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.