She said yes!! And so did she!! And she did too!!

This is rare folks!
2 entries in 2 days!
Hold onto your socks!

So one of my favorite people in the world got engaged last month.
Holly has been dating Adam for...well like an eternity now!
He surprised her with a day trip to the beach where he got down on one knee & put a ring on it!
We all knew they would be the next to make this commitment, but they had done a great job keeping all their plans a secret from us, their friends.
I didn't answer the phone when she called so I had to wait until the next morning to hear the beautiful news & cried when she told me.
It's for real now!
Two days ago, I opened a letter from Holly in which she asked me to be her bridesmaid.
I texted her right away, through more tears, telling her that I'm glad she officially asked me because I was planning on standing upfront with her either way!

Strangely enough, later the same day that I got Holly's letter in the mail, our other dear friend Courtney got engaged!
Courtney & Stewart haven't even been dating a year yet, but we all knew as soon as it began, that it was going to be a forever kind of thing.
Stewart drove them out to Courtney's family's farm where he proceeded to take pictures then asked if he could set the timer so they could have a few together.
They took some just smiling, then he kissed her in one, then he got down on his knee with a ring in the last one.
No surprise ending here, she said yes!
When she called to tell me, I couldn't do anything but ask if she was joking!
Stewart had been really good at throwing us all off the trail.
He's in Med school, so we thought it would be awhile, but no!
The man couldn't wait any longer!

Katy & I were texting that night, about our friends engagements & about my recent YL camp trip.
She is at the beach with her family so it was a shorter conversation.
As we ended it, I jokingly told her to let me know if she too got engaged while she was at the beach...
It was around 11:30 when I ignored her first phone call then answered the second with that knowing, but shocked, realization that she was calling to tell me that Jordan had given her a ring too!
It felt surreal to hear her tell of her beach proposal, hidden cameras included!
I love that her whole family was there to celebrate afterwards. I think thats beautiful.
When Jordan asked her she said, "YES! But did you ask my dad?"
How very Katy!

I cannot believe that 3 of my sweetest, most loved friends have made such exciting life commitments so close to one another!
I love to see people's dreams come true.
I feel so lucky to have been a part of their lives & to have been close enough to them throughout the years to watch their love stories unfold.
It's going to be a crazy, but great wedding season!

You Make Me New

You cannot be multiplied enough to be shared. You can only be broken enough to be shared. 

-Robert Benson

And now I know that Mr. Benson was right.

I just got back from taking 9 of my high school friends to Frontier Ranch in Colorado.

We truly had the best week of our lives! (for me, every new camp experience is better than the last)

My sweet friends found Jesus on that holy ground tucked away into the Rocky Mountains. 

They heard of His massive love for them, how He willingly went to the cross, not as a victim but as their Savior, how He loves them before they ever even have to change, & that because He loves them, they can change.

It was a beautiful week.

I was especially impressed with them as we met up after club every night for cabin time.

They were open, vulnerable, & honest right from the start. 

Which I assume is impressive to me because I remember what I was like in cabin time during my high school YL trip.

I was that kid...

Oh I was listening, but you couldn't have paid me to open up & actually talk about my personal life in a room full of girls who I barely knew, didn't know, or just didn't trust.

Maybe it was also because the people in my life that I should have been able to lean on, were in fact the ones that had hurt me.

Things were a mess at home.

I hated my dad.

There was no relationship between us.

He had fallen short of what I expected & I was in the middle of carrying out my plan to hurt him just as badly as he had hurt me.

And I was good at it.

I was also not about to let people know I was as unhappy as I really was, lost as I really felt.

I was tough, I could handle it.

I was not a pitiful baby like my dad always said.

But then Rachel, my leader, asked me to talk 1 on 1.

I knew as soon as she did that my carefully constructed walls could protect me from a group, but not when one person's energy was completely focused on me.

We sat down at a picnic table on the porch behind the office.

I remember that boys were walking by the whole time because we were sitting next to a frisbee golf tee-off.

I remember her reaching across the table & touching my arm.

I remember that she asked me if I was ok.

I remember saying yes, but I couldn't look her in the eyes.

I remember her asking if i was really ok.

I remember laying my head down & crying.

Right there in the middle of all those guys playing frisbee, I let it out.

I knew she loved me & I knew she could tell me how my life could be different.

And I couldn't handle the pressure of keeping it to myself anymore.

My relationship with my dad got worse before it got better.

So did my relationship with myself.

7 years later, I found myself at a picnic table next to the snack shop with one of my friends, then in a rocking chair gazing off the cliff, also on the side of the pool near the slide, & with another under the seemingly endless starry night sky.

7 years later, when I posed the question "When was a time in your life that you have felt entirely alone, empty, or like your walls were crashing in on you?", I heard 9 different stories about girls & their fathers.

Stories of pain & guilt & shame & heart break & emptiness & brokenness.

And I got to be the one to tell them of a heavenly Father who would never leave them, never disappoint them, & never break their heart.

I got to share all of my brokenness concerning my dad & thankfully, I was able to end my story by telling them of the healing Christ brought to that relationship.

Hope. For them all.

I wasn't brave enough to share while I was a 17 year old, but I am so glad they were. 

And I am thankful that I have been broken enough to be shared with them now.

Praise be to my Lord!

To God Almighty!

Whose great plan for my life is revealed in His time.

Who is making everything new.

Who met 9 high school girls during the best week of their lives.

And who meets me every day.

Hallelujah!

"And so with the sunshine, I had the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." F. Scott Fitzgerald

Summer is a beautiful thing.
Maybe, to me, the most beautiful thing in the world.
I know they say things about how summer wouldn't be as appreciated if we didn't go through winter, & maybe they are right, but winter can kiss my you-know-what.

Summer is everything.

Summer is fireflies
Summer is catching June bugs then tying a little floss around one of their scrawny legs.
Summer is a bead of sweat that travels from your neck, between your shoulder blades, down to the dip in your lower back, where it settles.
Summer is the sound of cicada's, who have long dreamt of serenading us.
Summer is stargazing on a blanket of cool, sweet smelling grass.
Summer is chalk drawings on ancient sidewalks that have been disrupted by the roots of the old Live Oaks.
Summer is crowns made from clover.
Summer is the smell of Magnolia's & Boxwoods.
Summer is the golden smear of the setting sun as it melts quietly  into the lake.
Summer is the color green. For the grass & the trees & the leaves on the Hydrangeas.
Summer is a lemonade stand, an ice cream truck, & a snow cone cart. De-licious.
Summer is a wet dog that snuck up behind you to shake off the lake water.
Summer is bedtime with the windows open.
Summer is an adrenaline pumping flip, long fall, & sharp splash into the cold water of the rock quarry.
Summer is heat lighting that illuminates the sky beyond the mountains.
Summer is never knowing exactly what day it is.
Summer is a ride in a truck bed with your best friends, everyone's hair whipping around & tangling together.
Summer is weightless, like floating peacefully in the pool.
Summer is spitting watermelon seeds farther than your brother.
Summer is that one song.
Summer is a little itchy, between the bug bites & the occasional bout of poison ivy.
Summer is that life force that hums deep inside of you continually whispering "outside...outside...outside".
Summer is hot enough to see. Heat moving across the asphalt like waves upon the shore.
Summer is a good book on a front porch during an afternoon rain.
Summer is a kiss that is salty & sweet & just long enough to turn you inside out.
Summer is laughter, always traveling on the breeze from somewhere close by.
Summer is bare feet, black from the day's adventures.
Summer is picnicking in your neighbors tree house. 
Summer is a low rumble of thunder that sends Little Leaguers back to the dug out.
Summer is fishin' in the dark & in the day & in the twilight.
Summer is forgetting to eat lunch because your kickball game went into extra innings.
Summer is suncreen & tan lines.
Summer is a PB& J underneath the shade of a Mimosa tree.
Summer is magic.
Summer is life giving.
Summer is everything.

A Wish to Build a Dream On

 

 

This is my dear friend Savannah.

I have had the blessing of being her friend for the past 4 years &  have gotten to watch her grow up to be a confident, driven,compassionate, loyal, & obviously beautiful young lady.

She's a tiny little person with a heart the size of Texas.

She asked me to shoot some pictures for her graduation announcements & this is what we came up with!

It was a warm, sunny day filled with lots of giggles & some really big bumblebees.



Heartbroken

I used to be tougher than this.
I used to deflect hardships with the greatest of ease.
I used to have walls built up high enough to keep out pain, sympathy, lots of feelings really.
I used to feel nothing because I expected so little of people, because I had been so hurt.

Jesus changed all that.

Sometimes I miss that old girl.
The one who didn't feel much.
Because now, on a daily basis, I get my heart broken.

Like yesterday, in Sunday School, a 4 year old girl asked us to pray that someone gives her a home to live in for good. She has the prettiest blue eyes & the most infectious laugh. She's in foster care right now & she told me how much she misses her mom. That's not fair.

Or last Thursday, on Valentine's Day, I took one of my high school friends to dinner & we talked about life.
About her parents & how she has never felt like they love her. How she had been sent away to live with family, how her dad only calls her when he's drunk & angry, how her mom can't afford to give her the things she needs.  None of that is fair either.

Jesus took my heart of stone & pumped life into it.
He did this so that I was capable of loving others.
I know that now.
He did that for me so that He could love me & that in return I could love His children that have missed out on true love.
If I am loving them, then Christ is loving them.
If Christ is loving them, then their lives will change.

My heart aches on a daily basis now, but I wouldn't want it to be any other way.

Keep risking that your heart's desire is trustworthy...until life becomes what it was meant to be: sheer enjoyment & pure dancing in the spaciousness of love. -Gerald G May

The Valley of Vision

Lord, High & Holy, Meek & Lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
     hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox
     that the way down is the way up
     that to be low is to be high,
     that the broken heart is the healed heart,
     that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
     that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
     that to have nothing is to possess all,
     that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
     that to give is to receive,
     that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells.  And the deeper the wells the brighter
     they stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
     thy life in my death,
     thy joy in my sorrow,
     thy grace in my sin,
     thy riches in my poverty,
     thy glory in my valley.

-Arthur Bennett

2013

Life feels more beautiful these days.
It's the dead of winter & I'm saying life is beautiful.
Who am I?

But it is!
In bittersweet ways & in miraculous ways.
When I stop to think about what kind of state I was in this time last year, I cringe.
What a wreck!
But now, I am resting in a pretty peaceful place.

I can only assume however, that this time of resting is only here because life is shortly going to be turned upside down again.
Not in bad way, but just in a "time for big changes" way.

A lot of things are coming to an end.
My high school friends will graduate from East.
My college friends will graduate (you can do it Jill!) in May.
Hannah Patty is getting married (which is really a start, but the end of her living with me).
And I think my time in Jeff City is also coming to a close.

I sit in my room in the mornings with my coffee, my journal, my bible, & I rest.
I sit with Christ & listen.
I watch the sun light up my room & the birds begin their day.
I am quiet & He meets me here.

I have felt for a very long time now, that after having reached the top of my mountain I am supposed to leap off it!
But I couldn't!
I stared into the unknown with fear & uncertainty.
It was too risky.
But I'm not afraid anymore.
I'm not scared or sad or lonely or hurt.
I am bold & I am brave & I am me again.