Tag Archives: about me

Here’s to You, My Friends

I love my friend Sarah for a lot of reasons but especially because, in her words, she’s “on the look out for extraordinary relationships in a sometimes too ordinary world.” She wrote a post the other day with a fun opportunity to join in on a Great Big Friendship Blog. I decided to take the opportunity to brag on my friends because I don’t do it enough.

I’m bending the rules because I can’t pick just one. So, my friends, here’s to you…

To my “friend family” as I call them: Luke, Stephen, Nick, Christian, Angee, & Ariel. When I call them family I mean it with every bit of me. There aren’t 6 other people in the world with whom I can be more myself & rest with. Our worlds were connected long before we knew it & I love the story of how we all became a “group.” They are my favorite people to sit around a fire discussing life with & around a table laughing with as we play Phase 10. And when we’re scattered across the country as work has us on the road, 2 hours group text conversations keep us together. Ask me about any of them & an instant smile will spread across my face, I just can’t help it. :)

To Emily, one of my longest friends. We met as freshmen in college volunteering together at a youth program at church. I’ll be completely honest, we butted heads for a long time. I was the “responsible get it done by the book” person & she was the “carefree, it’ll all work out, just have fun with the kids” person. But something changed after we graduated & she moved across the world to China. She’s now one of my dearest friends & I appreciate that she has known me through so many seasons of life & seen me at my worst much more than most. She has endured a month of traveling in China with me & and our friendship has survived different time zones, countries, & states. Emily is one of my favorite people to do nothing with…simply be…because she values that & it makes me value it when I’m with her.

To Matt, another one of my long friends. I’ve known Matt since we were enemies as freshmen in high school. We quite literally had yelling matches & said very unkind things to each other. I don’t quite remember how we ended up becoming friends, but we did. My favorite memories are Sunday nights regularly spent eating pie at Perkins & blonde highlights at home gone bad. He’s the one friend I always make a point to visit when I’m back in Minnesota. He too has seen me at my worst much more than most & I appreciate that about him…honestly I’ve probably had to apologize more to him than most people :) There is something valuable about people who can reflect for you the changes you’ve been through & the ways in which you’ve grown.

To J & Carl, and the rest of the crew that gathers on Sunday nights, who love better than perhaps anyone I’ve ever met. Truly, the way they love people challenges me. They’re some of my newer friends, but I love them still the same. It’s been incredible to watch the community that organically grows around them simply because they live who they are & they aren’t afraid to climb into the mud with people.

The list of friends I would love to brag about could go on for days. They are the most diverse, craziest cast of characters I could’ve never dreamed up. And when I stop to think about the people whose paths I’ve been blessed to cross I’m quickly overwhelmed with the deepest gratitude because they are grace with skin, they make God’s love tangible in ways I could never imagine. And maybe, at the end of the day, that’s what friendship is ultimately about: a way for us to understand just how much God loves us…for us to see ourselves, through our friends’ eyes, as He does.

Join the fun & tell us about a friend who has helped to make you who you are. 

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Resolve to Live a Life You Can Be Proud Of

From the very first post I ever wrote about Nashville, to deciding to take a giant leap into the unknown just a couple months later,  this city has been home.

When I say the day I moved to Nashville is more of a reason to celebrate than my birthday I truly mean that…I don’t care how cliche it sounds. That move was the start of truly living for me. It was completely unexpected but has truly transformed me more than any other event in my life.

I have found healing …both physically & in my heart.
I’ve discovered the intersection of justice & community.
I’ve learned to live life in all of its messy layers.
I’ve learned what it is to savor life in relationship.
I’m learning what it means to embrace the beautiful mystery of tension.
I’ve learned to sit in the space in between rather than being distracted by the next thing.
I’ve learned to love more deeply from the community of people I get to live life with.

This city has wooed me. And celebrating two years here today is just as incredible & unreal as celebrating one year was. When I look back on my story of my life I see how He has connected all of the dots…how everything that seemed random to me belonged in His plan.

When I stop to think about life over the last two years it is so full my heart is overwhelmed. By His goodness. His plans. His provision. The community He has surrounded me with. It is a story I never even imagined or dreamed, and for that I am grateful beyond words. Sometimes He asks us to go simply so we can find life…so we can come alive. All we have to do is respond.

So if you feel like you’re going through the motions, like you’ve lost the person God created you to be; if you’re frustrated with what is & feel like He’s given you a dream for what could be, take a step out of the boat, live in a place where miracles are necessary, & trust that He wants you to do more than survive. Resolve to embrace every bit of the risk & vulnerability of failing & bring hurt by love in order to live fully awake to the joy of life.

 

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On the Other Side of Surrender – One Word 2011 Recap

Little did I know when I chose “surrender” as my one word for 2011 what the year would look like. One thing I did know for certain was that surrender wouldn’t come without pain. And I was right about that. But it was the most “good pain” I think I’ve ever experienced. Pain that comes from pruning. From the Gardener cutting away more of me to make room for more of Him. On the other side of that pain…on the other side of surrender…is life – a fuller life.

It’s been a beautiful discovery to see how the Father, in His grace, tenderly loves me to surrender. Surrender that can only come from a position of humility which is perhaps the best perspective from which to view this wonderful gift of life. The beautiful paradox is that on the other side of surrender is freedom.

Standing at the end of 2011 looking back, I know now that perhaps the greatest gift which lies on the other side of surrender is peace. Before I even realized it, I was walking by faith in spite of fear…taking each step as I choose daily to trust. And as a result, even in the midst of the storm & the pain & the suffering & the questions & the doubt there is peace. Peace because I am surrendered to His plan. The plan of the one who created the universe & holds it together.

Surrendering means letting go. Opening your heart to healing. Doing the work of forgiveness. Living honestly. Risking love. And accepting, with open hands & a grateful heart, whatever the Giver has in store. It isn’t easy. But I happen to think it’s worth the life, freedom, & peace that is waiting on the other side.

 Did you have a word for 2011? What lessons did you learn from it?

 

 

 

 

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Throwback Sundays – Your Happy Place

All of the places I wrote about in this post still make me happy. I’d add these to the list…these places inspire me, each in different ways…

mountains

walking bridge overlooking downtown Nashville

behind a computer running visuals during worship

high above the clouds

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The Twenty #5 – The Single Event that Transformed Me the Most

When I think about that question several different events come to mind…each that transformed a different part of me. But, if I have to pick just one event from my long life of 25 years I would have to say my move to Nashville. Getting diagnosed with a serious muscle disease my junior year of college comes in a very close second though.

I realize it sounds slightly cliche but I truly feel that moving to Nashville wasn’t just starting a new chapter in life, it was starting a whole new volume in the series. It was a culmination of lessons and a beginning of others all at the same time.

Honestly, even now as I write this I don’t feel like I quite have the words to sum it up. It was the first time I really felt like I was living by faith. It was the first time I truly experienced the unexplainable peace and joy that comes with walking in obedience to God’s calling.

But when I really stop and think about it, I’m not sure it transformed me as much as it returned me to who I really was…the me that had gotten lost…the me that I had surrendered to the pressures of the world.

Whether it was a transformation or returning to or somewhere in between, all that matters is I am a different person than I was a year ago. I approach life with a different attitude and perspective. When I try to wrap my mind around the goodness and greatness of God in a moment it completely overwhelms me. I know without a doubt that I am living the life He has for me in this season. And it’s beautiful.

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Walking, Health, and the Things We Take for Granted

I think by nature things we take for granted are simple things…bits and pieces of everyday living that we don’t notice until they’re gone…don’t give a thought to until they become difficult. Things like walking, for instance. Most of us do it every day. It’s a movement we don’t have to give thought to. We can walk and talk, walk and eat, walk and text, etc. It’s second nature.

It was this time five years ago that I was losing my ability to walk. I was a junior in college and had returned to campus two weeks before classes were due to start for the second semester after a short trip home for Christmas. By the time classes were starting…just two weeks later…I was making frantic phone calls to my doctor because I could barely climb the stairs to my second floor apartment and getting up from a chair was equally as difficult.

Everyday tasks like walking to class that I once took for granted were now challenges that provided a great sense of victory when accomplished and a reminder that things could be worse. I remember flying home to MN the week classes started for my grandpa’s funeral. I had called my mom and dad and told them both about what was going on with my health, but I don’t think they fully understood until they saw me. It had only been two and a half weeks since they’d seen me last, but I was a different person. I can remember my dad, as he was helping me up into his truck at the airport, looking at me and saying “I guess there really is something wrong.”

Upon returning to campus I drastically cut my class load so I could stay in school and try to stay healthy. I got to know a lot of doctors and learned more medical terminology than I’d ever wanted to (I always disliked science) :) Through a process of ruling out what could possibly be wrong I was diagnosed with dermatomyositis. Basically, my muscles, especially those in my legs, get inflamed which makes them weak. Today my doctors understand it as an inflammatory disease which affects most of my body. From that point it was was three and a half years of trying treatment after treatment, searching for something that would work and had the least side effects. It was months of my thoughts being consumed with my health. I had to think about things like grocery shopping and going to the movies and getting around campus.

When I stop and think back on the last five years, and especially those first couple of months, I remember that it is truly only by the grace of God that I made it through. I’ve also got Him to thank for the fact that my disease has been fairly under control for the last year and a half. And that it truly could have been worse.

Today I am incredibly grateful that I can walk.
I am grateful that although pain is still a daily presence in my life it isn’t nearly as severe as it once was.
I am grateful that I’ve been blessed with some incredible doctors.
And as cheesy as it sounds, I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned through it all. They’re incredibly important lessons that I’m not sure I would’ve learned another way because, well, I’m just too stubborn. :)

The challenges with my health are a lasting reminder to savor the ordinary in life. They’re a constant reminder that God truly does use everything for our good. I was on a path to become a teacher as that was the only thing I’d wanted to do for as long as I could remember. My health made that nearly impossible and with that God also squelched my passion for it. If left to my own devices I probably wouldn’t have worked in a church at this point in my life but rather I’d be stubbornly miserable in a classroom in inner city Milwaukee.

Thinking back to the early months of 2006 certainly puts life into perspective for me again. These days I often think “5 years ago or 3 years ago I couldn’t have done ___________.” And I hope those thoughts continue to cross my mind. Because the minute I stop thinking those things is probably the minute I’m starting to take a few too many things for granted.

What are you taking for granted?

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