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I have made it to Seattle. It was a fantastic journey that included spending time with all of my long-distance friends, enjoying their hospitality, watching their children play, and getting caught-up in a way that only women can do.

My first week in my new hometown has been a mixed bag. It is exciting to explore all the neighborhoods in this city, but I am tired of being lost. I love my new house, but I am discovering all of it's not-so-charming quirks. I love decorating and searching for decor, but I am nervous about my dwindling income. I love having the freedom to roam throughout the day, but I am starting to ache for some connection.

I am experiencing the joy of the adventure, and yet a sadness that comes with not being known. I am mourning being familiar with my surroundings and with a community. I know familiarity will come, but today it feels like it isn't coming soon enough.

The Gift of Go

I am living in the moments that will make up my last few days in Phoenix. I have lived other places over the years, but they were always temporary. Phoenix has always been home. Not a home I have loved or cherished, but home in the sense that this is where my community has been, my family. Two years ago I bought my own home, further planting me in this community. And now I am pulling up my roots of the last 20 years in search of a new home.

I am reading an amazing book called Searching for Home, by M. Craig Barnes, one of my favorite authors. It was a book I bought for someone else, but was definitely meant for me in this time - a reminder that as a Christian, home will never be found on earth, but only in eternity with Christ. Some of my favorite lines...

"...the right place isn't something you choose, but a place that chooses you, molds you, and tells you who you are."

"...there is no way to find home without leaving home. It is a grace to be told to go."

"...the redemption we are offered by God results only in becoming a purer form of ourselves."


It seems that the hardest things often bring the greatest gifts and blessings. My dad dying over three years ago was devestating, but has brought a lot of freedom...perhaps because it is easier to forgive those that are gone. Owning a home has not been the American Dream for me with leaking roofs and backed-up sewer lines, but owning it has made me wealthier than I started and afforded me the luxury of becoming a full-time student again. And this move to a new place has been difficult. Lots of anxiety and reluctant goodbyes. I don't know what the end will look like...it is many years down the road, but I sit here with great expectations of the transformation that is about to begin (as well as a little dread for the rough roads that will inevitably be taken on this new journey).

House Joy

The last month or two I have been carrying a huge burden. Simple questions really, but extremely overwhelming for me. Selling a house, moving to a new town, starting grad school, finding a new home, figuring out how to make my job part time in another city, buying a new car, ahh...the list itself stresses me out.

Last week I was doing my weight training day at the gym. I worked out all my muscles just fine, but then I got to my shoulders and I could not get through 5 reps without stopping. Now I know there are a lot of variables at play, but I walked away feeling like I had just lived through a symbolic moment...the weight of my world has been so heavy on my shoulders that I just couldn't bear any more.

But this morning I woke up happy, actually quite joyful. I spent the last two days looking for a new home with my new roommates in my new hometown...Seattle. We found a beautiful house in Greenlake that is perfect for each of our individual needs. I now have a place to call home for the next year. I have a distraction in the planning of the move to keep me from dwelling on the more pressing questions, such as...what the hell am I thinking moving to Seattle and becoming a student again? Just checking off that one item from my overwhelming To Do list has helped me feel free again to dream of a new life in Seattle.

Pictures coming soon!

Sex

I want some.

Virginity in the Christian community I have always lived in is such a virtue, something to be admired, which means it is something that you receive genteel womanly smiles for and pats on the back.

I wish we could be more honest about how hard it is. At 29, my body feels like it is at a breaking point. As I listened to my "worldly" brother briefly mention the fact that he has had several flings since his divorce, my heart and body groaned. Why does he get grace? Why don't I take advantage of that same grace that I know is available to me and release some of this pent up sexual energy?

Because either out of total naivete or church brainwashing or perhaps real belief I anticipate that there is a blessing in honoring God by holding out for a covenant relationship. Dear God, please let it be real.

In the meantime, I finally opened up about this struggle with a friend. The conversation led to laughter...avoid the older car salesmen as I shop for a car - I might end up getting laid...keep reading those piles of books on my bedstand to get through those "lonely" nights...which led me to this song by Over the Rhine...

So open up my heart-shaped box
It's full of combination locks
I've swallowed all my love-sick pills
To keep from getting chills
Look at all the books I've read
In my lonely single bed
But when you say love, OH

Ahh...this is the beauty of life...finding laughter in the midst of struggle.

Engaging

I have spent a lot of my life un-engaged with the world around me. I have always stepped back into the shadows to avoid putting a burden on others, to avoid being seen or heard, to avoid being known. And yet in those shadows my heart has always wept in grief that I was not seen or heard, that my life had no impact on others, that no one really knew me.

The last few months have been about engaging the world around me. Stepping out into the unknown situations that life presents and choosing to embrace the moment, the person, the place. It has been a seemingly easy transition. It has led to new friendships, new adventures, and new heart aches. Each step out has resulted in a powerful recoil of self, a recoil into self. It is a fear, or intense shame, that questions my very being in the moments of engagement that have passed.

What is this fear? And why is it so intense now?

I am moving toward a new challenge that I know will force me into engagement at a whole new level. It is an adventure that will ask me to be fully present and completely authentic. It will ask me to be myself in the face of rejection, to speak truth in the midst of disagreement. Right now I fear that challenge, and yet I know that it will be the battle against my fears that will give me confidence to continue to engage.

Christ calls his followers to engage. So why is this fear so present in my life right now? I can only suppose that Jesus is seeking me out, calling me out of the shadows I have lived in, asking me to depend on his grace and strength in my weakness. It is a beautifully frightening call.

Delight

Have you ever sensed someone delighting in you? Someone simply enjoying you? It's the sparkle in their eye or the tone of their voice that tips you off to the fact that they are embracing your presence.

I felt that today for a brief moment. It is a wonderful thing.

Justice

Isaiah 1:
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves
clean;remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;cease to do evil,17
learn to do good;seek justice,correct oppression;bring justice to the
fatherless,plead the widow's cause.

...One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Pledge of Allegiance

What does it mean to be just? In Isaiah, I am learning, the lack of justice towards those in need and vulnerable was a big part of God's anger toward the Israelites. It was evil to withhold justice to the fatherless and widowed. I am also learning that justice is almost always mentioned in partnership with righteousness...Learning to do good. When we are seeking righteousness, justice should be a natural outflow of the goodness we are practicing.

Confession: the word justice makes my skin crawl. The word brings up images of angry crowds of people, chanting intelligible and ridiculous phrases, using their fingers to point at others in blame rather than to truly do good. Perhaps those are all very stereotypical images, but that is what comes to my mind. But, if I am a follower of Christ, then I have to ask the question...am I practicing justice? I am sure the answer is "no."

Another confession: I am scared of giving, fighting for, practicing justice, because it will require me to ignore the injustices in my own life in order to participate in justice for others. Who will fight for me? I am scared of embracing the dirtiest and most wounded parts of our world...I fear it is more pain and suffering than I have the ability to handle. I am scared that I would do more harm than good by speaking, serving, and fighting inappropriately.

I think Christian Americans are often guilty of pledging more allegiance to this nation than to our God. But this nation, by our very pledge, is under the authority of our God. So who should we really be placing our allegiance with? I want to walk in allegiance with God, which means embracing the command to practice justice. I don't know what that looks like, and I expect that it will involve much stumbling, as do most of my attempts to learn God's calling for me.

Silence

Growing up as a little girl my family had a cabin that was a full day's drive from home. We had the good 'ol Suburban to carry us into the woods of Ruidoso, New Mexico, and I remember the sounds of talk radio and the story time of Garrison Keeler. It killed me when I was little. I would get boredom headaches. Perhaps I just needed some silence.

I have spent the entire morning pouring over music websites trying to find some new tunes to update my already overflowing collection. I am so excited to have found a few artists that are new to me. Here is a sample...

Needtobreathe
Mainstay
Imogen Heap
Marc Broussard
Ashton Allen
Nada Surf

But after hours of perusing so many bands, listening to so many songs...my head hurts. It could be a sugar overdose from the massive Cherry Limeade I just drank down from Sonic, but I think just need some silence.

Doing The Next Thing

Do the next thing.

That has been the consistent advice of my mentor for 10 years. It is advice that has taken me 10 years to even begin to understand. This is one little next step to figuring out the next steps ahead, and inviting others to participate.

Making one's thoughts public seems terribly narcissistic, or on the other extreme, needy. And yet there is something incredibly desirous about having others participate in your internal dialogue. Perhaps any thoughts that make it to this space could be stored away in a private journal, but then they would be just that. Private, like a secret. The daily meandering of my life isn't a secret, and I don't want it to be. And so here I go...

My life seems full of next steps right now.

Stepping out of a career,

and stepping into grad school.

Stepping out of the roles I had accepted for myself,

and stepping into uncharted paths.

Stepping out of comfort and control,

and stepping into the unknown.

Fortunately, there are many others that have taken these steps before me. Like this one...

"Never be afraid to trust an unkown future to a known God."

Corrie Ten Boom