. Everything I do is preceded by my identity. 

In the following chapter of Ephesians, Paul says: "Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us..." (Ephesians 5:1-2).

Be imitators of God...ACT in a way that is consistent with who God is. But first, KNOW that you are a dearly loved child! Your identity PRECEDES your activity. Put on your new identity...and live it! 

Some days I feel as if the voice in my head gets the better of me. I get lazy about the stripping and instead allow the accusations to simmer. Some days, though...some days I fight hard to remember who I am now. Some days I step into my identity as a beloved daughter of God and walk in love...being  loved and being LOVE. While this war to slay the orphan complex will not see its final victory in this lifetime, every day battles are being waged and won toward that end. Off with the old, on with the new. 

Won't you join me in the fight?

For when you are in over your head but say yes anyway

I'm in over my head. I don't know when I realized it...if there was a specific moment when the enormity of it all hit me, or if it has been a gradual dawning. Regardless of how it happened, I'm sitting here today fully aware of my complete and utter inadequacy. Yet, I am pretty sure that is exactly where God wants me to be.

I'm one of those "YES" people that gets herself into trouble. I get blown away in a perfect storm of passion and willingness, without always fully considering and weighing the consequences. God has filled me to overflowing with vision and desire and compassion. My old hesitant, fearful self has been chiseled into an eager and willing, drops-her-nets-and-runs (while often still scared out of her wits) new creation. When my heart beats in sync with the heart of my God, I seem to forget what is sane, rational, or possible. In this case, I laced up my running shoes and took off without knowing where I was going or how I would ever maintain my speed for the long haul. 

Today I read in Luke 5 about Levi, a man who became one of Jesus' disciples. I am fascinated by two verses in particular and how much they DON'T say: "After this [Jesus] went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, 'Follow me.' And leaving everything, he rose and followed him" (Luke 5:27-28). I don't know how many times I have nonchalantly glossed over this passage without really wrapping my mind around it. Today it hit me between the eyes. I immediately thought, "WHAT THE?!?! Did Jesus really just walk up to Levi, say two words, and walk away with Levi tailing him? Having left EVERYTHING?!?!" One minute, he was sitting at his work desk diligently doing his job, the very next he was chasing after this Jesus who  had barely uttered a complete sentence in his direction. SERIOUSLY?! What kind of crazy dude does that?!

I wonder, though, if he was crazy, or just plain transformed by an encounter with the God of the universe. Did Levi witness Jesus not only healing the paralytic, but forgiving the enormous weight of his sin as well (Luke 5:17-26)? Was Levi one of the "them" mentioned in verse 26? "And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, 'We have seen extraordinary things today.'" Perhaps Levi's eyes were opened to the greater story God is penning. Perhaps Levi chose to respond to God's invitation for him to be part of that larger story. Perhaps Levi simply said YES, and perhaps we could learn a thing or two from him.

Today, I am terrified by the weight of my YES. A few people, I'm sure, have questioned how wise it is for me to enter into this journey as a single, 25-year-old who is still unsure what she wants to be when she grows up. Some people don't understand me or what I am trying to do. Most people probably think I am out-of-my-mind crazy. I do know this: Anyone who thinks I am noble is just plain wrong. I am nothing. I am a mess...a sold-out, in-love-with-my-God, hot mess. Apart from the lavish riches of God's grace that are constantly, forever heaped over me in a flood, I would fall flat on my face. Without Jesus, my YES would be stupid and unwise. Somehow, though, God takes my weak YES and uses it. Somehow God's purposes are accomplished and I am in shock watching the fruit my little YES can produce.

Today, my prayer is that my terrified, crazy, unwise YES would make much of Jesus. My prayer is that your eyes would be searching, seeking, pursuing the larger story and how you can be a part of it. My prayer is that, like Levi, we would allow our encounters with Jesus to not simply mark our days but to transform our lives. Friends, may your days, weeks, months, and years be characterized by yeses to the heart of God, no matter how terrified, unplanned, plum crazy those yeses are. 

A Mirror

He was tired. Bone-deep, soul weary. We didn't know it then, but he was only a month away from meeting Jesus face-to-face. He would say, "This old tent is fading, Ab." The scriptural reference poured out of his mouth as a matter of fact declaration, but he was feeling it in his body. Yet, he sat across the table from me. Pouring, investing his fading-tent-self into me. I, the heartbroken, lost daughter...he, the physically broken but joyfully and deeply secure father. That year we went on so many father-daughter dates, but this would be our last as I tried to capture memories and grasp at fleeting moments. 

When I think of lavish love, I think of that night. He was in so much pain, but he sat and listened to me and so tenderly responded to my heart. He could have allowed himself to be consumed by his reality...the intense pain of cancer, the unknown of the death to come, concern over the family he was leaving behind. He just listened, though, as his teenage daughter rambled and poured out her heart. In his gift of presence, he loved me so well...and gave me a picture of the tender but fierce love of God. 

Sometimes I long for that earthly picture of love...for the tight embrace, the soft words of encouragement, and the intentional togetherness. I remind myself that for now I only "see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known" (1Corinthians 13:12). 

Have you ever been fully known? Deeply, intimately, known? Do you long for that? Even the tender, lavish love my dad poured out on me as he took the time and space to KNOW my heart...even that was but a dim reflection of the kind of deep, all-knowing and yet fiercely protecting kind of love God has for you and for me. While I sometimes wish for the earthly picture, I LONG for the day when I will be FULLY KNOWN and FULLY LOVED. We all long for that, don't we?! To be bare and exposed but loved anyway. 

On days when I wish so much that I could be wrapped up in the kind of love my dad gave me a glimpse of, I press into the uncomfortableness of this reality we live in...the in-between, the gap from now to then. I try to look into the dim mirror, and I tell Jesus just how much I long for the day when that mirror will be shattered and I will KNOW fully and be bare, exposed, and fully KNOWN before my tender hearted, fiercely loving God. It is coming, friends. And what a day that will be. 

Facing 2015

I am greeting 2015 with an inward storm. As a self-described melancholy and highly sensitive soul, God has just wired me to feel things very deeply. Today I am feeling the incredible incongruity of life around me. There are weddings and babies born and joyful family celebrations and goals to be made and achieved. All while there is terrible hurt and brokenness, crushed dreams and terminal cancer and homelessness and fatherlessness. I go from one somber meeting in which I am peering into a family's immense shock and tragedy, trying to assemble tender care for a child at the mercy of life's storms, to an exuberant celebration of a longtime friend's new partnership in marriage. I can't shake the weight of darkness while dancing in the light. 

As I have journeyed with my God, one thing I have come to know and understand is that my God delights in entering my messy emotional chaos with me. So today as I dumped all of this confusion in the contrast out onto the metaphorical table between us, I was reminded of the seasons. I want to be "like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it's fruit in its season, and it's leaf does not wither" (Psalm 1:3). A healthy tree weathers storms and droughts and the heat of day because it is deeply rooted by water. It does not produce fruit all year around, but in its season. 

No doubt, as a highly sensitive soul who, for some reason, God saw fit to give a burden and passion for the broken, I will face many storms and droughts in the coming year...Some my own, possibly more alongside others desperately trying not to wither in the face of their own disasters. I long to be planted so deeply by the Source, my Sustainer and Provider, that I do not wither in the seasons of hardship, but instead stand tall and ready to produce fruit in the right season. 

I am reminded that not all seasons yield fruit. Some days and months and years will feel like a great darkness and blanket of snow rests over my soul. Some days will involve the stripping, the leaves falling and anticipating the coming winter. But some seasons will bring new life, buds opening to flowering beauty and a great harvest of sweet fruit. This life is full of seasons, and changes, and facing storms and hardship, and harvesting good things. Yes, there is constantly going to be the good mixed with the hard. But when I am planted by the Source, I am sustained through it all. 

So on this day, when so many are making goals and plans and lofty ambitions for this coming year, I am seeking simply to plant my roots deeper. To cling to my Source and bravely stare down what is to come. I anticipate storms, yes, but I also anticipate a great harvest of fruit in the right season. And through it all, I pray I know my God more intimately in both the withering heat and prolific abundance. Happy New Year, friends. 

When the Light seems small

Her words sank to the ocean depths of my heart. Scornful words spoken out of deep pain and loneliness. Christmas is coming, and her would-be-carefree teenage body is carrying a child she did not expect, nor does she want. She is lost, broken, and alone this Christmas. And the Light could not seem more dim to her.

Really, she joins the ranks of countless others who feel stretched to the breaking and lost amidst relentless but false promises of happiness in this Christmas season. 

"Where is the Light?" she asks. 

Yes...when the darkness presses in, where is the Light?

When you feel lost and sad and alone, where is the Light? 

I read, "In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Does the Light seem small to you this Christmas? Do you feel buried under the heaping darkness, crushed by the weight of the world?

No matter how big or painful or vast your darkness is, it can never extinguish the Light that entered our humanity so many Christmases ago. Your darkness will never overcome the Light, will never be too much for Emmanuel, God with us. 

The world promises more happiness with more stuff, more food, more more more. Emmanuel does not promise more happiness, but more presence. God with us, no matter how messy we are...Light that will never be extinguished by darkness, no matter how deep your darkness is. 

For you who face pain, loneliness, any amount of darkness this week...Christmas is for you. Emmanuel, God with us...Light that is not overcome by darkness. This Jesus, who said "take heart! For I have overcome the world"...He is for you, He is with you, He is greater than your darkness. Take heart, friend. The Light will not be extinguished.