Joy Abare

a somewhat lengthy rant on being born into a healthy dose of privilege

2012-03-10T19:24:00.006-05:00

so i'm in miami on a business trip (swear to G this is the best "job" i've ever had - wranglin' a toddler whom i adore whole-heartedly) and i am finding myself completely immersed in these vastly different worlds.

two nights before i left i had a chance to go hear rachel lloyd speak. she is the founder of GEMS, and made a documentary called "very young girls" that i hope you will go watch right now (it's on netflix). i watched the documentary about a year ago with my sister-in-law and what we thought was going to be insightful and informative, turned out to be heartbreaking and propelling. after tearfully talking with my sister-in-law about how i became instantly passionate about this (not to mention intentionally smacking myself in a neighborhood where women = sex), she and i both decided we couldn't let ourselves simply be informed. we had to act. everything is still very deep in the bottom of our hearts, but i am definitely aligning myself in positions to be in relationship with young women in my neighborhood and am partnering with some cool people in the process.

anyways - i'm reading rachel's book "girls like us" while on this "business trip" - which is actually more like a strange but incredible "get paid extra to go on vacation and enjoy the crap out of yourself on our dime" trip. i have oodles of time to lay by a pool and people watch and read and this book is incredible. i'm almost through with it and started it the day before yesterday.

miami is a strange place filled with fake boobs, hilarious scottish tourists who are so incredibly proud of every patch of cellulite, young party people, celebrities, and me. i always think it's funny to be in places like this people watching thinking that other people are nuts, but then realizing you have something big in common - out of all the places to go in the world, we're here. the same place. anyways i read page after page of abuse and such horrific things done to women (RIGHT NOW - and in a city near you), and then look up and see such enjoyment, relaxation, and safety.

what's so special about me that i was born into an amazing family, white, privileged, and had to worry about very little growing up? my family situation was more of a "don't-remember-what-day-it-is-because-i'm-on-vacation" cozy family with a mom and a dad and brothers, whereas my friend ____ grew up with no dad (he left the day he was born - but had managed to raise his two older siblings fine), only to have him come back for ONE day when he was 13, give him five bucks and then peace out. what makes he and i so incredibly different?

today i ran into walgreens to grab a few things and in front of me in line was a woman with a huge bottle of wine. like one of those XXL ones. her teenage son was with her and he wanted to add two bars of deoderant to the bill but she said she wanted to pay for the wine separately and that he needed to go grab a basket and meet up with his sister, then they would get back in line and she'd buy their stuff. he seemed confused, so she stated again, more urgently, that he NEEDED to go get a basket. still confused, he slowly walked off and she watched him like a hawk and then said to the cashier - "QUICK - gimme a pack of those marlboros. two. gimme two." the cashier was confused as to why this seemed so rushed, but she said, "OK QUICK SCAN THEM!" and then she stuffed them in her bag and when her son came back, she smiled one of those awkward "i didn't do anything wrong" smiles and then she paid (kid HAD to have been confused about how ONE XXL bottle of wine turned into such a fortune so quickly) and then walked back to the store to keep shopping.

the whole situation was kinda like one of those pangs i get when i see someone being mean to a person who isn't the same color as them, or not smiling at my baby when he seems super happy to smile at them and is waving (come on - how bad is your life that you can't smile and wave back at a one year old initiating human contact?). again, i found myself caught in the hugely different worlds of escapism and over-joyed-to-be-aliveism.

so weird to me the things that happen to us are all series of events that we choose and do not choose, but in the very beginning - we definitely didn't have any say over. like my sweet niece and nephew born into such love and provision. they have everything they need/want and then i think about the babies i would munch on in haiti - born into awful circumstances with little chance of them ever getting better. not only do they not have probably anything they want, but probably have almost nothing that they need.

oh differences. makes me think of brett dennen. 'blessed is this life, oh and i'm gonna celebrate being alive.'

i'm an uncle.

2012-02-28T20:02:00.003-05:00

this little baby walked right into my heart the day i found out his mama was carryin' him around in her belly. but the day he was born, february 23rd, he somehow found a way to squirm his way a little deeper into it. we share a lot of things already... a love for our family, a safe cozy feeling when they are around, a last name, and... a birthday!

ever since i found out he was a boy, i would listen to this song and think of him. but now that he is HERE, i can't help but get teary when i listen to it.

"But somebody told me that your nephew was born
Oh, a beautiful baby, so smart and so sure of his little self
And in a wonderful way he was making me feel so small" (boy & bear - big man)

since he was due the day before my birthday, people would ask me if i wanted him to be born on my birthday or if i would feel "overshadowed". puhlease. as much as i love my birthday - i would love even more to have a little baby bring some more joy and life to it! i got some great gifts this year - including a visit from my dad who spoiled us for the weekend, but nothing could trump waking up to a new family member. the newest love of my life - landon gabriel abare.

and he made me feel small in the best way. the way that all babies make me feel: small compared to the size of my swelling heart as i hold their tiny little bodies in my arms, or as they discover new things, or when they squeal when i walk into the room. there's no describing how much i love babies - or how much they teach me about acceptance, love, and happiness. but there's absolutely no way to write or talk to you about how much my heart bursts at the thought of my niece and nephew. they're both constantly teaching me how to make space in this tight squeeze of a heart that i have.

thanks for coming, landon. and thanks for sharing things with me. like a birthday. and the best family in the world.

ring around the rosie

2012-02-22T23:40:00.002-05:00

ash wednesday services have never been a big deal for me. i didn't go to them growing up, and didn't even know what happened at one until last year. but tonight, in one of my favoritist churches in the city - i really got smacked hard with the meaning and value of this tradition.

right about the time we started saying the litany of penitence, i started to get a little uncomfy. but once i said the line: "Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us, We confess to you, Lord", i let the words come out and sure enough they were loaded with conviction (conviction - a yucky churchy word that i seem to not be able to avoid lately).

i'm always caught in this "act like a christian" debacle. i grew up in the church, and maybe for that reason - associate christians with crazy nuts who fake being slain in the spirit and care more about giving exactly 10% then adopting a heart of generosity and tending to the heartbreaking needs that envelope them on a second by second basis.

part of me wants to live in the way that some people i know do - every word dripping with such deep affection towards God and having that elf like, "i'm in love, i'm in love and i don't care who knows it" attitude towards Jesus and all things him. but then part of me kind of wants to hide that light under a bushel, because i see so many people doing things in his name that are just... horrible. and as much as i want to believe that people will lump me in with the group of sweet people who made them a dinner when their son died - instead of the group of people who came bearing scripture verses and a list of reasons why he went to hell and how they can turn this car around for themselves - i know that people don't do that. if i'm a christian, i'm every person who ever judged them.

so i find myself playing my faith down in settings where it won't be accepted. i conveniently leave my location out of stories if i was at church or my missional community or my women's discipleship. i'm terrible at math, but somehow figured out how to subtract God when i deem it necessary and them add him right back when it's a comfortable situation for me to do so.

then tonight comes - and i get these ashes rubbed on my forehead and boom. i'm lumped in with every other person who has gotten ashes put on their forehead. i feel a sense of comradely with each person who has the cross on their forehead. the gangster and the grandma, the stock boy and the kid. and i see people without these crosses looking at us with curiosity - thinking we're all alike or maybe wondering how the blanket of faith stretches out so big to cover the white girl and the homie at the same time.

walking around with those ashes on my forehead was sort of a way for me to say - sorry God. i'm sorry i've played your greatness down. i'm sorry i've hidden you in situations because i've been ashamed of some of your kids. and walking around with those ashes put me on the same level as everyone else. sort of like public transportation for my soul.

i'm gonna go let it shine.

untitled 2

2012-02-22T00:03:00.001-05:00

promises never did sound better than when they were kept.

loyalty, my friends, is something that will never go out of style.

you are not:

2012-02-18T16:29:00.002-05:00

who says it's not helpful to think of all the things you are not? (a slave, disloyal, bound, judged...)

how cliche of me to use any lyrics from mumford and sons, but i'm not cool enough to think they're not fun to listen to. or to write about some of the great lyrics they have.

Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design, an alignment, a cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

recently my new york bestie did a reiki session with me (she's a yoga teacher) and i today i was trying to describe to her the weird state of awake dreaming i was in. in my awake dream, i pictured myself inside my heart. my heart was a big hole and i was at the bottom of it (think: well) and i was trying to get out of it. people kept coming to where i could see them at the top and either spitting in the hole (my heart) and kicking dirt into it, or throwing ropes down or jumping in themselves to help me out. i saw very clear faces of the spitters and dirt kickers and then very clearly i saw the faces of those trying to help me. it was really interesting. and this all sounds very dharma (of dharma & gregg) of me, but i can't help how fascinating and cool i found it.

it was so much fun to think about the people who have helped me and then think about how i've sort of weed whacked the spitters and dirt kickers out already. almost a reminder or a pat on the back, if you will, saying, "yes - you are surrounding yourself with just the right peeps."

i know i'm not the only one who's been tricked into thinking good feelings are good love. i think about the all the different versions of love that have surfaced in my life, and there have definitely been some nasty versions. the kinds that told me what i wanted to hear, made me laugh, even felt good and purposeful - but were actually enslaving because they weren't giving me the freedom to be who i was created to be.

it's incredibly liberating to live the way you feel like God breathed life into you for.

'“the doors will open wide for you.”
It was said just like it was the truth,
If we walk right through...' - sleeping at last (resolve)

open mouthed

2012-02-16T09:31:00.002-05:00

time goes so quickly these days.

and it's so much fun. i'm savoring the days of big, wet, open-mouthed baby kisses and belly laughs over hitting myself in the head with a spatula. or getting videos of my sweet chubs of a niece playing with my valentines present in the bathtub and "blowing" me a kiss (it's more of a hand to the mouth and eyes full of intention to do the next step but can't quite put it together - the best).

babies remind me of what my parents always drilled into us about life being lived in seasons. it's one of my favorite truths they instilled in us.

i love, love, love all of the literal seasons. it's one of the ways God says, "hey - i know when you get itchy for change.." as much as i love winter and wearing winter clothes, i love spring and flowers and playing catch. and i love summer for the fact that it feels like this city, collectively, has rolled a fatty of fellowship and fun. people are out every night until 3am and music plays and people are constantly doing things. i live right next to a park, so it helps that in the summer the windows in my building are all open and i get to hear the fun sound of baseballs clinking to bats and then screams and shouts while someone runs the bases. and i love taking weekend trips to the beach and laying in the sun until cancerous spots appear (melanoma is never funny, guys - obtain an appropriate SPF. i wear 80 on my face. that's not a lie.).

so i love the seasons of different weather for different reasons and then i love the different seasons of life for different reasons. but sometimes i'm not necessarily a fan of them. like now, when things are so much fun and life seems to be nearly perfect on all fronts - i think, "um, i'm fine with this not being a season and it just being the way life is!" but i think about some of the really difficult seasons that got me to this one and i just smile. because God has a way of sifting things out.

ok go has a song called "this too shall pass" and it's a fun listen. but the bridge just keeps saying, "let it go, this too shall pass". and it's something i pray and sing over my family and friends who aren't themselves in this season.

man you think it's tough being in a bad season yourself - try watching someone you love in a season that you see as so destructive to them and the people around them. it's the hardest thing i've ever done. harder than being brokenhearted. because the completion and redemption through healing is 1000% out of your hands. it's crippling.

so now i'll go back to crawling around on the floor and hiding in corners until little pigeon toed feet come to find me and kiss me. because this season reminds me of the beauty of life - new and old. used and unused. broken and preserved. salty and sweet.

the sort of life for which we were created

2012-02-11T10:17:00.004-05:00

i was recently inspired by my great play-reader of a sister-in-law to check out tennessee williams's the catastrophe of success. don't be scared to read it - it's a short essay you can find online. i would definitely encourage you to do so. some really good things in there.

this stuck out to me:

The sort of life that I had had previous to this popular success was one that required endurance, a life of clawing and scratching along a sheer surface and holding on tight with raw fingers to every inch of rock higher than the one caught hold of before, but it was a good life because it was the sort of life for which the human organism is created.

i have always identified with people who are older than me. i think because i only had one younger sibling and four older ones - and my family was just different. what my parents lacked in the "you have to get an A on this test or you're grounded." (no version of that would have ever, EVER been spoken in my house) area they made up for in the, "find what you love doing and do it!" area.

despite what people may think about me and the stuff i've acquired or the cozy place i live or the things i support or go out and do - my dad doesn't send me a check. i work for it. and my brothers and their wives work hard to create families and homes that are inviting.

i never much liked hanging out with my age group because even now - now that we're in our twenties, i get so tired of people who just don't want to try. they want to float through life doing whatever makes them "happy" with no foresight into the future or participation in something that's bigger than themselves. it's exhausting to be around this type. to lazily go from one activity to the next and chalk it all up to "being in our twenties" and "only living once!" - yikes. sounds icky to me. where's the generosity? where's the pursuit of meaning?

maybe that's why i love living in this city. because even though there are still pockets of those people who get rent checks from their sugar daddy and live to party - the majority of us have a knowledge that you have to work your ass off in order to live here. so you better really love it. otherwise you're just working for nothing. and i love living in a place where everyone has this sense of loyalty to where they call home. we own this loyalty because we've changed the way we live just to - live.

that's absolutely not to say you can't pursue generosity and purpose outside of this city - i 100% think you can and see my family and some of my friends doing it now. and that's why i choose to do life with these people. because i love that pursuit of purpose.

this life of work and pursuit - it really is what we were made for. so i never want to get the idea of resting in God's love and resting in my pursuit of God muddled. because they're reeeeal different, ya'll.

2012-01-30T19:25:00.002-05:00

there's a song i was singing yesterday that ends with 'alive forevermore' being sung over and over and i couldn't help but think about what the manifestation of God's alive forevermore-ness is in my life - and in the lives of so many people i know and don't know.

so when i look at it even in the scope of my short life i think about all the moves my family has made - and how each one has helped me grow either a little or a lot more. and how i (thankfully) escaped the midwest and the south with no accent. i think about all the friends i've made and lost touch with, or made and kept and treasure. i think about my sweet family who just keeps growing and growing and producing sweet new lives that make my heart want to explode. i think about the incredible life changing move i made to this gigantic city and how i can't think of one prayer or fun thought that's entered my head that hasn't been answered with a fat YES. which is exciting and sweet to say the very, very least.

growing up - my favorite thing about my family and any house we lived in was the open door policy. the 'don't knock on the door'/get yourself a drink/stay after we go to bed/sleep where you drop/eat our food vibe that my parents always did a really good job of making a reality. i always wanted that for the home i made on my own someday.

so this past week and weekend was filled with the in and outs of people i love dearly, people i can see myself loving dearly, people i just met, and even people i'm not that crazy about. but all of it was so wonderful because it felt like home. sitting in my cozy living room with various people who have vastly different stories and being reminded (as if i needed a reminder) of how dearly i love this city for all the different perspectives and passions it brings to the table. musicians, med students, fashion design people, yoga teachers, starbucks managers, nurse practitioners, teachers, bar tenders, psych majors, trader joe's cashiers... but we all have Jesus and the city in common. so whether we were talking, or listening to music, or singing and playing instruments, or vacuuming - it felt important. life-giving, even.

i read this verse today in romans (5:2) and it immediately made me do that, "ooo i'm so excited to know you, God" thing that i do when i get slapped across the face with the beauty of Jesus...

"And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand - out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise."

and i thought joy... you're doing it. you're experiencing the alive-forevermoreness right now on this train. and you experienced it all week with these different passionate people. and you experienced it last night in a room full of people who were praying from deep down in their pretty little hearts with such intentionality for a new church parish. and then after that, experiencing it again as i sang with abandon. the kind that actually makes you sound better because you've only ever been encouraged by these people.

so if you aren't connecting yourself with and digging your heels in with a group of people that make you sense the ailve-forevermoreness of a God who spent it all to give you the option to say no thanks or sign me up... run. run and find out where you can do that.

stand by your _____

2012-01-24T23:51:00.003-05:00

tonight i got my ticket for seattle. so it's back to the pacific northwest in april for me to munch on the newest little abare's cheeks. a baby boy that will have me as googly-eyed and nuts as ava did.

i wrote my sister-in-law (newly pregnant and due in june) a letter trying to explain to her (someone who isn't prone to an automatic and assumed love of babies or children in general) my adoration of wee ones, and obsession with those that share my last name. even for me, a lover of words and explaining things on paper, it was difficult to adequately portray just how nuts i am. so i'm sure i did a pretty inadequate job, but today i read a quote in this book i'm reading in order to complete my doula certification.

this book is interesting, but also written by a feminist who sort of comes off like a psychotic private investigator who thinks the world/hospitals/health care providers are out to get pregnant women.

"babies, i speculated in that peculiar mystical state, are sort of leaky little understudies for God. with each baby the human species gets the chance to break out of the self into the service of something so "other" that the reasons for conditional love can give way to faith in unconditional love. most of us ordinary mortals can't manage that invitation to unconditional love on a daily, ever-renewed plane in the form of looking after the poor, the dispossessed, or the outcast all around us. but with babies, we get the chance to take one manageable baby step on the long hard path of the saints. - naomi wolf (misconceptions)

this really shared a little of what it's like in my heart. i remember jamie asking us to write something for ava's baby book before she was born, and me sitting there writing this letter to ava before i even knew what her name would be and telling her how much i love her. there's nothing i wouldn't do or give to protect her or make her happy. i get all sappy and teary just thinking about it now.

when i was in a relationship with a guy, i always understood it as a parallel to the love God had for me. which is why i had a hard time after he split - was God going to split too? when ava came along, she really wrote a pretty redeeming and beautiful story about what unconditional love is like. and she's not going anywhere. i won't let her! she gave me faith in the kind of love that is crazy, big, dramatic, ridiculous... the kind of love that will spend money and time (and did i mention money?) and travel thousands of miles sitting next to a fat gum chomper just to get to squeeze that chubby little body.

it scares me to think what it will be like if i ever have babies of my own. because i simply can't even imagine loving any harder than this. oh did tammy wynette know what she was singing... 'sometimes it's hard to be... a wooomaaan.'

who's given you the faith to believe in unconditional love? go on now, give 'em a squeeze.

church bells and icky feelings

2012-01-21T12:06:00.004-05:00

i've been thinking a lot about feelings and choices and why we do things and why we don't do things and why we should do things that we don't and why we don't do things that we should and why we don't do things we shouldn't and why we do things we should. tracking?

it's probably good to have a healthy balance in your life that consists of doing things you don't want to do and doing things you do want to do. for instance, i don't like waking up at 5 something on mondays, but know that if i want to live where i do and eat and have fun - i need to rake in that cash. another example of this would be how i sometimes don't feel like going to the Y, but if i don't want to look like the spawn of paula deen and john candy, i need to burn off the calories that i swallowed in the process of spending the money i had to wake up for.

also good that i just make the decision to act on things that i know are good, because i don't trust my feelings 100%. do you?

i just watched that really depressing movie "blue valentine" (the only thing not depressing was realizing ryan gosling can't even be unattractive when he tries). in a flashback that michelle williams's character is having, she is thinking out loud on the potential to begin a relationship with ryan gosling's character and she says, "how do you trust your feelings, when they can just disappear like that?"

i've been on the receiving end of so many assholes (for lack of a better word) who felt like trusting their feelings was going to get them to where they needed to go in life. it doesn't feel good. in fact, it leaves you feeling emotionally raped and utterly helpless. when other people make decisions that affect your life so negatively, it brings you to a dark place: stripped of the confidence and power you thought you had over your own choices/heart.

i feel like i've only recently been able to let go of the rest of the pain i'd been carrying around - placed there by five trusted leaders in the church i went to. and that's only happened after taking a seriously long sabbatical from church - moving to another city, counseling, and being plugged into an actually healthy church.

and i'm not the first in my family to be burnt by the very place people actually go to seek refuge. just talk to my parents! my problems were nothing compared to theirs/my family's.

right now i'm listening to a song by gungor called "church bells":
____________

Let church bells ring
Let children sing
Even if they don’t know why let them sing
Why drown their joy
Stifle their voice
Just because you’ve lost yours

May our jaded hearts be healed
Amen

Let old men dance
Lift up their hands
Even if they are naïve, let them dance
You’ve seen it all
You watch them fall
Wash off your face and dance

May our weary hearts be filled with hope
Amen
____________

so it's important to me that i've put people in positions in my life who will give me a reality check when it looks like i'm calling shots based solely off of feelings. because i know how much my feelings can affect others lives.

but wait! there's more!

2012-01-11T23:20:00.002-05:00

i noticed an ad on the train the other day for the kindle maybe? whatever it was for, it held 1,400 books. and i just sat there thinking about who would ever need to put 1,400 books on one electronic device. i don't think i've ever even met anyone who has read 1,400 books in their entire life. but then i thought - well, there are some special people out there who probably have. their skin is probably as white as mine (only from no exposure to the elements) and they may or may not still be breast fed...

this lead me to the trail of inventions that are made for the most extreme of situations/individuals. kindles that hold 1,400 books. computers that have the most space. cameras that take the highest quality pictures. and everything just keeps getting "better" and "better".

when i got the iphone 4, only because i had shattered my 3, i felt like i had finally caught up. but no, no. then i shattered that and flashed a little skin in the apple store and got another 4 completely free and thought ok maybe NOW i'm caught up. nope. and i never will be. my laptop is still the white clunker. it has chips out of it and is not really so much white as it is off white with what would appear to be my finger prints after being taken to the police station. but i like it and it works for me.

so today on the train i'm thinking all of these ridiculous thoughts while i look around at everyone's version of "what works for them" i realize.. our culture is pulling apart the wires God so meticulously organized in us: the desire for beauty, the ability to live in an extended period of contentment; or better yet - joy - and replacing it with seeds of unfinished business and a yearning for newer versions of meaningless things we've already acquired.

we want, want, want with no sense of satisfaction. God created us to want him, and given the fact that he makes himself readily available to anyone and everyone, we really can be satisfied with just knowing him.

what do you have that satisfies you? or who?

cat calls

2012-01-09T16:23:00.002-05:00

how easy for you is it to delight in the Lord?

i feel sick to my stomach thinking about how easy it's been for me as of late. so i ask myself why i feel sick, or why i feel like it's been so easy... the answer i come up with is that life is incredible right now. i feel like i'm where i'm supposed to be, spending time with people i'm supposed to, doing what i'm supposed to be doing, and hitting wide open gates of favor at every turn. i don't want for hardly anything, and i'm provided for, loved, and cared for well. like really well.

so is it easy for me to delight in the Lord because i feel like he's blessing me in the ways i've always wanted to be blessed, or because i believe at my core that he is responsible for these blessings? either way i'm brought back to bumpy ride on top of a mini bus in haiti; throwing candy into the road for kids to chase after. candy pieces flying, kids screaming, women jumping out of the stream they're bathing in to run naked down the road after us for some measly pieces of candy. that was the highlight of their days. maybe their years. maybe their lives.

but i've mentioned it before... they have this happiness that emanates from them - even outside the context of being given candy, food, necessities. they had all the symptoms of persons who delighted in the God that blessed them with life, but in a place where that life - just being born - feels more like a curse than a blessing at times. a life filled with need. but i know, that i know, that i know God is delighting in them as much as they are him. he delights in the fact that they look to him to fulfill their needs.

J.P. de Caussade said, "all he wishes is to be the sole object and only enchantment of our hearts." when there's not much more to be enchanted with, the gospel is pretty dang fine option.

so do you love your life and delight in the one who gave it to you, despite its many flaws or "not-the-way-i-saw-it-happening's"? or are you single and all you can think of is a love life? are you poor and all you can think of is more money? are you rich and all you can think of is a break to enjoy what you could actually afford?

"instead of living lives we savor, we are in danger of living superficial, sound-bite lives that we barely notice." - edward hallowell

so make the long hair of your life wavy and luscious and put on your tightest pants and walk the metaphorical streets of washington heights, if you will. live a life worthy of head-turning and be confident in not only who you are, but who made you that way.

missing the mark that isn't. until we put it there.

2012-01-04T23:44:00.003-05:00

i got the newest hillsong album, but have only been listening to one of the songs (has a rich mullins chorus, so... duh) on it due to the latest issue i have with the church, the worship music industry (because i think it's different from the christian music industry), and myself.

my deductions after tasting recent worship songs:

recipe = 1/2 cup self loathing/woe is me, 3 cups guilt, 1 cup belief that Jesus actually does hate you when you don't sing about how terrible your life is without him, 4 cups drum solos to inspire/make you feel closer to the God you sound like you should probably just hate if your life is really as awful as verses 1 & 2 say, and 20 cups key of G.

these worship songs bring me back to my high school days. too much time spent in an unhealthy youth group setting where our relationships with God were gauged by the amount of emotion that poured from us before exiting. if we hadn't spent a good portion of our night crying, we felt like we had this plateau "time" instead of a mountaintop "experience" with God.

hindsight is 20/20, obviously, and i now see how detrimental that was to my soul-searching days. feeling like i hadn't connected with God if i didn't walk away from any time spent with him feeling like i had my entire life sorted out because i saw it in a flash... somewhere in between singing some verse about me being terrible and completely alone in the world without the help of God to get me through.

when here's the real deal: i can make it without him. people do every day. i have an amazing family, great friends, an awesome job, and incredible opportunities.

so why do i choose to add someone else to an already great situation? i don't think he's the only means to happiness. i don't think he is disappointed in me on a daily basis, and i sure as hell don't think that singing about my problems for five verses with a chorus about God's goodness despite my crumbling life is something that needs to be happening.

i sway back and forth with the train rocking and look around me at people who may or may not hate God, may or may not love God, or: may or may not even know about God. i think of the unhappiness that plagues so many lives. then i think about my life and just smile. a big, stupid smile to myself like i do often when i think about my family. babies. my home. my city. and i wonder if God has anything to do with it. and then i stop wondering because i know...

he does. so, that's why.

yoga and some big ass elephants

2011-12-20T21:59:00.002-05:00

last monday night i was finally able to go to the yoga class my dear friend teaches. holy cow do i love mondays now. loving mondays... an oxymoron, i know. so i got off work and headed over, but was a few minutes early. columbus circle was on my way, so i just decided to listen to this worship song i love and pray for my city. i walked around the statue and had views of streets going up and down the island. i could see central park and all the christmas gift tents. i could see the big time warner cable mall and all the uppity stores. i could see these huge elephant statues that are on display now as you walk into the circle. and i was just overcome with a sense of: "wow the amount of want amidst all this wealth is incredible!"

the song i was listening to said: "your presence is all i need, it's all i want, and all i seek. and without it, without it there's no meaning."

so imagine that playing while i looked at piles and piles of excess and buildings that house wealthy people who like other wealthy people and essentially make our world go round with their earning and spending. but really - where's the meaning? the past year has made me increasingly aware of just how great a difference only one hundred blocks makes in this city. i'm thankful for that vast difference.

i've also been keenly aware of the things that do matter to me in this city:

quality people and a quality church with healthy leadership and a desire to see change, but not at the cost of people's families and happiness.

the women in my life who will sit around with me and laugh, cry, talk, listen.

my amazing family #2 who provides me with a job, but more importantly love and a lot of happiness.

family across the street.

AND those special guys who stand behind you on the train and make no effort to move back at all when you can't hold your body any more still and keep bumping into them with your butt.

JR - french artist who makes me cry

2011-12-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

overtime hours in the surprise party biz

2011-12-05T20:17:00.003-05:00

every monday and every other friday at around 6:30am i walk down chambers street. and then every monday and every other friday night at around 6:15pm, i walk up chambers street. i see so many of the same people on my commute. it turns out a couple of the guys on my same train downtown even work in the same building i do. new york is so big, but also so tiny.

when i'm walking to the train at night, scattered up and down chambers are older guys wearing these blue smocks that say, "guys and dolls", which is a strip club in the neighborhood. they are passing out fliers and will only talk to men. never have i seen them try to hand one of those papers to a woman.

there's one man in particular that i notice. he's a distinguished looking, older asian man. looks like he is the patriarch of a family of delicious cooks. he used to look at the floor when i would walk past him, or stand next to him waiting to cross the street. you could practically feel the shame just oozing from him. i always wonder how he got to this point. i want to know his story. so all summer, i worked on making eye contact with him. towards the middle of the summer he started to look at me, and by the end of the summer he was half smiling.

today i walked past and gave him a big smile and a wave, excited to see him. i was crying the rest of my walk to the train because of the response i got. his head is almost always down, focused on his task of handing those little fliers out to guys - but when he looked up and saw me smiling and waving - he lit up and started waving back like a little kid. kept saying, "hi! hi! hello!"

there's a song by jenn johnson that we sing at my church called "God i look to you" that i absolutely love. each verse is something you definitely want to be praying and proclaiming each day. but the second chorus says, "halelujah, our God reigns" and just keeps repeating it. i was listening to it on my walk to the train and before i even saw my guys and dolls friend, i started thinking of all the things i want God to reign over in my life and in the lives of others. i thought of all the ways he does reign.

i want him to reign over my sister-in-law and the job she has and hates. i want him to reign over a woman i know who is pregnant and brave and has valid reasons to feel like her baby may never make it. i want him to reign over the neighbor who saw me struggling to get all my laundry and recycle to the basement and said, "it is my privilege to help you." i want him to reign over the girls who are being traded for sex like they are invisible. i want him to reign over the young couple with a newborn who was so embarrassed to be taking a long time in front of me at the grocery store because they didn't know what all their food stamps would pay for.

and so tonight while i'm singing "halelujah, our God reigns", i'm also passing this man who looks ashamed but is probably just trying to put some food on the table. and once again, my heart broke for the people in this city.

one of the verses in this same song says, "God i look to you, i won't be overwhelmed. give me vision - to see things like you do." that has been my prayer for a long time. and let me tell you... i really felt like God answered it tonight in the form of a sweet, old asian man passing out strip club fliers.

God's kind of like a surprise party that works over time.

advent

2011-11-29T18:54:00.002-05:00

the spirit of Gerard Kelly overcame me on the train today as i was pondering advent and what it looks like to me this year:

O come, o come Emmanuel
And seize this day full of to-dos, to-don'ts, and routine
Freeze this sense of unaccomplishment, replacing it with your purpose

O come, o come Emmanuel
And wreck this desire for perfection
Silence the choir of voices whose very purpose is to defeat
Do this wrapped in your love, leaving traces of grace

O come, o come Emmanuel
And give us the gift of foresight. More sight. Your sight.
Transformed by the renewing of my mind,
Forgiven so no need to rewind

He came, he came Emmanuel
To lift our heads as we commute,
reminding us to make more than contact
We'd walked so long caught up in ourselves like we somehow deserved it
But when he came he also proved: only that Baby was worth it.

to the abares

2011-11-28T22:49:00.002-05:00

as i was snuggled cozily into my living room, looking at my christmas tree and thinking of all the ways i'm blessed - i got a facetime call from my brother brad and while i was facetiming with him, kara and craig beeped in and said they wanted to come over. i love that every day i get to connect with at least one person from my incredible family. which leads me to this post, which will probably only get publicity from within said familia, but they're worth it - so i write on.

my dad is awesome because he knows how to be generous. and he's a christian. unfortunately in my experience those two have not gone hand in hand. when i think of the top five people who have gone out of their way to show me and others generosity - four of them would say they do not have a relationship with God and one (my dad) does.

my mom is the best mom in the world because she knows how to love. to the point where it hinders her ability to listen because she is always trying to defend the underdog and lavish grace upon the undeserving. she always smells good and has the perfect arm to sleep on when you are in a black people church service and you're blowing right through nap time (we went to a black church when i was little - this happened frequently).

my brother brad is a stealthy badass because he is actually famous in the circles he runs in, but would never, ever admit it or tell you when he is speaking at a conference, being asked for input in a book, etc... he is one of the most humble people i've ever come across - and he is hilarious. all of my brothers are hilarious, actually. brad must have taught us all.

my SIL jamaica is great because she puts herself out there. she will scrape your soul for dust at any time in the middle of the night and she is a great listener. when she is there, she is present. she's all about where she is - and that is quite an achievement these days.

my brother mark is a baller because he is a closet softy. he comes off so tough, so sarcastic, so unapproachable - but anyone who knows him will tell you... he will do ANYthing for you and weirdly enough, snuggles me and pinches my cheeks to the point where i'm trying to escape. still. as if i'm five years old. but i secretly love it. watching him make the transitions from single, to married, to dad have been so exciting and tear-inducing. he is such an amazing husband and such a sweetie dad. he's in love with his little girl and who can blame him?!

my SIL jamie is fantastic because she was like the puzzle piece we had been looking for that had fallen off the table and was face-down while we were trying to complete our puzzle. so glad we found her because this girl cracks me up. i love laying around with jamie and talking about life and boys and all that there is to talk about. and also watching her make the transition from amazing wife to amazing mama has been a blast. she sure does pop out beautiful babes!

my brother craig is incredible because he inspires me to pursue all the creativity i was born with but has yet to be unearthed. he and i were made for this city. i've tried to explain it before when someone thought he had been upholstering furniture for years since he had upholstered my couch and it looks amazing. they said they just assumed he had been an expert and i said that the thing about craig is that he is an expert at nothing, but somehow an expert at everything. no, he hasn't studied a ton of things, but whatever he touches his hand to ends up like gold. he is wild and crazy and we laugh and embarrass kara to the point of pee pants.

my SIL kara is the 1/2 a broken heart from my sterling silver necklace combo from the quarter machine because she can read me like a book. she is so talented, has the biggest heart, is hysterical, and teaches me what being a good person, apart from God really looks like. i have walked with kara through her whole faith journey and i hear her credit a lot of the things she learned about faith to me - but really i credit a lot of the things i'm still learning to her. she has held my head and heart up through the worst of pains, and skipped alongside me through the healing process.

my brother luke is such a freaking weirdo but worthy of all my affections because his heart is the size of the universe. he has this way of connecting with and making ANYone feel valued that is much desired by me. he is quick to forgive, doesn't stay mad, and will find any creative way for you to buy him a sandwich every day. he also has great teeth and a nice set a gams.

my SIL sarah is wonderful because even though she was born and raised in the south - she doesn't talk like she was. she's also wonderful because she loves luke really well and loves ava for me even though i'm so far away.

my little brother paul is a messy pot of love because he's got a tender lil' heart. he's one of those mushy boys who will buy dinner for his girlfriend and all of her friends because he wants to be a nice guy. he loves to a fault and like luke, he doesn't stay mad. which i know well because i test the theory often.

and to the littlest... my munchie niece ava is the best because she's young enough to still not be embarrassed by me. i'm going to give her approximately four years before she doesn't want to be seen with me - or will let me show people pictures of her anymore. i adore this little girl even more than i could have ever dreamed of loving a little babe that didn't even hatch from my own egg. i'd go to the ends of the earth to let her know it too.

so there it is. my family is the best. and adding more spouses to the clan is a daunting task, which now falls on my shoulders since we're obviously following the "in order" marriage rule. we'll see how this goes....

reaction/reflection

2011-11-26T09:58:00.002-05:00

bob goff(president and founder of restore international says): "we're usually either a reaction to, or reflection of, who we've trusted the most with our lives. be a good picker."

i immediately think of all the periods in my life spent trusting all the wrong people and how my actions and person were actually just a really poor reaction to the people i thought i could trust. church leaders and best friends, boys and girls. how much of your life have you spent in the pain of broken or misplaced trust? i'm ashamed to admit that my numbers are staggering.

realizing now that i am so at peace with who i am, the world around me, the people around me... and also recognizing that it's all because i'm being so careful to invite quality people to spend my time with - makes me feel that i am being a good picker. and also makes me relish even more in the truth that time is precious.

i hate how much time was spent on the outs with my brother and his new wife. he was my best friend all growing up and she was my dear friend before they got married. and the pain and disagreements all felt so legitimate - until they dissipated and all that was left was forgiveness and a lot of missing.

and now that i am so at peace with each and every person in my life - i'm wondering how much of it has to do with my relationship status with Jesus. and i think it has everything to do with it.

when i made the decision to move to new york and after listening to some wise counsel on when that should be - every single thing fell in line for me. i trusted that God would have my back from square one and he has gone so much farther to make his love and protection for me known. i'm living in a dream and it's only getting better. and i'm not so ridiculous as to think i made it all happen for myself. i certainly did not.

but it reminds me of a verse i read almost daily from colossians (2:2). i so, so love it: 'i want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery.'

don't tell me yo dreams

2011-11-13T21:24:00.002-05:00

here are some things i really suck at:

praying
having conversations with the elderly
listening to people's dreams (mainly because i couldn't possibly care any less about something that didn't actually happen to you)
beating any of my brothers in a fight (what a defeated day in my life: realizing my little brother was stronger than me)

but let's focus on that first one. mostly because you don't need to hear about how awkward the interactions between me and someone 50+ years my senior are. instead i will tell you about how awkward [some of] my interactions with God are.

when i pray, it doesn't feel natural. it feels like i am every babbling, crazy and potentially harmful homeless person i know i shouldn't sit next to even when it's the only empty seat on the train and i'm tired. talking, talking, talking with no response. no: "mmhmm, yes and how does that make you feel?" no: "are you nuts? why would you ask me for that?" i get no reply, and as a self-proclaimed conversationalist - i sure do appreciate a real hot mic. a little feedback, if you will.

it's not that i don't believe in the power of prayer - i do. i have prayed for big things to happen, and happen they did. i'm praying for a miracle right now - and every day that miracle is getting a little bigger and bigger. i prayed for my heart to heal, and it healed. i've prayed for great jobs, and i've gotten them. i've also prayed for a lot of things that didn't happen too. and in those times i question all of it - the whole practice. us, pleading with someone we can't see for things we think we want or even know we want and nothing coming of all the asking.

so what is it? i feel so connected to God when i am worshiping. i feel connected to God on a hike or at the beach. i feel connected to God when i'm holding a sleeping baby thinking about how awesome it is that they are here, and how they got here. i feel connected to God when i'm decorating christmas cookies with my family and it is loud and we are being weird and i'm getting icing wiped on my face by my stupid brothers who i love more than life itself.

all these things leave me feeling like a string wrapped tightly 'round the big guy's finger, yet talking to him feels like something inconvenient and forced.

alas! my a-ha moment: get over it joy. i feel God tugging at my heart. somehow pushing through all of my uncomfortable feelings and saying, "you have access to me. don't waste it. so what if it's uncomfortable? it wasn't comfy doing what i did to grant you that access. so seriously, get over it."

....oh the irritating fact that everything of great worth and value is hard work. and messy. and sometimes weird feeling.

things (an infinitely less important jip off of my dad's resurfacing thoughts)

2011-11-08T21:56:00.003-05:00

i am about one cereal bowl full of every stale leftover that is not enough to make up a real bowl of cereal, but will do just the trick for a mom away from being a mom myself. oh and a conception, pregnancy, labor, and birth away as well. don't have a baby of my own either, but man does it feel like it when i go to pull something out of my bag and a pacifier comes up.

my oldest brother, brad, is my biggest and only fan. he wants to be my agent and offered to put up half the tuition money for me to start taking sketch writing classes at the famous upright citizens brigade. i'm obviously incredibly excited.

add that to the list of things that 2012 will be full of. come january, i will also be diving deeper into my research and organization for the writing program i'm dreaming up to encourage girls in my neighborhood to be confident in who they are and what their passionate about. also as a means to bring the frighteningly high numbers of sex trafficking in my own city to an all time LOW.

i always thought that "aunts who squeeze cheeks" was such a crock.... until i had a niece. now, i seriously can't get enough of her chubby chunkers. when i'm with her, all i want to do is kiss and munch on them. and when i'm not with her, all i want to do is kiss and munch on them. i'm so jealous of my mom who is in seattle for the next WEEK loving on our ava.

my dad is a BOSS. he just got this huge promotion and did not say one word about it. my mom had to forward an email written by the CEO of the organization. it had the nicest things to say about my parents. it made me feel super proud.

so since what i want to do with my life with probably never earn me any money, i'm thinking that being a postpartum doula would be suuuups fun.

two weeks from tomorrow my parents will be arriving for a thanksgiving extravaganza. i'm so excited. i love it when my parents come to visit. they are the cat's pajamas.

which leads me to my last and perhaps most important point (lies): seventeen days until i'm singing christmas music non-stop and stringing popcorn for my tree. who's with me? new york city during christmas time is so.magical. i can't wait for the snow that will allow me to do cannon balls off park benches into the deep white like last year.

love/hate relationship

2011-11-04T14:19:00.009-04:00

i hate goodbyes, and i love them.

let's talk about the kind of goodbyes i hate:

goodbyes to my family. i will never forget my heart feeling like it was being torn in half as i left my niece when she was two and a half weeks old. i peeled her little sleeping body off of my chest only to have her warmth replaced by cold january air and the harsh realty that i felt called to a city almost 3,000 miles away from her.

now for the goodbyes that i love:

goodbyes to people and places that don't contribute life, love, joy, and peace. i loved the process of packing up that moving truck and peacing out of a city that represented much of the pain pool i felt like i was drowning in.

in a song by this band i love called slow club, they sing: ''cause there's no good way to say i'm leavin' you.' and i would have to agree - kind of. there's no good way for me to tell my family and my best friends bye. but there are some goodbyes that have paved the way for such fantastic hellos.

i was reminded of this last night, drinking warm drinks with two lovely girls in a cozy apartment. hello tea. hello dear friends.

welcome, me.

2011-10-26T10:34:00.003-04:00

as much as i can't stand those moments when someone makes a punny with my name and looks at me with those, 'i know you hear name jokes a lot, but that was clever...' expression on their face (you know the one), i must say i am guilty of doing it to myself. sometimes my name in quotes or a song just makes sense to me. so a dear friend shared this quote and i must say - it had me thinking, reminiscing, etc...:

"joy comes when we lose what we most desired and discover what we most needed." - lewis smedes

ever had a front row seat in someone's life as you watched them desert everything you knew them to be - likes, dislikes, attitude, big life decisions, small life decisions, friends...? awful, isn't it? i've been on both sides. they're equally terrible. the afterwards of my self-changing years were the worst; wrung with guilt as i listened to my best friends and family share memories that didn't include me, not because i wasn't invited, but because in my insecurity and new-ness chose to not be included.

i was a willing participant in a life and relationship i so very much desired, and when it all went away - i was left with the frustration of nemo's dad when he couldn't find nemo. how old am i you wonder? the frustration of william wallace when princess isabelle dies. too extreme you think? the frustration of harry when he's with sally at sharper image (circa 1989) and runs into his ex with another guy (he's still in love with her).

i suck at comparisons. proof: i genuinely think that shaun white is my doppleganger.

so when i lost what i desired and was forced onto that bumpy/hippie road that is self-reflection and discovery, i was pleasantly surprised to find that the things i really, truly desired were desires at the time. but - throw your hands way up in the air (t-bone) for drastic alterations in our life-pursuits and ideals.

what i most needed has come to me in the form of a pretty expensive, but gigantic and awesome apartment in the somewhat ghetto of manhattan - where i love the people with a big 'let's be friends and help each other out because we're neighbors and your kids are adorable' kind of love. a church that has changed my feelings towards the honorable reverend downs on sunday mornings. friends that make me think, laugh, and feel a unbutton the jeans on my heart kind of full.

so i guess you could say joy has come. or she is back rather. no... she has come. because (enough of that third person), i'm different. and i like it.

sneaky generosity

2011-10-16T23:54:00.004-04:00

the other day as i was waiting for my plane to take off (yes - ANOTHER trip to charlotte. this time for lyds' wedding), i happened to notice this "tweet" (for those of you who know me, you know how difficult it was for me to put the proper name right there...). mark horvath is the founder of invisible people, has almost 14,000 followers on the ole' twitter, and is the keeper of this blog: http://hardlynormal.com. and here he is giving MY dad credit for where he is now.

this reminded me of the watershed charlotte (my parents' church) six year anniversary video from a few weeks back that shared the stories of many broken people. i can't even count how many people just that sunday said something pertaining to "tim and ann abare changed my life". i got choked up watching all these people tell their stories - feeling overwhelmingly blessed that these people raised me. loving that whenever i go to their church, people know me as "tim & ann's daughter".

because here's what i love about my parents... they are behind the scenes orchestrators. they are all about sneaky generosity.

our dear, dear family friend was just married (my dad married the couple and most of our family members were in some way involved) to a sweet guy who has a strained relationship with his dad (as in he doesn't talk to him ever), and a practically non-existent one with his mom. while at the rehearsal dinner (which had a TON of people), i saw my dad talk to the manager at the restaurant and then handed him a card. there my dad was, paying for this huge dinner to show this guy a practical sense of fatherly love. tucking one more son in his arm (as if he doesn't have enough of those boys!).

i know a girl whose marriage is on shaky grounds right now. she and i used to be very close - but have just grown apart as we're headed in completely different directions. i saw her a couple weekends ago and she just kept going on and on about how my mom has been such a help and encouragement to her and her pain right now. i had no idea, because my mom would never say anything.

as i was nosing around my parents' house alone tonight, i saw a really cool card on the desk and, of course, read it. it was from terry hilliard (the guy who married luke and sarah). he's been staying with my parents for the last two weeks. he said, "when i meet people like you both, i am reminded of the goodness of God! you both shine with the heart of Jesus. having been with you for 2+ weeks - your heart for people, family & the kingdom of God oozes from your lives."

i find it ironic that my dad is orchestrating a gigantic gala (http://epoch2011.com/) to celebrate the lives of missionaries - the unsung heroes of our day. mostly because someone should be putting together a huge party to cheer on the secret generosity that my parents let explode from their hearts.

i hope that you can come to my house and be nosy and find cards and letters that say similar things.

more rich chocolate hazeltine, please.

2011-10-03T20:32:00.003-04:00

i love to be with people who are great.

my brother luke just got married over the weekend, which meant i got a chance to see many people i rarely get to and miss very much. one being his best friend, best man, and a dear part of our family - steve hazeltine. spending time with steve is like pouring water into the soil that helps your heart grow. he is hysterical, so talented, and just an all around great guy. my heart felt filled up after sitting around the fire singing good music and talking about life.

as up in the air as his every day life is logistically, he is so solid. talking to him encourages you and makes you feel home-y all at once. i really can't say enough good things about him. he just floats to where God calls and trusts in he'll take care of things.

when i think about steve, i think about what people could say about me when they're done spending time with me. would they say anything close to what people think about steve? not in an effort to compare - just trying to figure out how to live my life so that it's not just me who knows how much i dearly love living and being surrounded with the people i am. what would i say about you?

it's fun to be alive, right? right.

brave shmave

2011-09-20T09:18:00.002-04:00

i went to charlotte over the weekend for my best friend's bridal shower, and anytime i've gone back for a visit - people are surprised all over again to hear about how much i love it here and how i do not plan on coming back. i always feel awkward at that point in the conversation, because while they're surprised i love it here and probably think i'm crazy - i am surprised they are acting like it's so weird for someone to move away and stay there for a while and i think they're crazy.

of course i choose to have little to no control over where i end up or what i end up doing. meaning a year from now, i could be somewhere else at the urging of Jesus, definitely not my own whims. but i really don't think i will be. i see such cool things happening in this neighborhood and city, and i love that i am apart of it. i'm crazy about the people here and i have never been more excited/happy on a daily basis just to be alive where i'm at.

when i'm down in charlotte, it's like a continuation episode of the last two years of my life spent as a fish out of water. and then i touch down on the ground here, and it's like a rush of peace washes over my soul. for almost two years to the day, this city has been my safe haven. and i think that's what your home is supposed to be.

there's always someone (usually an older person) who asks how it is here, and then tells me how brave i am. this too, always makes me squirm a little. because what am i supposed to say? "yep, i'm pretty damn brave!", "... thank you, friend." ??

i think Anaïs Nin has a better response than i ever do: "[and] the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

but then again, someone else always comes up with better responses than i do.

not one for men in uniform

2011-09-11T20:56:00.002-04:00

i must admit that although i remember this day ten years ago very clearly - i have never devoted much time to thinking about it. it was something that didn't affect me personally and unfortunately that's the way a lot of people feel about a lot of tragedies. i remember feeling sick the day of the earthquake in haiti, because i knew people who died, and was affected very personally in that i love the country and the people dearly. but others carried on with their days as if nothing had happened.

well september eleventh comes with a very different feeling when you live in manhattan. you hear stories from people who you know and it starts to feel extra real and sad. this morning i saw many decorated fire fighters from all over the country... seattle (represent!), santa clara, palm beach... it was so cool to see these guys everywhere.

i hear these stories of people just barely escaping death, or having commute trouble that morning and missing out on all the danger that awaited them at their office or around their work/home. i wonder how after ten years, they cannot believe with all of their souls that they are here for a purpose. that they were rescued for a reason. that they are called to more than a 9-5 job and an elite party on the weekend.

but alas this is my every day experience here... constantly surrounded by a sea of meaningless hook-ups, pursuit of the almighty dollar, fashion's night out, men in black outfits whose goal in life is to take a picture of a movie star eating a burger.

noah and the whale (who, if you have the chance to ever see live - i would highly suggest doing so) says it so well in their song 'peaceful the world lays me down': (pardon their french)

Oh, and if you don't believe in God,
How can you believe in love?
When we're all just matter that will one day scatter,
When peaceful the world lays us down.
Oh, and finding love is a matter of luck,
Oh, and unsettled lovers move from fuck to fuck.
Oh, and compare their achievements like discussing bereavements
And compare their abrasions with romantic quotations,
Oh, as peaceful, the world watches down.

so how do i keep from being unintentional in my day-to-day? how do i preserve my heart from the stale conformity that is the misunderstanding of the gospel message?

i feel like i have some good ideas... but what do you think?

nin

2011-09-02T20:47:00.002-04:00

i've been diving deeper into the diaries of anaïs nin. my God does she write the most beautifully tormented things that i resonate with so deeply. it's like she's sitting on my heart circa 2009 and writing away. sort of like adele with her '21' album.

i like to sit back every once in a while and look at my life like i look at my niece who i've known since she was but a sparkle in her daddy's eye. the unfolding of the two is exciting and new and bittersweet.

as i watch ava learn all of her new tricks and grow like a weed - i feel joy at watching her become more and more her own with her very own personality and quirks. but then i also have these awfully sad pangs of torture when each night i flip through my favorite videos and pictures of her. she lives entirely too far (she's in seattle, i'm in new york city), but thankfully she has the best mama (my sweet sister-in-law, jamie) who shares her with us by sending videos and pictures constantly and skyping on demand! i feel like jamie has a full-time job and it's sharing ava with a gigantic family sprinkled all over the country.

as i sit back and look at all God has surrounded me with - things i wouldn't have even been so creative to ask for - i am reminded of all the pain that was apart of the journey here.

i was having a conversation with my brother and sister-in-law last night about heartbreak. i was telling them that they were so blessed to have not had to experience a broken heart - but then i quickly took that back. because i think that there is something incredible about the battered heart.

and quite frankly i like having a sealed up heart. the scar reminds me of all the things i'll do differently if i'm ever in a similar situation. but it also rings out like a tried and true battle wound - and helps me connect with people who have healing hearts.

anaïs said, 'the secret of joy is the mastery of pain.' i think that there will always be surprises in my life - and i think that like the few years of life that i spent taking blow after blow, there will be more low blows. but i hope each time i can react a little bit more gracefully.

a pretty [,] painful movie

2011-08-28T09:26:00.003-04:00

after a beautiful day at the beach together, a friend and i grabbed a knish and headed to see 'tree of life'. i'm here to tell you that the knish was bad and the movie was worse. the one thousand ounces of pop i drank throughout the film was the only thing getting me through. (yes, all you drug addicts and health nuts - cherry coke cures a number of pains)

i really tried to step back from all the lengthy montages of fake planets separating and exploding whilst opera music rang in my ears to truly listen to some dialogue, even though it was spoken in that southern accent that leaves me feeling violent.

brad pitt's son was talking to God and he said, 'why should i be good, if you aren't?' and if you give me one person who hasn't asked a version of that question before, i'll show you someone who has probably not been weaned from breast milk yet.

i honestly think it takes what feels like an eternity to start truly believing God is good. because as someone who is really trying to love Jesus, you know that it is messy, painful, and sometimes the last thing you want to do.

i get emails from my neighborhood newspaper every few days, telling me highlights of the week. they are almost always horrifying. rape, murder, anything else awful... and for someone like me - who has been through enough muck to get to the place of trusting that God is indeed good, i start to doubt if he is really who i think he is.

when my dear sweet sister-in-law and one of my best friends, kara, was trying to figure out all this God stuff and was so curious and eager to learn - i really encouraged her to let doubt be an integral part of her searching.

i have a love/fear relationship with doubt. it is scary and necessary and horrible and wonderful all at the same time. if i didn't have any doubts about God or just took everything at face value (which, you try to do when it comes to faith and let me know how that goes), i would have a superficial belief lacking everything that makes up the thick gooey substance that is my desire for the understanding of Jesus and his pursuit of me.

last week i was in charlotte and popped into watershed with the fam on sunday morning. hofert said: 'need breeds faith.'

so tell me about what usually comes first in your experience... your need for something, or your faith that it will come? and how much doubting was apart of your acquiring that faith? i know there are a handful of great things that i don't necessarily need, but would so love to happen that i really doubt will. so i just have faith that God will meet my needs - and i hope that he'll throw some wants in there too. he hasn't disappointed so far.

to know

2011-08-11T22:46:00.004-04:00

as i've mentioned before - i am around babies a lot now, and i absolutely love it. there are two in particular that i am pretty crazy about (but my sweet niece will always have me tightly wrapped around her chubby little finger).

when i'm with my little new york baby, theo, i look at him and think about how much i love and know about him. i know all of his new tricks. i watch him learn new things. i have been there for all of his major milestones. i've watched him go from a tiny little baby who didn't do much, to a full blown little personality (A+ personality too... i'm working on getting him and ava together, don't worry). i absolutely love hanging out with him.

'we knew that they knew everything about us, and yet we couldn't fathom them at all.' - virgin suicies

when i look at ava and theo - i wonder if they really, really know just how much i love them. i feel like there's no way they could. and i realize i'm not a parent (if i ever get there - i feel bad for that child. smothered, smothered, smothered with affection that kid will be), but this must be a portion of what parents feel for their kids. just this dumbfounding love that you want to wrap them up in.

i hate that i never realized just how much my parents loved me until the night my heart was broken. i remember silently slipping into an empty house, washing my face, and laying in my bed to continue being numb or whatever it is i was doing... i heard my parents walk in the door. i heard them open the letter that my ex had written to them 'explaining' what had happened. no words were exchanged. then i heard my dad go back to his room and shut the door. my mom slipped into my room to cry with me - and then i didn't see my dad until the next morning. i could tell he'd been crying as much as i was. and i know my mom did. she didn't leave my side.

the next morning my dad put me on a flight to the only place i felt healing could start (just four blocks from where i make my home now) - and i remember he sent me a text saying he would rather be nailed to a cross than watch his daughter hurt like i was hurting. thinking about that still makes me cry. and before the sleeping pills were acquired and my empty stomach/no sleep self would lay down to attempt slumber, my mom would lay with me and hold an ice pack on my head and smooth my hair.

i'm thankful a million times a day for that very heartbreak, and as more and more time passes - more and more understanding and answers come. i know there is an infinite list of reasons that relationship needed to end, but if it only happened for me to know (like, really... KNOW) how deep the love of my mom and dad runs - it would be a good enough reason.

i imagine my parents feel like God does in isaiah 43: 'you're mine. when you're in over your head, i'll be there with you. when you're in rough waters, you will not go down....i paid a huge price for you.'

throne of fear

2011-08-04T22:56:00.009-04:00

currently i hear the now foreign sounds of a clock ticking, laundry in the dryer, and the chirping of summer bugs right outside my window. i was able to get away from the city for close to a week to be here in sag harbor enjoying some true peace and quiet, sunny days by the pool, and rainy days snuggled on the couch with good company and books and coffee and music. my heart is full and with all the down time i've been able to... be. a great deal. i love it.

i love being in this phase of my life where relationships are weighty and real. my community means business. my church means business. and with the exception of some A+, quality relationships - i hadn't had community in so long. i almost forgot what it was like. actually i did.

i had stopped missing the things i no longer had because i realized i never really had them. and that was not near as big of a deal as i felt like it was. but the one thing i did miss, and that has remained missed, is being apart of leading worship.

worship was my greatest passion in high school. and i felt like that would never change. but years went on, church put a bad taste in my mouth, people but a bad taste in my mouth, and somehow worship didn't taste good anymore either. which is ridiculous because worship can have nothing to do with church or people. or it can have a lot to do with them.

but i have had pangs in my heart thinking about how much i miss this aspect of my relationship with the Lord that i recently have invited a couple people into my struggles with fear just from being out of the loop for so long and for really rejecting worship because of those i was rejected by.

i speak so much to people about not operating out of fear, and yet sometimes i find i am calling some of my life shots while sitting on a throne marked for the most fearful of them all.

in pacific blues, sleeping at last sings: 'imagine how brave i'd be if i knew i was safe.'

and this helps me get to the root of why i still haven't jumped into worship leading again. i don't feel that 100% safety yet. but here's the thing. i probably never will. i'm not that person. i'm human and i feel anxious, nervous, insecure.

so for now i'll switch seats and try to operate out of bravery despite my lack of certainty as it relates to my safety. because God isn't really all that safe, is he? but i sure do love him.

but see, it isn't..

2011-07-27T23:43:00.003-04:00

i was leaning on this today and i just couldn't disagree more...and if you can't read through my less than mediocre phone photography, the post has "love i$ free" written on it.

sure the idea of perfect love is all about freedom, but in my world love is expensive. it's the greatest commodity. in the dictionary, commodity means 'a useful or valuable thing, such as water or time'. water we need to live, time we could always stand to give; but regardless they are both precious and necessary things in our life. both are very un-free. just ask anyone who doesn't have one or the other.

but that love... man is it ever expensive. in a selfless relationship you spend nearly everything you are on that person. you give of your time, your resources, your flesh, your heart. you give you. you give up the idea of you ever being anyone without - them.

so here is my pricey prayer over you: that you may experience the rich and pure joy that comes from the most perfect love example of all time.. the body that was broken for you, and the blood that was shed.

this is the story about a girl named lucky

2011-07-22T23:42:00.005-04:00

so as apart of this women's discipleship group i'm apart of we are learning our strengths and triggering the conversation by finding out what they are through the strengths finder 2.0 by tom rath.

the very first strength listed for me after taking the test was 'activator'. in the last sentence of the "shared theme description" for this particular strength it says: 'they are often impatient...'

this is probably the main thing i cannot stand about myself. my lack of patience. mostly because it affects the relationships in my life that i hold the very dearest. but also a lot because i so admire patient people. my mother, for instance, would be the person i'd ask to take a profile shot of and frame to hang over the mantle or something. like a saint, that mom of mine.

and i can't ever figure out why i'm not patient (besides the tiny fact that i am the spawn of tim abare), as all of the great things in my life have happened mainly because of waiting and holding out for the best.

and here in this city where everyone is rushing from one place to the next, one train to the next, one job to the next... i find it so easy to feel like i need to be just as rushed as they are. even if i have no plans, i will find myself jetting from one place to the next like i am actually in a hurry. and i get frustrated at people who cut in front of me, etc..

but you know? slowly but surely, patience is seeping into my stubbornness. because there's only so many times someone can walk up to you and cuss you out for no reason or roll over your foot with a suit case like you're invisible before you just don't notice.

this explains my lucky streak (right, mark?!):

'but God's not finished. he's waiting around to be gracious to you. he's gathering strength to show mercy to you. God takes the time to do everything right - everything. those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.' isaiah 30:18

two tickets to the gun show

2011-07-11T20:41:00.003-04:00

lately i've been thinking a lot about pain - past, present, future, physical, emotional... maybe this is because i was just able to spend time with my dad in kansas city for a wedding and his knee is causing him excruciating pain. i hate to see him in such misery. he is actually getting knee replacement surgery tomorrow, so if you think to pray for him (or even if you don't) - please do. and pray for my mom too as she will be the one catering to his every need over the next... who are we kidding? she's been doing that since 1975!

waiting for the train today i saw a guy wearing a shirt that said, 'pain is weakness leaving your body.' what a great quote. i immediately thought of my dad, but i also thought of many people going through heartbreak or experiencing deep pain in any sense of the word. i so remember that period in my life - and it sucked. but knowing now that that specific weakness is gone, i now understand the great reality that if i were to ever go through something like it again - i could definitely manage. more gracefully even. i could overcome, because i have overcome.

i overcame with the very thing that brought me so low down to the ground - love. as josh garrels sing, 'love never dies, it will hold on more fierce than graves.' one of those loves did die - which obviously has always begged the question of whether or not it was real. and sure - i think it was. it was just a different kind of love. the kind that does have an expiration date.

however i am really liking the kind of love that doesn't have one. i've had a ton of visitors in the past month and nearly each one has wanted to do one of my favorite new york things to do - the brooklyn bridge. craig introduced me to this night time wonder years ago and ever since i have been in love. now i can go at any time of day and just bask in the awesomeness of this city and this point in my life. each time i have taken a minute to look over the manhattan skyline and over and over i get tears in my eyes thinking of what my life would have been like without that weakness leaving my body. i shudder to think of all that i would be missing out on if i wouldn't have experienced what i thought was hell.

isaiah 30:15 (the message) says, '... your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me - the very thing you've been unwilling to do.'

go ahead and feel my muscles.

BB2!

2011-07-01T16:55:00.004-04:00

the abare family is proud to announce the conception of BB2 (baby bare the second)! mark and jamie will be giving me yet another niece or nephew to obsess over, and i couldn't be happier. ava has me wrapped around her chubby little fingers and i'm sure BB2 won't be any different.

please pray that jamie's pregnancy is smooth sailing, that she will be full of energy, and that BB2 will stay happy and healthy until the time comes for he or she to make his or her grand entrance into the family.

also, pray that BB2 is not ugly.

content to linger

2011-06-27T22:52:00.002-04:00

so i'm around babies all the time now. i haven't gotten sick of it - i've only started becoming even more obsessed with them. to the point where i'm with one all day, come home to watch videos of my sweet niece, and then beg to hold any other ones i see. it doesn't help that i live in a predominately dominican neighborhood where the adorable babies flow like 26" inseams at a home school convention.

and married & engaged people. i've been around them a lot lately too. and as much as i love them, sometimes there is no better feeling then walking out of the middle of an argument between them knowing you can go anywhere and do whatever the H you want.

even in the midst of all this living other life-ness, it is easy for me to feel like i am missing something because i lack aspects of the aforementioned. it's also easy for me to feel like those things will never happen. but here's the difference for me now as opposed to a year ago. i'm great.

i'm so ridiculously drenched in the comfort of knowing i'm where i am is where i'm supposed to be. and who i'm doing life with - they are just the right people. in a lot of ways i felt like moving here was like making pasta. and i'm the strainer. i just wanted to see who would fall through the holes and who would stick with me. shut it, i've never claimed to be good at analogies.

isaiah 26:8 - we're in no hurry, God. we're content to linger in the path sign-posted with your decisions. who you are and what you've done are all we ever want.

amen and amen.

p.s. my next post will be a heartfelt commentary on the announcement of the newest addition to the [mark & jamie] abare family: baby bare 2! duh duh duh...

to don't

2011-06-13T07:14:00.004-04:00

yesterday at church, tyson said: 'we live in a culture that works to cultivate a perpetual sense that we are missing out.'

know what's fun? reliving your youth when you're not even out of your youth... being on the hopefully never-ending road to realizing that everything that is supposed to happen will happen (when living in that terrifyingly free land of surrender).

and see the problem with us is that we ignore the contents of that parenthesis. like i said a couple posts ago - we live lives of expectation, supposing we deserve everything that comes our way or hasn't yet. we forget the fact, the beautiful truth, that God is bigger, better, and more beautiful than the stuffy box we've let him call no shots from.

in the 'shattered lantern', ronald rolheiser says: 'the God who is met in the measured expectations of our own desires and imagination dies in his own impotence and irrelevance.'

there have been times in my life that God has been calling me and calling me and getting the eternal busy signal. for some reason i thought i could do a better job at watering and giving sunshine to my life and telling the gardner himself to get lost.

so i like it this way the best. not really having much on my list of things to do or expect - but all the while resting in the knowledge that i'm not a very great list-maker as it is.

paulie

2011-06-09T09:48:00.002-04:00

today my little paul is eighteen. how i wish i could be with my little brother as he celebrates this mixed with his graduation. needless to say i am feeling old today. when the littlest of your family turns eighteen and graduates high school, it's weird.

paul is hilarious, tenderhearted, expectant, and definitely the youngest of six kids. he's a cocktail of his parents and all his siblings, but yet uniquely his own. he is overprotective and defensive and would do anything for those he loves.

i love him dearly and can't wait to see the places his persistence takes him.

paint with your mouth

2011-06-02T22:24:00.002-04:00

things do change and friends do leave, and unfortunately some people do let that stop them from doing life...

my only complaint about this city - which really isn't even unique to new york at all, but just a widespread epidemic particularly found in those that consider themselves Christians is: paralysis.

i've found it a lot here though. people who have considered themselves entitled to great things because they've lived some special life of dedication to God or to good things in general. people who wait: stuck, stagnant - positioning themselves for the 'next big thing' that's going to happen to them (marriage, etc...). but in reality, positioning themselves for such frustration.

we're surrounded by people who are looking to climb that God-forsaken corporate ladder - never satisfied with what they make or the size of their office or home. we're surrounded by men who want prettier, younger wives. we're surrounded by women who want more attentive, sensitive husbands (and please tell me where i can find a non-sensitive guy that is not a douche - i know maybe two). parents who want more well behaved children.

but the corporate ladder climbers are lazy, the men are old and ugly, the women are bitchy and cry too much, and the parents don't train their children. we're all expectant of specific things yet unwilling to put one foot in front of the next to make them happen.

most times, i feel really blessed to have restless passion syndrome. it really encourages me to pursue what i feel called to pursue. and it's good to remind myself that the things i have are gifts. not earnings. and that when things don't go as planned - putting your hopes into someone unyielding in his love and desire for us to grow in love will never, ever disappoint. even if it feels like it.

blue robe

2011-05-30T23:55:00.002-04:00

back at that poetry slam i went to a while ago, the featured artist was mindy nettifee. she said, "you are every cynic's back up choir." i'm glad i left. i don't need a back up choir, just needed a new home.

because, know what i love?

looking out the window at my friends helping me move into my new apartment. the one that is just... home. not for a few months or a little while, but... indefinitely. just like any home should be.

i can't help but look at my life and think of how incredibly blessed i am. such a great family. such a great city to live in. a great community. a beautiful apartment. passion after passion and people to support each one.

everything is exactly like i never thought it would be, but precisely what i wanted.

behold

2011-05-27T09:11:00.002-04:00

my mom always talks about how sad it is that the one time in your life that everyone is completely obsessed with you, you'll never be able to remember. i think that's pretty sad too. sweet little ava baby is absolutely adored. she literally had people fighting over who got to hold her next or who would get her the next morning to snuggle with in bed.

i've heard some first time parents talk about how they have never known the love of God so well as when they had their first child. like all of the sudden a light bulb of all the ways God lavishes love upon us was turned on. the selflessness, the protectiveness, the divine jealousy, the desire... all directed towards one little undeserving life that just seems so deserving!

maybe the same goes for some first time aunts and uncles. because i can't help but look at ava and well up with tears over how much i want to hold her, keep her safe, give everything i can to her...

anthony de mello said, 'behold the one beholding you and smiling.' ava must have already read this quote, because when you smile at her she gives you the biggest smile in return.

even though she won't remember, i hope ava can feel now how much love is bestowed upon her. my God she's beautiful!

dream week

2011-05-15T23:59:00.003-04:00

this week has been one full of metaphorical big lights and loud booms as well as some not so metaphorical teary eyed dream talking and moments of literally feeling my heart being squeezed and stretched in new directions.

i am always amazed at how incredibly imaginative and creative God gets when i am willing to surrender all of the things i so unfortunately, yet naturally, hold to - a desire to not worry about finances, comfortability, etc...

but being in this neighborhood forces me to throw away the sewing kit i've always carried around with my stretching heart. here in the heights, my heart's an open vein - waiting to wrap itself around the unidentified, uncharted, hurting, wanting, and dead inside.

this city makes me come alive with desire to see real change. real growth. here. not in africa. not in india. not in thailand. here. new york city. gregory boyle says, 'change awaits us. what is decisive is our deciding.'

so i've decided. change is coming. i'm still praying about what all this looks like, but i'll let you in on this secret: this dream is big. so big i can't even think about it without tearing up and getting excited. and i trust and know that i know that i know this dream will not be some eternal idea, rotting on the shelf waiting to be picked up when there is time. it's consuming my thoughts right now and the pursuit of it is overwhelming.

i can't wait to share with you everything from here. in the meantime, pray for this city. pray for the neighborhood of washington heights. and if you think of it, please pray for me and my sister-in-law and fellow dreamer, kara.

from atlantic to pacific

2011-05-03T00:40:00.003-04:00

on sunday i went to the beach with my brother and sister-in-law and despite the few spastic episodes of running from seagulls and pigeons following the trail of food craig planted in the sand leading to my peaceful, book reading self - it was a relaxing day spent doing what i always do at the beach...

i've been craving the beach for a long time. i don't know how this happened, but i haven't been to a real beach since july of freaking 2009. yes, mark & jamie's wedding was in st. thomas, but megan's bay cannot be called a beach. it's more like a dirty lake with half-naked old people.

something about lying in the sand, staring out at the crashing waves of the atlantic makes me feel so close to my family who can go lie on the sand and stare out at the crashing waves of the pacific. even though we're so very far apart, it feels like we're right there together - looking at the same thing.

and i can be at any beach and look all the way out as far as my eyes will take me and i can't see an end. the limitlessness of God is at work in everything he makes and has made, but it's so obvious in the ocean. and i do this every time... because i love being reminded that my God is not limitless. and he challenges me to be just that on a daily basis.

so when do i let go of the struggle that yells within me: "i am human" - forgiving and excusing my handicapped sense of love and for others? sometimes even my own family...

ugh. never.

lounge chairs

2011-04-27T00:18:00.004-04:00

i'm reading a book now that brad and jamaica left for me called, 'tattoos on the heart', but the guy (gregory boyle) who is responsible for homeboy and homegirl industries in LA (by the by, if you're ever in LA and want a great place to eat that supports a great cause - check out homegirl cafe in chinatown/downtown LA. it is delicious and has a cool atmosphere). the purpose of homeboy/homegirl industries is to give jobs to ex gang-bangers, and essentially a way to make a new life for them and their families. it's really awesome what is going on there - and the book is so far, so good.

i'm still in the beginning part, but boyle quotes beldon lane: "divine love is incessantly restless until it turns all woundedness into health, all deformity into beauty, and all embarrassment into laughter."

i had to read that so many times to really let it fully sink in and mean something to me, but boy did it ever mean something to me when i let it simmer...

today i was lying on a lounge chair on top of a roof deck overlooking manhattan, while holding what started as a job and has turned into little love affair named theo, and staring up at the bright blue sky with even brighter white clouds that were rushing all over the place as if they had somewhere they had to be.

there i was - all the miracles of creation surrounding me. theo and i just lied there looking up at that sky and i just couldn't help but feel enveloped by a God who has been 'incessantly restless' in my story. i immediately had flashbacks of pain on top of pain, on top of broken heart, on top of pain - and all of it seemed so tiny and insignificant (yet entirely SIGnificant) in the grand scheme of where my life is now.

there's always room to grow, but i am basking in all of the woundedness that has become health, all the deformity that has become beauty, and all of the embarrassment that has become laughter.

pasty

2011-04-21T23:55:00.004-04:00

so on tuesday night i went with craig & kara + brad & jamaica to bowery poetry where mindy nettifee (check her out, she's seriously incredible (http://www.thecultofmindy.com/) was the feature poet - but was accompanied by many local artists. the evening was wrapped up with a poetry slam and we all had so much fun. brad and jamaica kept encouraging me to partake sometime in the near future. and to them i say who knows what the future holds. this time two years ago i had no idea i'd be sitting in an apartment - new york city being my home. so i'll never say never.

anyways - there were some GREAT guys and gals who were both skilled with poetry and spoken word. i loved hearing people be so open with their hearts in a room full of complete strangers and a lot of booze. and perhaps i would be more willing to pour my soul out onto a group of people i don't know who are holding whiskey...

i noticed that the two main struggles in nearly every piece someone presented were pertaining to: being brokenhearted at some point (from their mom or dad, family, brother or sister, boyfriend or girlfriend, etc..); and such emotion was centered around the race they were.

by the end of the night i couldn't help but look at my pasty skin and almost feel guilty over the lack of pain it's caused me. i live in a neighborhood where being white is not the norm. and i love it. but i feel ashamed that i don't know hardly anything about my heritage. i feel annoyed that just because my skin is completely unaffected by the sun, i have been completely ignored. blessed, but annoyed at the same time. that my neighbors (literally) have been treated like crap for no reason.

in one of brett dennen's songs he says:
'i wonder how so many can be in so much pain,
while others don't seem to feel a thing.
then i curse my whiteness
and i get so damn depressed.
in a world of suffering,
why should i be so blessed?'

i hate that for these people, their coloring has been a source of pain for them. i think about the pain and joy that pushes me to write and sometimes i can shut my eyes and feel like i am put right back into the situations that either made me feel sick to my stomach - or smile uncontrollably.. i just can't imagine the way i look ever having anything to do with that.

what makes you do what you do?

fun

2011-04-20T00:33:00.004-04:00

brad + jamaica are in town and it was BEAutiful on sunday so we took food to central park and spent the afternoon in the sun. brad took some pictures with his incredible camera. i'm always jealous.

and every day is spent in anticipation of seeing my beautiful baby niece, ava grace and her mom and dad that i love a little bit less than her, but still a good amount. if you don't think she's the cutest baby you've ever seen, you're wrong.

no, you don't.

2011-04-17T23:32:00.003-04:00

the other day i heard someone say, "we live under the oppression that we get what we deserve."

so true right? but i must say i've indeed been the biggest hypocrite of all. i've preached and preached and preached that we don't deserve anything. and people who have considered themselves righteous or above suffering or pain - and even those who are suffering and in pain thinking, 'i don't deserve this...' - both sides of the spectrum are sorely lacking the truth that fortunately and unfortunately we don't get what we deserve.

but it does suck to realize this and believe in it so firmly when it comes to my pride. it's like i think that my pride (and no one else's) should be the exclusion to this theory. i've been handling things in a way that says, "you hurt me, i move on - you're really not worth my working to heal..."

when really my heart and knows better and luckily gives my pride a swift kick in the pants on most good days. it may take a while, but it happens. and i'm so thankful for that.

what or who do you think you deserve?

cool! you don't.

lyds & caleb

2011-04-09T00:56:00.006-04:00

don't know if it's the nyquil or the nyquil mixed with my so far twenty hour day (i promise to the baby Jesus himself that is NO exaggeration), but this is about to get real sappy and i've got pictures to boot.

i'm sure if you have ever read anything i've written, you've seen me mention lyds or lydia. she is one in the same, but i prefer her as lyds. my little brother started the nick name years ago and it stuck. she is my home away from home friend. i've never ever known someone like her. she is shy and quiet to so many people, and to me - not at all. i can't even begin to tell you how much i love and respect this girl. she is beautiful, funny, artsy, so fun to be around, a smartass, wise, and she's my best friend. she stands by my side when she doesn't agree with me, and when she does. she tells me like it is and she is all the things i hope you have in a best friend.

i remember when we were sixteen maybe? fifteen? no clue. we were at some dumb concert and there was this guy she was supposed to meet up with, but she was really nervous. she asked me to go with her to meet him and i of course said yes. we did and i liked him for her right away. i don't know when i realized it, but it wasn't long after i felt like he was going to be around for a while.

they have been dating for three and a half years and i have been asking caleb for a while now when he was going to propose. well last weekend they came to stay with me and have fun and while we were standing in a packed train car i just looked at lyds and started to tear up. i just started thinking of the dorks that we were/are and how young we were when we became friends and now, she is all growed up. and she's probably getting married soon. well, when they got back, he popped the question! so she IS getting married soon! i almost cried when lyds called me with the news. my best friend is SO happy, which means i am SO happy.

i love caleb too. they are a perfect fit. they are fun, funny, and ready to take on the next adventure in their lives. i can't wait to support them in this new endeavor. i love you guys.

welcome

2011-03-29T00:36:00.002-04:00

oddly enough, i feel like this gigantically busy city encourages a great sense of solitude, self-reflection, and time for things that you previously felt like you didn't have time for - but at the same time, acts as an eraser for many of the things you used to have time for, as well as any/all of the OCD you maybe used to have.

for instance: i used to loath reading. which sucks because most great writers are great readers. ever since i was little i could not stand detail. i remember begging my mom not to make me read those dang little house books because laura used to tell exactly what the popcorn smelled like. looked like. tasted like. felt like. enough already - i've seen popcorn for crying out loud. so i especially hate too many icky details. which unfortunately is most fiction, so i kept to reading non-fiction but then i felt like everything i read was stuff i had already heard before. so with the exceptions of a few great books (night, Jesus wants to save christians, ragamuffin gospel - ok maybe a few more...), i never really did delve into a literary work.

now i have all this new time for reading and thinking. sitting on the train - you can't do anything on your phone. you could stare at your screen or play games that don't need an internet signal, but i get queasy doing that - so i don't. i could either people watch, which is fun but at the same time not that fun because if you make eye contact with a crazy your train ride is shot.

reading it is. finished rob bell's book last week and now i've been partaking in 'my name is asher lev', by the [many years long] recommendation by my brother, grandma, and a good friend. i must say the details are almost too much for me to handle. i kind of stretch my neck out a lot when i'm reading it because it is so annoying. but i feel like there's got to be something worthwhile at the end of this excruciatingly painful as it relates to details-laced tunnel.

i may have found it today! somewhere towards the middle, asher is talking about his amazing gift for writing (he does this throughout the whole book so far), and how the masphia at his school had asked him to draw (basically as a test to see what this kid was all about). the masphia gave asher a sketch pad and a pencil, told him he was leaving, and that for asher to turn the light out and leave the sketchbook on the desk when he was finished. asher stayed for a while, drawing and drawing and then when he was through, went home and reflected upon his drawings. he said, 'i hated what i had drawn in that sketchbook... they were lies, stagnant creations done to someone else's demand, and i despised them.'

i immediately thought of all of the times i've been forced to write - school papers were the worst. i could do them, i just hated forcing something that i usually love to do. it made me hate the art form that i loved so dearly.

i'll share a confession. i don't know why it is so important to me for something i write to get published. it kind of pisses me off. makes me feel like my heart for writing (to challenge people + myself, to encourage, to revitalize broken hearts, etc..) is getting lost in my humanly desire for recognition. when really i get all the recognition i need any time someone says, "awesome." to something i wrote. or for instance, i opened my mail box the other day and there was a letter from someone totally unexpected - who i've actually been thinking has some sort of problem with me - and the entire letter was encouraging me to never throw away the gift of writing. it was a truly beautiful letter.

recently i was asked to write some articles for a magazine that is in the works. i immediately jumped on board - and now that i've had some time to step back and look at the reasons i jumped on board so quickly, i feel totally convicted for the fact that it was self-motivated. this magazine is actually probably not something that i want my name put with, but for some reason i was willing to sacrifice what i knew deep down inside for a chance at that magical word 'published'.

my pastor said everything we do is motivated by two questions. everything. do you love me? am i pleasing to you?

i don't want everything i do to be motivated by that. and i don't want something i see as art to be diminished to stagnate creations don't to someone else's demand (and that someone else could even be my very own greed). so welcome to my newest struggle.

pandora's box

2011-03-24T10:57:00.002-04:00

in 'you've got mail', tom hanks says, "do you ever feel like you've become the worst version of yourself? that a pandora's box of all the secret hateful parts - your arrogance, your spite, your condescension - has sprung open?"

don't even hate on me for quoting something from that movie. i love it down to its gloriously cheesy, 90's cranberries opening. i haven't seen this movie in forever. time for me to watch it again.

anyways i was thinking of this line when i woke up this morning. i have the day off so i was just laying in my bed - listening to all the sounds that make up this city. i looked out the window and saw a little stack of melting snow on my fire escape and thought, 'ahhh... i. love. life.'

ever feel like you have to be dragged through the muck in order to get to the place of... great? i've been waiting to arrive at location: great. i'm not a God-told-me-so kind of person at all. i usually have a peace about something or not - and go from there. i'm totally open to hearing from him, i just don't feel like i do (in the [un]traditional sense that most morning star nut jobs would deem acceptable). but back in september of '09, i kept feeling/hearing that word "wait". i didn't know what the heck it meant. and honestly, i was getting so frustrated. i didn't know if i should stay frozen in time - waiting, or what exactly i should i have my eyes peeled for..

someone reminded me that 'wait' is not always a word that implies sitting still - that it can also be a very active word. so active i was. i really pursued God in those months and pushed through a sea of pain and frustration and confusion. and in the meantime i became a different version of myself. i was the hurt, frustrated, confused, but hopeful still version. each month, things got better. but it took what felt like a long time to get to a good version.

meanwhile in the pursuit i decide to move here (new york city), feel the great version of me teetering on the edge of versions, and stumble across that annoying word 'wait' again. wait i did and boom... my great has arrived.

i can't ever remember a time in my life where i have ever been this happy. i've definitely had happy periods in the past - but they felt more like vacations than realities. waking up and going to sleep in such a beautiful city, being welcomed with open arms by so many awesome people in such a great church, loving my job, loving my family, and getting visitors (my bff lyds is coming one week from today, so i am slightly excited) all the time... this is the best version of myself. full of peace, full of the knowledge that i still have a lot to work on, but that in the active process of waiting - i can arrive at: great.

sucks that love is so controversial

2011-03-17T00:09:00.002-04:00

so for the past couple of weeks i have been hearing a bunch of nonsense surrounding rob bell and the controversy his new book is causing. i was definitely interested in what all the talk was about, as i am a huge rob bell fan and have loved his books, his nooma videos, and his live presence. i hopped on his website to hear what he himself had to say after getting a brief synopsis of the controversy from my dad. there i found that he was scheduled to speak in my fair city so i decided to go. i can't tell you how amazing it was.

for those of you who got to watch it live streaming - can i get an amen on lisa miller being a defensive B? thank you. also - can i get an amen on rob bell being a total boss? thank you.

like he states in the beginning of his book, nothing he is conversing about is a new idea. he just has an amazing way of communicating. and the heart of his message is something i am convinced every believer needs to hear and own.

his talk and the book (although i'm not finished with it - so it may delve way more into this) touches on a lot of what the conversation is when my family comes together: the kingdom of God/the kingdom of heaven/on earth as it is in heaven, etc..

this book and the conversation it has started has really encouraged me to think about how i can work towards being a true example of someone who is dancing in the struggle. someone who is open to change, and someone who carries the knowledge that love really does win.

and that God is so encouraging of freedom. in my favorite mumford song, they say, "lend me your eyes i can change what you see, but your soul you must keep, totally free."

reminds me of how God is more than willing to jump into your situation and point out all the things you were never able to see without him - but that in the end, it is still your choice as to whether or not you want him to take up residency there or jump out when he's done showing you how much better life can be with a surrendered heart and a willingness to be plucked out of comfortability.

so i don't want to just lend him my eyes. he can keep them.

expectations

2011-03-07T01:14:00.002-05:00

so i'm sitting here in my apartment in new york city (weird, yet not weird at all), listening to cars and horns and sirens and rain. i'm thinking about all these things that are now apart of my daily routine that were never before - and then thinking about the fact that i would have never known this were to be my life just a couple of years ago. even a year ago, really!

there are two things people would say to me when they found out i was moving to new york: (a) that moving to new york city had always been their dream, but for some reason or another had never made it happen... (b) that i will find an awesome guy to marry.

and as much as i want (b) to be true, i have also committed myself to heeding the words of gerard kelly and asking God to always extend me beyond my feeble dreams. and i never want to expect. expecting implies that i deserve - and deserve i do not.

today kara asked me what the weirdest thing was about being here and my answer was twofold. for starters, it's weird that living here doesn't feel very weird. i expected it to be so much more strange, but it hasn't been that at all. aside from missing my family, i do not find being here foreign at all. and secondly, it is so, so weird to feel for the very first time in my life openness to relationship.

i've only been in one serious relationship and when that started i wasn't looking for one at all. not even on my radar. and of course when i was in said relationship i never looked for anyone or anything else. and when i lived in charlotte i never wanted a relationship again just because that would have been too weird. but now i'm here and it's kind of crazy to be a single, twenty-one year old girl in a gigantic city full of opportunity. not just for dating but for every other kind of relationship and career and interest. i feel like there are about a million possibilities outside my door and it's just such a crazy place to be in.

but do you know what i'm grateful for in a city that provides me with so much? a God that is willing to guide me and pursue me as i take on every challenge, every joy, every defeat, and every victory.

i know you wanted me to quote sleeping at last again, so i will...

'the smartest thing i've ever learned
is that i don't have all the answers
just a little light to call my own
though it pales in comparison
to the overarching shadows,
a speck of light can reignite the sun
and swallow darkness whole.'

i love that i found my speck of light. what's yours?

you say goodbye, i say hello!

2011-03-01T23:59:00.002-05:00

well tyler was the last of my goodbyes and he just left. nice distraction from packing, but also the very real feeling of my rapidly approaching departure (truck leaves tomorrow morning at seven).

such a different move, this one. standing in the spot of knowing that intentionality with any of my friendships can make them work from any locale and having to do lots of things on my own. this is the first time i've ever packed everything alone - without every other sibling packing their room too and then having to go into all of the family areas and help pack there... everything's just different. and it's good. it feels right, even though it feels a bit awkward.

the last miserable goodbye i had was when i had to leave ava. she had fallen asleep on my chest while everyone was eating dinner right before we had to leave for the airport. i fell asleep too and when i woke up it was time to go. i have the biggest lump in my throat even thinking about the feeling of the cold air hitting me from where ava was keeping me warm. it was the last time i would see her so tiny. and i will always remember how sweet it was to hold her every morning before everyone else woke up - but she will never remember.

i can imagine now that the goodbyes i'll have with paul and my parents are going to be similar. i'm dreading it to say the least. for now - i'm going to go have a date with paul before i leave in less than seven hours.

too bad God doesn't care about your plans

2011-02-18T23:17:00.003-05:00

i love that and hate it at the same time. i love it as a book title (you steal it, you die), but sometimes hate the fact that it is so freaking true. well really i only hate it when it hurts, but on the other side of the hurt - i love it!

i often talk about how for the past few years i have put myself in a separate container from the Lord. he was in a box, i was in a box, and my plans were in the box with me. i somehow separated every aspect of my life: my relationship, my future dreams, my family, my situations, etc... and the lid was on tight.

my greatest fear was losing everything in my container, so i wouldn't let the Lord in. i let him into some parts and even so i kept him in the shallow end of said parts. he was in the baby pool and everyone and everything else was diving in the deep end of my heart.

i see so many people my age, younger than me, and even older than me living in some delusion that they are entitled to things like spouses, kids, happy jobs, etc... yet completely compartmentalizing their relationship with the Lord. and i cringe thinking of all of the heartbreak that lies ahead for them. i was there, and it wasn't fun. too many sleepless nights filled with tears and agony over what i could have done differently or how i could have salvaged anything.

nothing changed for me until i was able to admit to God that nothing i had going for myself was as good as what he could help me accomplish if i pursued him and his will as much as i had pursued me and my own.

in 'land or sea', sleeping at last says, "change is a direct result of our plans". and they couldn't be more right. every plan that i thought was good and God-honoring was really just a tiny wish that i couldn't see at the time wasn't what i really wanted or needed.

i love that God only cared about my old plans in the way that it relates to completely ditching them and giving me a new set of things to pursue that leave me peaceful and incredibly elated to be living each day.

fork

2011-02-15T00:21:00.002-05:00

one of the bands i hold close to my heart has some of the most beautifully written and incredible sounding music that sometimes i get choked up just reading the lyrics or closing my eyes and listening to the songs.

in a song called 'wires', sleeping at last writes:

'but all desperation
leads to a fork in the road -
we live for understanding
or for control.'

i'm so young - but my life is already rich with history. i look at my little brother who is rapidly approaching his eighteenth birthday and i think of how much i didn't know when i was eighteen. and i can't wait until i'm twenty-five and can look back on all that i didn't know when i was twenty-one, and so forth and so on.

when i think back to all of the just straight up sucky things that have happened over the past few years... including being completely burned by respected church leadership, dumped for God knows what, and ditched for spicier people; i know that in all of those situations i had a choice to go left or go right.

one direction had roadblocks of bitterness, an inability to see what i could have done wrong, unforgiveness, self-righteousness, entitlement issues, pain, etc..

the other had all of the opposites plus infinite joy... a knowledge that i do not deserve anything, that i had made mistakes in each situation, forgiveness, etc..

obviously i'm not going to sit here and lie to you by saying that i chose the latter wholeheartedly and haven't struggled since. of course there have been days where i've wandered down the wrong direction, but generally speaking - i think i wake up with a smile and go to bed with one maybe even bigger due to the fact that i make a conscious decision each day to go the direction that included the infinite joy.

for so long i wanted to understand why everything was happening or why it happened. but i look at my life now and how incredible God has made my story and i am no longer curious. he has answered my curiosities with every good thing. with joy, with family and friends, with provision, with peace, and with excitement.

oh true happiness, how i love thee.

JB

2011-02-09T23:17:00.003-05:00

as you may know back in 2008 my family had the amazing chance to go to haiti instead of getting together for christmas. and instead of exchanging christmas presents, we pooled our funds and gave to the people we connected with while in haiti. when we got back to the states, our first family conversation was about how we just couldn't see ourselves going back to spending a ton of money on each other or ourselves for christmas again, when we had fallen in love with the beautiful people we stayed with in haiti and seen how many of their basic needs (food, water, shelter) were not being met.

we decided that each year, instead of presents, we would each draw someone's name to buy for christmas and then whatever money we would have spent on everyone else would be set aside for one person in the family to choose an individual, charity, organization, or cause the funds would go to. it started with the oldest, and will end with the youngest - and we'll throw the in-laws in as they come (so far we haven't had to mess with the oldest to youngest rule!). this year it was jamaica's turn, and she chose an individual for a part of the money and then the rest to be directed to haiti. i am always moved by the fact that haiti was a deep connection for all of us. i don't think there has been one year that someone had the pool and did not direct at least part of the funds to haiti.

jamaica just told us yesterday where we should individually be giving our money, so i hopped onto www.lovehaiti.com to give and tonight i just got an email from joy (great name) who started the organization. she is incredible and has the best heart for haiti. she sent me such an awesome email thanking me (which was humbling to say the least - i couldn't give near as much as i would love to) and then updating me briefly on the goings-on in haiti. she also attached the above picture of johnny boy. a group joy was leading found him sitting in a pile of wet cement. he was left there by his mom who was kicked out of the DR and couldn't feed him - she thought a church group would find him and take him in. that they did and we were GLUED to him for the entire time we were there. he slept with me or with the boys every night and clung to whoever would hold onto him. this little guy is in a framed picture in my office, and i dream of the day i can kiss those sweet cheeks and sing to that boy again.

all this to say - if you want to give to haiti... go to www.lovehaiti.com. and please do.

yet another dear jo

2011-02-08T23:27:00.003-05:00

"damaged people are dangerous. they know they can survive." - josephine hart

i have no idea who josephine hart is and i have no idea when or why or where she wrote this, but i love it. i especially love it after i just got off the phone with craig and kara having a conversation so closely related to this quote.

i've written about this before... the incredible confidence being dumped or ditched gives you. but i'm reminded of it every day in some way or another. however, there is a scariness to said confidence. a fear of becoming jaded.. expectant of heartbreak or sucky people to use and abuse that heart of mine.

i can honestly say, and thankfully so, i still assume people are good (unless they prove me wrong). i do not think all guys are jerks or all girls are psycho (although if i had to pick one theory, i would DEFinitely pick all girls are psycho). i still want to becomes friends with people, i still want to date another hottie, and i still think having a friend for a little while is better than never having a friend at all.

but i am afraid that i will become too strong in my survival spirit. even though i don't expect people to do stupid things, i'm not surprised when they do. and i feel like that sounds so terrible. i feel like that is such a weird attitude or stance to have. but the same attitude that allows me to be pretty much fine with life handing me some disgustingly sour lemons, also allows me to excitedly pack my bags and move out and on to a big scary city that could eat me up in one bite.

it did take some confidence to look under the scary hell that i call underneath my bed to clean out and pack.. however, right now i can't even finish that thought because i'm still thinking about the salmon, stuffed mushrooms, and deliciously bright green vegetables that caleb and lyds just made me.

backhanded

2011-02-05T01:34:00.002-05:00

'... made in the image of my Father:
able
artful, articulate,
created to create,
pulsing with potential.
Designed to design.,
invented for invention, made to make.
Through his eyes, i see possibilities.
Through his ears, i hear harmonies.
In his heartbeat, i feel life's dancing rhythms.
Because he can,
i will.'

gerard kelly, in the image of my father.

g.k. nails it again with one of my favorite poems. i love reading this at this stage in the game for me. it's amazing to be on this side of things. heart break's a homeless stranger and happiness is the back of my hand.

why you might need to wait it up.

2011-01-22T10:25:00.002-05:00

the other day i came home, hugged my dad, then told him i was going to write a book called: 'why you should listen to your dad even when it sucks.' let me tell you why a dad's wisdom is better than your lack thereof.

so when i first made the decision to not go to school this semester my first thought was, 'well the ONLY reason i was staying here was to graduate and move to new york - now that i know for sure i don't want to go to school here... peace out!"

i immediately started trying to get my little ducks in a row to make that happen at the beginning of october. i was going to have hardly any money and i knew it would be rough once i got there, but i felt pretty determined and desperate to get out of charlotte and so i was going to make it happen for myself.

i have a few wise men in my family, so craig suggested that he, my dad, and i have a conversation. we did and i painfully heard my dad say something to the affect of: "you need to wait and save money - do it the smart way, THEN i can be behind you."

well the thought of my dad not supporting me in something is probably one of the worst feelings in the world and after listening to him and craig, i of course tried to kill my flesh as much as possible and decided to wait until january first.

here's what started happening within the first week of deciding to wait:

a mom of one of the boy's i had in my class over the summer emailed me and asked if i wanted to come help her at her jewelery company - packing orders and doing odd jobs. i was trying to save so i said yes. that turned into a, "please stay until the end of february and be our office manager." i, of course, said yes - i love the girls i work for and it is a super fun job, and it would allow me to save a ton of money before i go to new york.

they offered me a salary position two weeks into my full-time role and i had to decline, but one of the women i work for used to live in new york and secured an amazing job for me in new york with her best friend! i get to "work" in the soho area by loving on a baby boy born two weeks before my ava!

also in deciding to wait, craig, kara, and i were able to coax our dear friend to move to the city and be my roommate! also in deciding to wait, an amazing apartment opportunity became available to me from people i know who go to my church up there and is in the exact neighborhood i wanted and is a great price!

always.listen.to.wisdom. you will know it's voice when it is irritating and what you definitely don't want - but it is peaceful and it is what you need.

'for God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything.' first john 3:20.

this

2011-01-14T21:28:00.006-05:00

i went to go see this:

she let me do this:

and this:

i never got used to seattle time and woke up too early each day (but got to snuggle with ava so it didn't matter much) and now i am this:

my niece. is cute.

2011-01-10T15:16:00.003-05:00

marry me. marry me.

2011-01-09T12:43:00.000-05:00

daydreams again!

2011-01-08T03:10:00.003-05:00

being here in seattle and watching my brother mark take care of his girls is like the best present anyone could give me. i didn't realize how much i had stopped daydreaming or thinking about my future (in the way that it relates to marriage, kids, family, etc..) until i got here and saw my big brother being such an amazing husband and dad.

there is something so awesome and unique about the relationship a dad can have with his daughter. i love the bond that my dad and i have - and i get choked up when i look at mark kissing on ava because i know that this sweet, beautiful little girl could never do anything to lessen the love that he has for her. i can almost see his heart swell when he kisses her nose. and she just looks up at him with these eyes that want to take in all of his love for her.

watching mark and jamie and ava together puts the i-sure-hope-a-hot-husband-and-sweet-baby-are-apart-of-my-next-ten-years bug in my brain.

but for now, i'll just be ava's adoring aunt who should buy stock in american apparel baby and baby gap. gees louise this little girl has crawled into every part of my heart (and bank account). love. her.

year of firsts

2011-01-01T13:40:00.003-05:00

i have this new theory that makes so much sense to me. and it may or may not do the same for you, but we'll try it anyways...

it's called the year of firsts. after you experience the end of something or someone - for whatever reason, be it breaking up, that person dying, etc... you have to go through the year of firsts. the first christmas without that person, the first birthday, the first what-would-have-been-your-anniversary, the first summer... all of the things that make you go, "this time last year i was with [whoever].." the first year after that person is gone, is rough. you think those things one event after the next, one season after the next, one day after the next, really.

2010 was my year of firsts. and even though it was a good year all and all (two weddings, a beautiful niece, and some great vacations), it was painful in many ways to experience all of those firsts.

c.s. lewis said, 'the terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions to Christ.'

i'm finding this not to be so terrible. all of my firsts are over with, and i am making 'this time last year' memories with people that will always be around. i am loving living. i love being tim and ann's daughter. brad, mark, craig, luke, and paul's sister. jamaica, jamie, and kara's sister-in-law. and ava's aunt (i have a lot of other titles that i love, but i'll cut it there). i am moving to a city i love, pressing on in my passion to be a teacher, and being blessed in every way imaginable on the way there: from a great job now, to a great job set up for me when i get there!

my friend taryn wrote an awesome blog titled 'hijacked' (read it here http://oork.com/tvuzr). she talks about how God took every plan she had and thought was good, and turned it into something completely different than she ever expected.

i feel the exact same way... the place i am in life right now is dramatically different than the place i thought i would be, but that's ok. in fact, it's great. God saw that my plans were so tiny and close-minded and gave me a better view of where i could be and what i could do.

i read the following passage this morning and was once again reminded me of the creativity of the God i love:

'and the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. to him be the power for ever and ever. amen.' first peter 5:10-12.

i'm in love.

2010-12-28T01:51:00.003-05:00

since 4:40 this morning, i have been thinking of how to tell you about the newest addition to my family and heart.

a bunch of us were sleeping in different areas of craig and kara's little apartment in new york, and then all of the sudden we hear "they say it's your birthday.. du nu nu nu nu nu... it's my birthday too..." blasting out of the speakers in the living room. i thought of my best friend lyds, who sings that to me every year on my voice mail - but then my dad came in telling us all that ava had come into the world. mark text messaged a picture to us with the details of her new little life: seven pounds, fifteen ounces. twenty inches long.

i cannot even begin to tell you how much love i have for this little girl. she is beautiful and perfect, and has brought me to tears already over the fact that she has been hold-able for almost twenty-four hours and i'm nearly 3,000 miles away.

of course my dad, the boys, and i have all changed our phone backgrounds to ava and the trip back to north carolina today included many stares at our phones. ava could be the new iphone model.

mark and jamie are doing great - love their new babe and love each other. i'm so proud of jamie for having this little girl completely natural and at home! i'm sure that's why she's so perfect looking. and no, i'm not bias.

this isn't the first blog dedicated to the sweetest and newest person in my life, and it certainly won't be the last. i am crazy about her. thanks for coming, ava.

2010-12-14T16:57:00.002-05:00

my friend lotte (she is from germany and is everything awesome all wrapped up in a lengthy blonde dancer with an awesome accent. she can also speak about a thousand different languages and sends me emails that always include the craziest things she's been doing. this email consisted of just this: "hey,thought you would enjoy the following christmas story... even though it's in portuguese ... it'd pretty dang awesome!
greetings from france. still staying at the monastery... working. lotte"

hahahahah i love that girl.

dangerous safety

2010-12-12T10:50:00.002-05:00

lately i've been entirely preoccupied with my future. which becomes a sticky situation for me because i feel a tiny bit guilty for not participating wholly in the present, but at the same time, want to feel reassuring excitement and peace at all times about the numerous upcoming changes that this next year will bring.

moving has rarely been put in a good light for me. typically an ugly fluorescent light shines on it and i dread walking through the motions. but this move is different... this move is my choice. my dream. my city. when i walk on the streets of new york i feel confident, gutsy, challenged, ready... every time i see a movie with new york city as its open, i get butterflies in my stomach knowing that that beautiful skyline will be my home.

last week was the annual viewing of 'little women'. such a great movie. every time i watch it, i pretend that i'm jo. she is a writer and she's brave and tough. in one of the scenes where the march sisters are acting out a story that jo had written, jo says, "first rule of writing is never write what you know."

i think part of the reason i'm excited about this move, is that i am finally passionate about the unknown. i'm in this dangerous position of trusting the safety of God's love and pursuit of me.

for so long it was "God bless this thing that i have going on already..." and, "God don't take me this place..." my prayers are being written and asked to a different tune. one of a passion for adventure, mystery, and a God that knows little about the mundane and everything about the uncomfortable nature of his calling.

there are some days when i wonder why God has worked the way he has worked. but most days are filled with the knowledge that he has it figured out so much better than i do.

"we long for more and God's promise is that there is more awaiting us. more to delight us than we will ever exhaust." - c.s. lewis

i'm sorry, taryn.

2010-12-02T23:39:00.003-05:00

so this will be my public apology to the lovely miss taryn hofert for ever saying she needed to broaden her musical horizons when she commented on how incredible sara bareilles is. i was making a judgment based off of her first album - which i was not a fan of at all, and i assumed her new album would be similar and wasn't interested in hearing it at all. however (with a lot of emphasis on the however)... craig and kara played her for me in the car and i didn't even know who it was i liked her so much!

i've become a little obsessed with the song 'basket case'. for a couple of reasons... one sara and i sound good together when we sing it. not gonna lie. another being i get it. not only do i get it, but i feel like a little over a year ago, i could have written it, and actually i did write something similar to it. everytime she sings this i feel like i'm reading my journal:

he's not a magic man or a perfect fit
but had a steady hand and i got used to it
and a glass cage heart and invited me in
and now i'm just a basket case without him

but here's the fun part. i'm not a basket case anymore. unless you consider someone who dances uncontrollably to louis prima a basket case. and actually, i don't ever really feel like i was a total basket case - but i was pretty sad. i don't know... maybe ask my family or stini or lyds and find out the truth from them.

here's my favorite part of the entire song:

won't somebody come on in and tug at my seams?
oh, send your armies in of robbers and thieves
to steal the state i'm in i don't want it anymore

and every time i sing it, i start picturing the army who literally came in and stole the awful state of complete brokenness i was in. i see my dad's eyes - the beauty of a father's love for his child. i see my mom's tears - which only show up on special/terrible occasions. i hear craig and kara's laughter and see them running to catch me in the airport. i see flowers at every turn in craig's house. i see stini's face - who i just have to look at and it's like she knows exactly what i'm feeling at that very moment. i see lyds, whose picture is next to the words loyal and badass in the dictionary. i hear taryn's words of sage wisdom - one of the very few "i feel your pain"'s i could truly believe and grow from. i picture becky's long letters of encouragement. and i picture the callous of my finger from all of the prayers i wrote out. hundreds upon hundreds of pages... prayers of pain, thanks, joy... my God is faithful.

i've got a really big army.

stoppit, baby.

2010-11-29T23:17:00.002-05:00

when i was little i used to hear people talk about how fast time went by and i would think that they are crazy. when i was little it felt like my days lasted forever.

and now i feel like from the time i open my eyes to the time i shut them, i've only blinked a couple of times and the day has completely escaped me. every day i leave work with more work to do and every day i wish i could have talked to more of my family than i did or hung out with more of my friends than i got to. and most of the time i'm ok with this. because life is busy and life is good and i have much to be thankful for. but the idea of time slipping through my fingers gets me choked up when i relate it to the growth of my niece.

little babybare is due december twenty-eighth, but i feel like last week i found out jamie was pregnant and now it's less than five weeks until she will be in my arms and i will be smooching on her hopefully chubby little cheeks and telling her how much i love her and couldn't wait to meet her.

i get scared of how quickly time is going because i think about how fast her growing has gone and i already feel like tomorrow i'm going to wake up and find out she's sitting up, and then the next day she'll be walking, and the next day walking down the aisle. and i haaaaattteee the feeling of her sweet little babyness being gone.

but for now ... i will just try to soak up all of the wonderful moments of family and friends and love. i love this season for that very reason. watching the parade with my brothers and some of my closest friends before gaining five pounds after one meal. and riding bikes afterwards with all of the same people and then sitting on the porch in the cold just talking. and now i get to look forward to spending christmas with some of my favorite people in my very favorite city and home as of the end of february. i love my family.

sundart

2010-11-21T21:36:00.002-05:00

made this for one of my good friends today.. thanks to grandma for the 1976 newspaper, and gerard kelly for one of my all time favorite poems (if you haven't read through his book 'spoken worship' you are missing out, man. that book has spoken to me in about a billion different ways over the past four years):

'when the presence of God is a misted memory and the promises of God are slow in coming and the purposes of God are buried in the fields of your anxiety

when the you are stuck, stagnated, struggling without hope and without help in the world

shut the door in the presence of your Father

open a window to the promise of your redeemer

and pray to the one who loves and lives for you and longs to help you more than you can ever know.'

maybe. so what?

2010-11-16T23:20:00.002-05:00

lately i've been thinking about my purpose. a lot of this has to do with the fact that i am not in school this semester and i can't even count on both of my hands (meaning it has been way more than ten) how many times someone has found that out and informed me i wouldn't be going back. 'oh, thanks for letting me know." i think, as i roll my eyes and tell them how i feel about them in my head.

i'm 100% positive i want to be a teacher. but let's look back on my life at all of the other things i was 100% positive i wanted to do, but haven't: mastered the guitar, get some music recorded, get straight a's one whole semester (although i admit that is something i did not even come close to trying for), marry the first guy i dated, not get in any wrecks... the list can go on, but i'm going to just cut it there.

for some reason or another, a lot of the things i want to do i haven't had a chance to, or i haven't made a chance available to me. or a lot of the things i wanted, couldn't happen. and that's ok. it's life. sometimes you want stuff, and even feel like you need it - but it usually turns out that you don't.

i may get to new york and realize that i want to work with poor kids in another way. i may realize i want to be a social worker and help get kids out of terrible situations. i may realize that i want to move to haiti and spend a good portion of my life helping all of those little ones that have held a special part of my heart since i went.

sometimes dreams and passions change. they are an ever evolving part of who you are. ten years ago i wanted to be a journalist and five years ago i wanted to be a worship leader and now i want to be a teacher. but whatever i decide to do - i want to shock myself with the amount of heart i want to put into it. i want to be worn out by the end of the day because i gave so much of who i am to a cause that i believe in so mightily.

'because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear ....' hebrews 6:17

i am excited about the fact that in all of my ever-evolving and limited views of what i think my purpose is, i have chosen to trust in someone whose very nature is unchanging.

RRR

2010-11-13T00:11:00.002-05:00

'if love's elastic, then were we born to test it's reach?' - sleeping at last (homesick // october ep)

do you ever feel like you're on the pursuit of something that literally has no end in sight? sometimes this is terrible.. like when you're in school and it feels like getting that ridiculous piece of paper is more than three lifetimes away. or when you get dumped and you feel like you're never going to be able to look at a person of the opposite sex that is around your age and single without cringing.

i hate this - but it is really easy for my relationship with Jesus to turn into a routine with him, which then turns into a rut. it's RRR, but not the good kind. i end up pushing the time i set aside in the morning to be with him to be after work because my eyes aren't adjusted enough to read so early (or something like that), and then after work i've been thinking and i don't feel like thinking anymore, so then i push it to before i go to bed, but then i'm just so tired that i end up throwing a half-assed prayer up to my ceiling as kind of a "let's still talk, but not really talk" kind of motion... you see where i'm going with this..

i say all of that to say - i am rut-less as of late! i'm enjoying being on this pursuit of something that is endless. i like that i haven't let my relationship with God go stale. i like that i feel like i'm testing all of the unlimitedness of his love, grace, and generosity. and also - i like that i am remaining completely open to his pursuit of me.

how do you keep things spicy?

fear = hurt

2010-11-08T22:26:00.004-05:00

my dear friend lyds posted a link to a blog the other day that she said "is long but worth the read." and because i like lydia i decided to read it. that and nothing else was pulling on my skirt at the time. what this lady had to say about christianity/homosexuality/love/fear/her family was incredibly interesting to me. if you get the chance to read it, you should (http://oork.com/kv5m3). but something that really got to me was this statement: '... people hurt the things they fear.'

this urged me to do some reflecting on the things that i have feared in the past, things that i fear right now, and things that i'm afraid i'll fear in the future (did you follow that?).

ironically, nearly all of the categories of fear (past, present, and future) have a common thread: unfinished business. in the past, my fear has consisted of worry over not getting to participate in things that i felt like every person should get to participate in. when i was fourteen or fifteen, i was sure i'd die before i got my license. and when i was sixteen, even though i didn't really care about having a boyfriend, i thought surely i would die before that happened. now i have my license, and i've had a boyfriend before so neither of those are really fears anymore...

now, i fear that i will never make myself really proud. i fear that i think i'm a better writer than i am - or that i'm funnier than i am. i fear that i will never get married. and i wouldn't say that this is an "every day i worry and i only workout because of the potential threat NOT working out could have on me finding a suitable husband" kind of fear - but to anyone who would love to have a best friend to spend the rest of their life with and kids and yada yada yada, not getting married is kind of scary. i don't want to be the spinster aunt who spends all my money on the nieces and nephews because i can't have kids of my own.

and this all lead me to question what i have hurt because of these fears. not really what, as much as who. who have i scared off, ditched, or ran away from because of the fears that i choose to make apart of who i am?

about a year ago, one of my brothers kind of unloaded a gigantic suitcase of pain that i had thrown in his direction over the past years and at the time, some that was very recently unleashed. about a year ago, i was in emotional agony. i was hurt by someone who promised to never leave. foolish of me to believe that promise, but believe it i did and it wound up putting me in a desert land for too long. i apologized to my brother and although i wasn't using it as an excuse for my wrongdoing - i couldn't help but think that hurt people hurt people. unfortunately it's just the way we work as humans. and in order to rise above that - i need help. from other people, from God, etc..

first John says that 'perfect love drives out fear'. and graham c. says that there is no fear where God is present. oftentimes i wish i could make the scales perfectly even - with one holding the weight of my human fear and the other holding the weight of love that is infinitely bigger than any anxiety i could ever imagine.

flashcard

2010-11-07T00:32:00.002-04:00

perhaps all of the times that i thought i was having great faith in God - i was really mixing that "great faith" up with assumption. an expectation of God to do great things for me.

this is a mindset within some groups of christianity that i have a huge problem with... the belief that we are righteous and that if we have been righteous, that we are somehow entitled to receive the gifts of God and he should never withhold any good thing from us.

but i get caught up in this... the grand canyon of confusion that has the idea that we should indeed expect God to do great things in our life on one side, and on the other - a feeling that i should expect nothing. because all of the times that i have expected nothing, wonderful things have happened.

my brain tells me i need to think about all of these things in an effort to make my faith legit. oftentimes i forget that much of the beauty found in having a relationship with Jesus is the simplicity. the fact that i can be actively pursuing Jesus, without becoming consumed with the hub-bub surrounding the meaning of following him.

for now, i won't hold onto any expectations or try to manage any either. i'll just live (and i do mean l-i-v-e) with the knowledge that He is awesome, and does great things for me. that is a fun fact to carry around.

dear ma

2010-11-03T06:31:00.001-04:00

i know this is like nails on a chalkboard for all you nutty book worms out there, but i must admit... there have been a few times that i have opened up a book, turned to about 3/4 of the way through it, and read a couple pages. all in an effort to see if the author sucks at continuation or if anything there catches my interest enough to even begin the book at all.

there is so much of me that wants to do this with the story of joy.

for so long, i've referred to the ending of the relationship i was in as the break-up with a capital B. the Break-up. as if it were a proper noun. but like a sub-prober noun. one that is after joy, but before abare. maybe it was like my middle name for a while. and maybe i let it be for too long. but maybe i'm supposed to let it be for a little longer. kara always tells me to "let myself have this time..." but the thing is - i don't even know what the heck that means. but i don't think i'm supposed to.

ray lamontagne says, 'if you give your heart to one that don't know promise from pretend you don't need your ma to tell you how this story ends.'

i know this isn't what ray meant - but he's right. i don't need my ma to tell me how this story ends. even though sometimes i wish i could know my ending - i know that my middle is kind of exciting. i don't think i would have said that this time last year. i think exciting would have been the last word to come to my mind when talking about my story. but holy crud is God faithful in the midst of confusion and pursuit and pain and did i mention confusion?

so... to ma: if you do know my ending, don't tell it to me. the beginning's got me hooked.

cruise director

2010-10-16T23:25:00.002-04:00

something that i've always loved about my dad is that he appreciates a good struggle... he hates it, yet welcomes it because he knows that growth is only achieved through said conflict. when people were worried about craig and kara getting married while craig was in school and they were both broke he said, "good! so they struggle on their own or they struggle together! let them get married and let them grow!"

i too embrace this line of thinking. but maybe i wouldn't have pre-heartbreak of '09. maybe then i didn't throw my arms around the struggle bear because i kind of hated him. i didn't like the growth he posed and i certainly didn't appreciate the change that would come from his bringing struggle.

when i made the decision to move it was like i wanted jeanie to come in my bedroom with her weird sheer pink poof pants and blink to make me move within a month. but after listening to Wisdom (who ironically sounded exactly like my dad and craig!) decided it would be best to wait and save for a few more months. i was frustrated with this choice, even though i knew deep down that it was good. i felt like after everything, i deserved to just do something i wanted to for me. not for someone else. little did i see that waiting was for me. since then i've been really blessed to land an awesome job offer that will end at the perfect time and score me lots o' cash. in my struggle with patience i found faithfulness.

and in my struggle with pain i have found healing. there's a band i've been listening to over the past year called 'matrimony' and one of their songs says, 'navigate through your pain, or else you'll remain the same.'

this certainly has not been a process that i know how to handle. never done it before. i knew i didn't want to stay the same - so working through things was a painful and necessary process. but i feel like i have done the best job that i can trying to figure out what each day looks like for me. and sometimes those days have ended a little messy, but for the most part i go to sleep with a full heart. and for so long i've had to carry with me the knowledge that God is faithful and wants me happy and well. kind of chanting it like a mantra to help me go from my bed to the bathroom to the gym to my job to etc... without collapsing from frustration and fear. and now it's like an awesome reality that He is good and faithful and wants me happy and well.

life is good.

crackpot.

2010-10-10T00:32:00.003-04:00

so i'm allllllmost done reading 'eat, pray, love' by elizabeth gilbert. i'm actually really sad. because it's been a long time since i've enjoyed a book like this one. i'm just really into it. i connect with so much of the stuff she says and i feel like sometimes she is inside my head, writing things that i've wanted to or have written about. i don't really want this book to end, because as good as my intentions are for starting another book when i'm through with this one - i seriously doubt my efforts will put me anywhere past about chapter five of whatever newbie i attempt to conquer. so if you have any books by engaging authors, that do not use hebrew definitions, that will actually help my life in some way - please, pass them on.

while liz is in india she says, 'God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves.' some pages later she says, 'flexibility is just as essential for divinity as is discipline.'

these are both problem areas for me... performance and flexibility. i see people, who appear to, love God and know how to serve him. better than i do. they talk about their amazing quiet time and prayer time with God or they talk about what 'he's been speaking to them...' and i just kind of feel like maybe i'm supposed to spice things up in the holiness bedroom and pretend that i am really good at prayer or silencing the business of my mind to make room for God to speak to me.

and then sometimes i get so set on a plan that i leave little (and by little i mean pretty much none at all) room for God to work with my plan or change what my plan is. i tend to not be so flexible when i have my heart set on something.

however - everything's been changing. this has been a season filled with (i hate to throw a math reference in here, but it looks like i must) a ton of variables, ever-evolving plans, some good ole' fashioned blows to the p-r-i-d-e, and what the kids are calling 'patience'.

both of these struggles are working together to make some things just pretty difficult when it comes to growth, but at the same time - they're making growing pretty awesome. i love that God is interested in me for me, not who i think i need to be in order to become someone God deserves to be interested in. because no matter how hard i try, i will never really be worthy of him being interested in what i got going on.

so here's to continued growth while i wait out all the goodness that's-a-comin'.

makin' a comeback .... again

2010-10-03T22:39:00.005-04:00

i originally wrote this in my journal about four years ago, but ended up sharing it on my blog sometime in the earlier part of last year. i think about this from time to time when i struggle to wrap my mind around what it means to love. i remember that i wrote out a pretty good and long definition for myself when i forget:
_____________________________________________

tis amazing what love can conquer.

it can conquer fear. love can conquer disdain. love can blow minds, tear down walls, and break bonds. love can reveal truth, instill perseverance, and educate patience. love forces compromise, and ignites passion. love is compassionate, passionate, enthralling, and captivating. love induces dreams, love embraces diversity, and heeds no differences.

love shines the brightest. and true love is everlasting. true love is unconditional and undying. true love is moving, sacrificial, and it prospers. true love flourishes. true love brings forth restoration. restoration in every aspect. because love always forgives. love brings forth restoration because of the forgiveness it condones.

love is a sanctuary for the weary of heart. or, love can make you seek a sanctuary. love, in its great amounts, can bring forth the deepest wounds, and perhaps cause you to turn back in terror. but, wait upon the Lord. seek him in the depths of your pain and understand that the Lord Jesus Christ, is the definition of this maddening love.

forget that? forget love.
_____________________________________________

p.s. i have made a new website (literally i made it, and i am actually proud of myself) for those of you who are interested. there you will find a more organized way of looking through some of my goals and most treasured entries on this humble site. visit www.joyabare.com to have your mind blown. hahaha.

can't? won't.

2010-09-29T09:41:00.003-04:00

i'm beginning to realize that most can'ts mean won'ts.

as i prepare to make the big move to my beautiful city, i've had a lot of conversations with different people. one night lyds asked me how the heck i wasn't scared - because even though i know my brother and sister-in-law and have some friends there and a church i can't wait to go to, new york city is still massive and could eat me. and it might eat me... but i'm just not worried. i am excited, challenged, hopeful, curious, motivated - but scared would not be a word in my vocabulary anymore.

i told her that i think humans (but particularly women - and to go even further - christian women) do not realize how incredibly strong they are until they go through something just downright awful. for me, i had to go through some pretty just straight up sucky heartbreak. but after about six months, when you have stopped having to think about inhaling and exhaling and you can sleep through the night mostly, and you start to get good again (and this time frame can look completely different for everyone) you start to adopt this 'i can do anything' mentality that quite frankly i am crazy about.

i told her that i have seriously considered moving to italy. i do not know a single soul in italy, i have no idea if i would even be able to work legally or how to begin that process, i have no idea what part of italy, because i've never been there. so why have i considered it? because i can. i know that i could do it. despite all of the variables - i could get on a plane bound for italy and not be worried.

it's so good to feel this strength again. it's good to know that when i admit that i am weak, God shows me his power and therefore inspires me to be the strong girl he created me to be. to have this confidence back is like... sweet baby Jesus i don't know what it's like but i love it!

but see we all have this. like i said, sometimes it takes awful stuff to realize... but sometimes it doesn't. and you need to just say, 'i will do this...' don't let the 'can't' be apart of your vocabulary - because if you were to stop and really think about your life there's pretty much nothing you couldn't do. we make decisions based off of responsibility and commitments and a billion other things. and often that is good, but it doesn't change the fact that you still can. whether the reason be good or bad - you just won't. you don't. not can't.

it's exciting to know that i can pray creatively and not be afraid of the places God might take me. eventually, peace kicks most of the pain in the butt and excitement trumps fear any day.

'don't think of God in terms of forms, because forms are limited and God is unlimited.' - C.S.Lewis

yeah, you look a little fat in that shirt.

2010-09-26T10:58:00.003-04:00

i would have to admit that one of my greatest character flaws is wrapped up in the power of assumption. it is really easy for me to pass judgment on people based off of maybe one conversation with or sometimes even one bad look from them. it's also really easy for me to have the intentions of others figured out based off of a few things they have done to me or indirectly done to me. this is just something i really struggle with.

i think part of the reason i have such a hard time with this is the fact that i am pretty basic when it comes to what i say vs. what i mean. in other words - i call it like it is. you won't find me telling you one thing but then finding out later that i meant an entirely different thing. meaning, i would make a terrible husband. wife asks me if her shirt is ugly, i'm going to say yes if it does and no if it doesn't - and i'd rather not explain why i feel that way.

however, i understand that most of the people in this world are not like that in their communication. which brings me to what i said i struggle with in that first paragraph there... judgment, assumption, etc... in wall street (great movie by the way), there are about a billion lines i wanted to write down, but my hand is only so big and the light is only so bright and i got one from michael douglas down: 'the mother of all evil is speculation.'

i really resonated with this because i feel like lately, quarter stories/half stories/partial truths/one-sided opinions have been gnawing on my mind a little and i would like them to go on a diet.

something i really can't stand/respect about stini and my mom is the fact that they have a million different explanations for something before they pass a judgment, or let me pass one. and this can be excruciatingly frustrating when you're trying to vent and you just want to hear, 'yeah man that sucks!' but i also really respect the fact that they are unrelenting when it comes to trying to find the least amount of bad in everyone that they can.

got a lot of stuff to work on. like usual.

let me turn a page.

2010-09-22T23:34:00.004-04:00

i had a little chunk of time between jobs today and used it to drink coffee at panera and read the same book i've been reading since august. seems like there is so much stuff to do all of the time, and then when i have chill time - reading feels like a very excellent but brain tiring effort. for me, trying to finish a book is like dusting my room. it would be such a great end result, but there are too many damn knickknacks on top of every flat surface that it only happens every so often.

that analogy only made sense in my own head, i'm sure of it.

anyways - while i was there, trying to read, there were two teenage girls in the booth next to me. they were really giggly loud and obnoxious. and i would make it through a paragraph of my book before i would get distracted with their conversation. i have to admit - i was pretty fascinated. mostly because their conversation was so... fake. no exaggeration at all, there was a point in the twenty or so minutes when one of the girls said, "i'm sorry i just can't stop staring at you, 'cause you are like SO pretty! oh my gosh!" and then the other girl was very thankful and then proceeded to tell her about how these boys got her to get high at a party one night and etc, etc...

as you can see - i am ridiculous for even being so caught up with their business, but they reminded me of this quote i read from C.S. lewis the other day. may i just interject here with how awesome clive is? he is freaking brilliant. my friend says that she has a crush on him - and i don't blame her.

'we live in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.' - c.s. lewis.

i am really blessed to have some incredible friends in my life. although we love to have fun and laugh (things we do well and often), i also love that we can go deep on any topic you can think of - and we have. i honestly can't think of anything we haven't talked about. i also know how much i need alone time - to think, pray, write, sing, etc...

if only everyone could have christinas and lydias and beckys and karas in their lives. and a lot of other really cool _____s. then they wouldn't have to distract people in panera when they're trying to finish a book for crying out loud.

now i'm going to go to sleep and think about how judgmental i just was.

new memories.

2010-09-18T22:31:00.006-04:00

this time last year (like to the hour) i remember lying in the same bed i'm sitting on right now feeling like i couldn't breathe. my mom was laying there with me trying to get me to breathe, to stop or keep crying, or something to help me feel better - but mostly she was just crying too. my heart was broken and there was literally no way to un-break it.

it's been a tough but awesome year. i have done a lot of growing up and a lot of growing. i still have a long way to go - just like i will have a long way to go five years from now and even twenty years from now. one of my favorite things about God is that there is always more to learn - and always more to love.

i'm really excited for the places God is going to take me. because so far, he hasn't given me a reason to believe it won't be great. C.S. lewis said, 'we can never know what might have been, but what is to come is another matter entirely.'

bring it on, J-dizzle.

*pictures are lyds and i making a new memory - she got her monroe back and i did my nose finally!

to thirty-five!

2010-09-12T23:22:00.006-04:00

tomorrow we celebrate my parents' thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.

it is truly an awesome privilege to be their daughter. i've never seen a marriage like that of my mom and dad's. they have this benjamin button-ish marriage - where with every passing year of my growing up, they seem to fall more in love with one another. and let me tell you that in a society where broken marital commitments prevail, it is a breath of fresh air to look at good ole' m & d and know that even though they don't have it figured out and would never pretend to - they are setting an example.

i can't tell you how many times people i don't even know will learn my last name and start singing the praises of tim and ann and how awesome they are. and this is something that most of the time i take for granted, because i'm around it all the time and their love/tolerance/humor/like for one another has just been the norm for me.

my family is pretty much amazing... each one of my brothers is absolutely awesome - and the women they've chosen to do life with are incredible. and i look at jamie who is carrying the prized first grand child and niece and step back and think - wow, is this really my family?

the freaking best answer ever is yes. and my brothers are who they are, and their marriages are what they are, and i am who i am because of this one union that took place on september 13, 1975.

so a lot of doobies, boones farm, shirtless horseback rides, kids, cities, three daughter-in-laws, and one grandbaby later - my parents are the coolest cats there ever could be.

E is for Extend.

2010-09-08T21:01:00.002-04:00

i was pilfering through my drawers and boxes the other night when i came across one of my favorite gerard kelly pieces. i had written out his alphabet a few years back when i first heard it. E is one of my favorites: "extend me beyond my feeble dreams."

if i am going to get a tattoo anytime in the near future it will probably say that..

i was driving home today and listening to jonathan david helser's 'you're never giving up'. i think i've actually even written about this before - but somewhere in the twelve minute range, his wife sings 'you're breaking off the disappointment of the seasons - when i thought you'd left me.'and i became really overwhelmed with the goodness of a God i have stifled in a box smaller than one of the three i keep letters in.

this month marks a year since the big break up. and i can honestly remember exactly what i was doing this time last year. and every day up until the eighteenth. and then i can remember every minute of that day. and that night. and the next day and the next nights. safe to say this month is etched in my memory.

on that night, i can honestly remember feeling like i had no idea who God was. and i think that probably every one who has experienced pain in that fashion has wondered just who the heck God thinks he is to put you through that. and looking back on it, i can see that i really should have been asking, 'just who the heck am i?' i had told God before that day that no matter what happened in my relationship with this boy, i would serve him. and God reminded me of that promise quite often after the break up. serve him i did - but i served him in confusion and in just plain heart break.

deep down in the wells of my soul i felt that this could not be the end for me, but every practical bone in my body was saying this was the grand finale. no other boy would ever love me that much, think i was that beautiful, funny or talented; and i could never think any of the aforementioned about any other boy regardless of what he thought of me. i hated being awake and i hated trying to sleep. everything was a reminder of the life i didn't and wasn't going to have.

but my heart has been picked up and dusted off. not just by the Lord, but by my family, my best friends, by music, by books, by prayer... it's amazing the kind of all star cast it takes to bring you back to health.

so it's amazing to me to think that this time last year i thought it was all just about over. and now i am refreshed to be thinking of how much God is shaping and healing my heart in ways known and unknown to me. he is such a good guy. i'm joy bethany abare and i've got a lot of good stuff ahead of me. more than my feeble dreams could ever even... dream.

'cause we're the three best friends that .....

2010-09-04T00:24:00.002-04:00

these girls are awesome. i got to spend time with both of them last night (something that doesn't get to happen enough).

we were looking through old pictures... some five years old, some only a year. but with every picture came a memory and with every memory a realization that these are lifelong friends. i'm not afraid of putting miles between us, because they are the kind of friends that will just never stop bugging you - and i will never stop bugging them.

we've all been through a lot of crap together, but i've also spent some of the best times of my life with these girls. i can trust them with anything and everything, and i do. i love having friends that are apart of my family. and they are truly apart of my family.

i can't wait to see where the Lord takes these beauties - front row, cheering them on. there i'll be. i'm so proud of them. who they've been, who they are, and who they're becoming. it's pretty amazing for someone to ever find one, 100% genuine best friend that will never go away. i've found two. if you've never met them - you have to. they are the best.

you wish. i wish.

2010-08-28T11:30:00.003-04:00

i'm getting used to the fact that i will probably never truly be cool.

i have really cool friends. for example...

my best friend lyds is really cool. she says cool things and knows about cool videos and has a cool tattoo and just has cool coming out of her pores. she has a cool haircut and used to have a cool piercing. she has a cool boyfriend and she does cool things. she works at a coffee shop she wants to own her own someday and i can't wait to see her life unfold. http://lydiamsmith.tumblr.com/

lucas is really cool. he is a musician and he's really funny. he wears cool clothes and he's basically a savant when it comes to instruments. he can pretty much play anything he touches and he can usually just pick up a guitar and start playing with a song even if it's the first time he's ever hearing it. someday lucas will be famous and you guys will wish you were me. download his music here: https://www.noisetrade.com/johnlucas#

my brother brad is really cool. people find out my last name and somehow they know brad. he's smart and reads really cool books and has a cool wife and a cool loft in downtown LA and it has a hot tub on the roof and he takes the bus to work and has a homeless small group and he writes cool stuff. he made up a website called churchmarketingsucks.com and he just has cool ideas. http://www.bradabare.com/

i have a lot of cool friends. they have cool relationships with Jesus and they do cool stuff. they look cool and they talk cool. i feel like they even think cool. and i just honestly feel like this will never be me. no matter what i write or read or what i paint or take a picture of. no matter how i cut my hair or dress... i'm just not destined to be the cool girl. maybe this was spurred by the finding of my orthodontia pictures from ten years ago. yikes. my mom had to have coined the phrase "a face only a mother could love". or maybe those pictures didn't really do anything and i just wanted to tell you how cool some of my friends are.

some other really cool people i know:

estherhavens.com
equitas.cc
kristensomodywhalen.com
bfmtim.wordpress.com
flickr.com/people/laurenbennett
kovasckitz.com
ceagon.com
oneroofafrica.blogspot.com
lovehaiti.com
hipstercollective.com
sarahdeshields.com

that girl!

2010-08-26T10:19:00.002-04:00

through the years i've known my share of broken hearted fools
and those who couldn't choose a path worth taking
there's nothin' in the world so sad as talking to a man
who never knew his life was his for making

[r. lamontagne]

my friend and i were talking the other night and i said something along the lines of how crazy it was to have a wide open story waiting to be written only by myself. he said, 'shoot girl, your story was written before you were born... and the Lord is a pretty good writer.' love that guy.

i do believe that God writes beautiful stories for us. but they are like plans that we can choose whether or not to be apart of. sometimes, we don't choose his plan. sometimes we stray from it. and for a while, walking down the path that he didn't intend for us is fun and feels free and wonderful... but his desire is always for us to run back. and sometimes that path of walking away from his plan doesn't necessarily feel like you're deserting God. it feels like you're making good decisions and that everything is ok.

so this is where i get confused. when i start to make decisions for myself and base things off of sheer desire and peace - how do i know i'm not straying from the intentions of the beloved? i can say for sure that i'm awfully tired of learning things the hard way. but should i just settle for the fact that i might be that kind of person? the kind that just has to go through really crappy stuff in order to figure something out?

how am i ever supposed to know when i should stop waiting and start going? there's always reasons for both. i've never been able to throw much respect in the person's direction who sits around doing nothing, waiting for God to tell them something. but i also don't want to be the girl that abandons responsibility and chooses adventure over a life of stability and being audited...

alright you caught me, of course i want to be that girl.

shuffle

2010-08-24T16:47:00.002-04:00

'is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?' - elizabeth gilbert

i had quite the little drive to do today and i turned good ole' katie herzig on shuffle and let it run. i don't usually like shuffle. i like to be in control, so i usually start up on a specific song and stay close in case i want to change it. but katie -- oh katie. she is always a safe bet. i can turn katie on shuffle and never be disappointed in what my little ipod chooses for me.

yesterday i made a decision - a big one - that kind of turned shuffle on my life. and like katie herzig shuffle, nothing is really a bad choice. i could pretty much do anything or go anywhere... happy freedom right?

right and wrong. freedom is an entirely awesome, yet slightly terrifying state to live in. but hell, i'm movin' there and the weather is great with a only a hint of nausea and self-inflicted worry!

it's fun for me to have the "where to next?" mentality. but i know there's still a lot of pain to deal with. so like my prayer has been for the last year, may it continue to be that God test my heart and know my every anxious thought. i want to make sure that the decisions i make are not out of pain or regret, but out of an excitement for the places God will take me despite the pain my past has included.

one of my all time favorite katie herzig songs says:

jenny lynn, i wish i had your thin skin
i wish that i could let the love right in
maybe i’d rather feel the pain
‘cause freedom is
a naked heart that always dares to give
a willingness to let the tenderness
be taken as it may

so here's to you, new home. here's to hoping that i will come in with my guard down - but up too. here's to coming in with a heart undressed. and here's to the freedom i'll find. wherever i go.

c&k

2010-08-19T23:59:00.003-04:00

craig and kara got married a week ago tomorrow - and i can honestly say that i've never loved being apart of something more than i loved being apart of their wedding. it was seriously such an honor to help them out and love them and hang out with them and be apart of that whole process. from the addressing of the invitation envelopes to buttoning up kara's dress the day of and helping her pee after pictures, i felt so cool to be apart of their day and lives like that.

signing their marriage certificate was like saying - 'hey i love you guys and i am going to be your marriage's #1 fan. when you guys are jerks to each other, i'll be there. and when you're dandy - i'll be there too.'

can't wait to watch them grow. i think about them and get teary eyed. i opened my Bible the other day and out popped a card that craig had written me the day after i broke up with my boyfriend. i tell people that craig and kara are great people to go to when you are heart broken, because even though the last thing you want to do is eat for fear of throwing it up, they will still meet you at the airport with crumbs cupcakes and get you flowers and hold you while you cry.

i look at them and see how they waited for each other - not in a cheesy christian way, but in a - wow. God really did have someone that incredibly perfect for you, kind of way and i feel hope shoot into my heart.

now i wish they'd come home from their honeymoon because i haven't been able to talk to two of my best friends for a week. but that's just selfish.

*pictured from left to right: jamaica (brad's wife), me, kara, jamie + A.K. (mark's wife and daughter on the way - anna kournikova). the sistas!

happy/responsible = probably not the same

2010-08-16T23:56:00.000-04:00

so i've been reading the ever popular (which are two words i don't usually like to associate with any of the choices i make...) 'eat, pray, love' by elizabeth gilbert.

this may not be a smart move on my part, since i am on a plane bound for charlotte.

i would much rather be on a plane bound for italy or some other random place where i could blow four months on self-discovery... all the while eating delicious food and listening to other people speak in beautiful languages and feel absolutely no remorse for not speaking back - as i can't understand what they're saying.

the last ten days (although they have involved many sleepless nights, crying bouts on the train, and a most irritating sickness that has lasted nearly a week so far) have been lovely. it has been so nice to get out of the tiny town i live in, step back from the sucky predicament i seem to be in, and be with all of my closest friends in my favorite city.

elizabeth gilbert has this conversational style of writing that i love. she makes her thoughts easy to read and i love her vulnerability throughout the book. i'm on chapter twenty-five, and i have really enjoyed getting to know her so far. i certainly don't agree with all of the decisions she's made thus far, but there is a really cool bravery that must accompany a middle-aged, recently broken-hearted woman battling depression traveling across the world in pursuit of ... herself.

there's something she says at the beginning of the book that i deeply resonated with, and have continued to think about as i have prepared to head back "home". in chapter two - while talking about how confused she was as to how she got to this point of brokenness, alone-ness, and joyless-ness in her life, she says, "i had actively participated in every moment of the creation of this life - so why did i feel like none of it resembled me?" (page eleven)

here i am heading towards this city - and much like my last post, i am just kind of at a loss. yeah, some painful decisions have been made for me, but most of my life i have been an active participant in most every situation. and now i am at this sort of internal conflict trying to decide which to choose - happiness or responsibility. because happiness in this season of my life would, i feel like, involve little responsibility.

there is a huge part of me that is shouting "run as fast as you can! you're twenty and somewhat able!" but another part says, "joy you are an idiot. just be smart and miserable like everyone else."

sometimes freedom doesn't feel so free.

think i'll be a nun.

2010-08-09T11:37:00.005-04:00

so saturday morning i went for a little jog in craig and kara's semi-new neighborhood (meaning the new place is only four blocks away from the old one - but it feels a good bit different). i was loving the weather and the busy sidewalks and the parks and the endless opportunities for something (employment, relationships, peace, chaos...) that many other cities just can't offer.

on my way back i just couldn't help but feel this temporary freedom that i've honestly never felt before. i looked all around me and felt that everything was at my finger tips, even though deep down inside i knew i had an accepted loan to go to an already-registered-for semester at a school that i don't want to go to, a city that i feel does not belong to me in any way, and a general knowledge that it is "smart" for me to stay committed to all of the aforementioned.

this freedom was strange feeling. good in that i am at an age and time and relationship status in my life where i could literally do anything i want to, but a bit sucky in that in that i am at an age and time and relationship status in my life where i could do anything i want to!

if you know anything about me and my plan, you probably know that it did not involve solitude in the sense that i would now be considering a commitment to celibacy (you know - just to beat God to the punch in an effort to feel less undesirable and a little more unapproachable). and since i had grown accustomed to being un-single for a while, it is fun to be young but my plans did not involve the "un" being taken off of "un-single".

this is my fifth time to new york this year, and unfortunately i can say that it never gets easy to be reminded of failed dreams, messed up plans, or memories. however, few cities have enough other stuff going on for it to encourage you in hope and opportunity. there is literally life all over - and even in the presence of tiny kitchens and depleting bank accounts, there is a freedom that i find to be highly attractive.

so i now raise my craig-bought vintage goblet high in the air to celebrate said freedom. then i'll go do anything i want to. because i'm in new york, and i can.

BS goals

2010-08-04T23:00:00.004-04:00

so a while back, my eldest brother brad started this family tradition of making individual goals and discussing them as a family annually at christmas time. each year included this dreaded day (for me at least) where i would say the b.s. goals i made last year out loud and then would proceed to make new b.s. goals that i could "anticipate" sharing the next year.

well this tradition ended about two years ago, when brad saw the movie 'bucket list', and he then issued a new decree for us to each make bucket lists of our own. i have a long list of things i want to do - most of them include the word "husband" so i've faced the probability that the chances a movie being based on my achieved bucket list items is a far fetched ideal.

anyways, one of the things on my list was to journal every single day for a year. every single day. no forgiveness, because then that would make the 'every single day' part untrue.

well on january first i began this 'every single day' endeavor. and through sleet and snow, vacations, a wedding, confusion, nineteen credit hours, and a job - i somehow carved out time to journal every single day. until july 2nd. no special day. i can't think of anything that happens on july 2nd. no birthdays, anniversaries. i actually just pulled up my calendar to see if anything was going on that was out of the ordinary - and nothing was. it was a friday. i hung out with my friends. and on july 3rd i woke up, picked up my journal and my heart stopped for a second. i had missed a day. i made it seven freaking months and missed it on a normal friday. this may not seem like a big deal to you - but i was halfway to my goal and boom - it was ruined.

i just finished that journal today. i had started it right at last year, and it was a pretty thick one and i could write on both sides of the pages. i loved this journal. not as much as this shakespeare one that i received for as a highschool graduation present a few years ago - but it was good. this journal has seen a lot over the past year. i literally spoke to Jesus every day for seven months in it. and before then, it was pretty consistent as well (just not EVERY DAY consisten).

from about july 3rd to july 17th i got lazy. i thought - what the heck. i already failed my goal - why start over so soon? perhaps i could change my goal to be "journal every single day for seven months."

ok but seriously - have you ever felt that way about God? like... ok, we have this good thing going and then one day you just feel like he really botches it up for you. and you think - let me figure out how i can arrange what i felt like i wanted to happen, with how this actually turned out. and maybe it's a whole month of feeling like God just really can't even stand the sight of you. and that's why the DMV line is so long, and you feel fat for three weeks, and you can't get your classes registered for, and you are breaking out on your forehead, and you don't have any cool jeans...

it's easy for me to think - i'm gonna take a break because he's CLEARLY taking a break from caring about me! but there's something about faithfulness that is really beautiful. and as i was flipping through this prayer journal, just looking at the places i've been in my walk with God over the last year - i would say that most repeated thank you's to Jesus was for being so faithful, despite my great unfaithfulness.

so here's to you, day eighteen of 'journal every single day for a year'. hopefully another lame friday won't get in the way of our success.

declaration. jesse fisher.

2010-08-03T21:47:00.003-04:00

http://kadence.tv/

['declaration' is the video name] if this link doesn't work for you - you can try watching it on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsCfatboRwA

there's an amazing video you should all see - it's actually done by a guy here in charlotte. his name's jesse fisher and he is the founder of uptown ministries. i keep watching it, and i keep getting chills and teary eyed. not only is this guy an amazing communicator, but in some version of a miracle he made little downtown charlotte look somewhat cool.

'no longer will we slumber - being seduced by the lies of an unfaithful lover.'

favorite line.

toy story and dirty shoes

2010-07-25T22:26:00.003-04:00

so i finally went to see toy story three tonight. despite the sad fact that one of the boys in my class came up to me a week ago and just blurted out the ending - i enjoyed it very much. still liked number two the best though (i know, kill me).

anyways, for some reason i really noticed the whole ownership/sense of belonging aspect of the story more than i have in any of the other films. there's a particular line that caught me. one toy was explaining to the others that their owner didn't care about them anymore and that it was better to not have an owner and to just have a lot of kids play with them. he said, 'no owner means no heartbreak.' right then and there i pulled out my pen and wrote that line down on my hand.

this kind of goes back to what i was talking about a few posts ago when i had made up my mind all the times we moved to never make friends upon arrival at our new location. i figured - if i don't become friends with anyone, i won't get hurt. and lately i've thought - if i don't let anyone have my heart, there's no chance they can break it.

there's this part where woody tells everyone to look at their foot and points out the fact that andy's name is on the bottom of everyone's shoe. and andy and the gang are all so determined to get back to their owner. and woody - woody just loves andy so much. and all they want is for andy to love them.

and i feel like i want to tell everyone to look at their foot and feel that sense of belonging. i want Jesus to be my andy. my owner that i love and that i belong to and that i would risk my life just to be with.

but i'm left wondering if Jesus is my andy... who (and this could be one person, or more than one - or even a thing) have i given myself to? my time, my energy, my focus... if i were to seriously determine who my owner was by the amount of myself that i gave to that person, whose name would be on the bottom of my shoe?

i honestly don't know if i could look down and find Jesus.

suck.

promises, promises

2010-07-22T22:25:00.004-04:00

due to the conversation going on in my church right now about 'the land', i have been thinking a lot about the spiritual and physical space i occupy as a child of God, as a friend, as a daughter, sister, teacher, etc..

last sunday jonathan was talking about 'the land' as it pertains to the delayed promises of God. this whole concept is strange to me... because i feel like in my limited view of eternity and God in general - i have a hard time understanding what a true promise of God is.

i feel like it is really easy for me to assume that the desires of my heart that seem good and pure, are the ordained promises of God to me. i hear people saying, "God has really put it on my heart to [insert any good and lovely thing here]." and i always wonder if that means that they just really want that good thing and they haven't heard the audible voice of God telling them that they shouldn't want that or do that or go to that place.

i thought that the sweet little boy that some friends who relocated their entire family to africa to be with while their adoption was finalized was a promise of God. they live in america now, and they were not able to bring that son back with them. he lived with them in africa, and now they cannot be together. i thought that the relationship i was in was a promise of God. i thought he was going to be my husband and that life would be awesome when that season came. we are not together anymore.

did God promise these things to us? or did we feel like those were good things and they seemed awesome and great - but they just weren't meant to be? and if it's the latter, why would God have even put those things in our life at all? and don't tell me to learn... because sometimes when you're in pain, you don't want to hear that.

because of the painful turn of events in both of the aforementioned situations, it's even easier for me to assume that i have an inability to hear from God. i have a heartbreaking habit of over-expecting. from movies, to songs, to concerts, to reunions, to new friends, to relationships...

and sometimes in some of those particular situations, i truly do feel like God was putting something on my heart. but when those specific things didn't happen or aren't happening - i have two ways of thinking: i can't hear God or God is mean. sounds harsh, but you'd be lying to say you've never thought God was a little mean. whether or not you truly believe that is irrelevant in this conversation.

it's taken a while, but i do believe that God is good. i believe that he truly does want what's best for me, and that pain is apart of my life because of the fall and because humans are flawed and all of that jazz.

i just don't know when he's promising me anything. and maybe i never will.

tight.

2010-07-14T22:21:00.002-04:00

forgive me, father, for i have sinned. it has been one day since my last confession.

usually at shows i judge. i judge long and hard. i see people who look like they are playing dress up just to look *awesome at these concerts, and if the particular band or musician is a believer i find that the audience is prone to hand raising and eye shutting. i feel like people do this for attention and i typically get frustrated, because i am feeling moved by the music too - i just don't feel the need to make a scene out of it.

and then i went to this john mark mcmillan show last weekend. he's one of those guys that i've seen a ton before, but this show was free and a band that i really, really like was playing before him so i really wanted to go.

it was hot and sticky and body odor was prevalent. i was standing too close to the people around me and they were standing too close to me. not the ideal situation for anyone with claustrophobia or those prone to rashes when surrounded by hot, sticky people who are dancing.

JMM came out and i will just go ahead and say the word that makes me a little itchy all over - he was anointed. there's something about his music, something about his lyrics, that makes me feel all warm and happy and moved and ready to worship.

and all of the sudden i didn't seem to notice the close proximity of strangers and those not so strange, and i just began to worship. like... eyes shut tight, smile on my face, hands up or down: worship. and it's like i didn't even realize how hypocritical i was being until all was said and done. the lights came on and people began to disperse and i thought, 'dang i suck.' all this time i had seen people worshiping in an odd venue that probably doesn't usually see a ton of worship and assumed they were doing it for attention and there i was - feeling like i had this intimate time with the Lord and i felt so refreshed. like i didn't even realize how stale my worship had become until i experienced the worship that night. ahh no one but God can really make me feel quite that crappy. (in a good way)

so if you've ever raised your hands at a rock show that i've been at too, i've probably looked at you and thought you were a joker. i am sorry, truly. God can meet you wherever you're at, whenever you're there, and in whatever way he wants to.

and i hope he always does.

and the 199 rolls into a 200

2010-07-05T10:04:00.003-04:00

well if i were monk, i would be ecstatic right now. this is my two hundredth post. a good number to end on. meaning one hundred and ninety nine times before this right now, i have felt something enough, thought something enough, and known something enough to write about it. do you know what i find interesting? this blog has mostly been about pain. the loving, learning, and growing i've experienced from it - the heartbreak i've endured because of it. i started this over five years ago, when i was fifteen years old and was so angry with my dad for making us move. pain. my recent posts have been about the heartbreak that comes from being in love and then knowing you can't be anymore. pain. and all in the middle, there has been some great happiness, some wonderful announcements (i'll say it again - i'm going to be an aunt!), and some sarcastic bite. in many ways, the last one hundred and ninety nine posts are me. they are... many people. the feelings that make us here, the feelings that make us real. and i truly have no idea who reads this, when they read it, or if they find it interesting. but on the occasion that someone emails me and tells me how much they received from it, or writes me just to encourage me... i find a lot of value in that. so because i love writing, and because (most of the time) i feel like my story is nowhere near finished, i'm not going to be monk.

like i said - i started this blog writing about moving, and lately this has been mostly about my relationship ending. both were/are versions of heartbreak, different in the way they felt, but both remarkably awful. when we were moving, i was so angry because yet again i was leaving my best friend (moving is more like a longer lasting fire drill in the abare household... comes often, feels automatic but strange still). i was always the one to leave. and when my relationship ended, i was not the one to leave. humbling as it is to say, i was left. and this was the strangest thing to me. i'd never been left before. ever. i had always said goodbye on my terms, and was never bid farewell when it wasn't my own choice or partly my choice.

oftentimes when i was a kid, i would resolve to not make friends upon arrival at our next destination. i was young, and in my limited view of pain and growth, i saw making friends and leaving them as a horrible routine and didn't really want to have any part of it. each new location i would think, 'alright, if i don't make any friends this time - it won't hurt when we leave!' and every time, i would make friends and have a blast and then leave them.

after we broke up, it was an automatic resolution to never love again. my heart went into crouch mode - like a spider who is chillin' all happy in its web and then someone comes near it and all their legs go in and they roll up into a little ball. i thought 'good God my heart could never ever do this again. my stomach could never feel this bad again, i could never lose that much sleep again, i couldn't possibly cry that much again.' guys have asked me out since, and i have literally shuddered with fear, like physically shuddered, thinking about the possibility of opening my heart up to that much pain.

but there is also a deafening/entirely deeper aching that comes in resolving to live in this 'locked up' mode. c.s. lewis says, 'To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.'

my dear friend taryn said that no one tells you when give your heart away that you'll never get it back in its original condition...

i could keep my heart locked up in this safe casket of my own selfishness - and like i mentioned in the last post, never experience the wonder, the joy, the awesomeness of being in love or loving. but i would experience a different kind of pain. one detrimental to my very living. one that would hold every other relationship in my life hostage. one that would hold me hostage. taryn's right... you will never get your heart back the way it was after you've given it away. and in many ways, that is the worst thing in the world. but if you allow love to change you the way love is supposed to change you, it can also be the best thing.

FF

2010-06-29T08:47:00.002-04:00

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” - neil gaiman

i spent another weekend with my brother, and my best friend who is soon to be my sister-in-law in new york this last weekend. tending to some bridesmaidly duties like a bridal shower and writing tags for all the center pieces. i love being able to help them in any way i can. my brother is a creative nazi and makes things look incredible. their wedding will be absolutely incredible.

you know, there's nothing like witnessing love in new york city. there's something magical about it. because every where you turn there is some place or something you want to do with the person you love. every where there is a park, which makes me want to walk through and have picnics in. apartment buildings that make me want to come home. laundry mats that i wouldn't even mind going to if my husband was there with me. and every place is a chance for a special spot that no one else has.

i've been in love in new york city before. it was a blast. the brooklyn bridge at night, cupcakes in the park, getting locked in a different park, boat rides... it was fun. so much fun. i think that's why i can be even more excited for craig and kara when i see them because in a way i know how they feel.

the pages to that chapter of my life have been turned and i oftentimes i wonder what would have been better? to have never been in love at all - therefore not knowing the pain that comes with being stripped of it? or being in love with all the vulnerability that comes with it - and knowing that pain that comes when it's taken away?

there are certainly days when i think - i sure wish that never would have happened. soemtimes i envy my brother craig, who dated kara first, and now he will marry her. he has never known the pain of heart break. he has never known what it's like to miss out on something so good - because he had never had it in the first place. but most days, i am thankful for the opportunity i had. i learned so much, loved so much, and lived so much. and even though it's gone now, i am still continuing to learn how to live, love, and grow through the experiences i had and am having.

i've told my brother mark that sometimes i wish there was a fast forward button for life. i would love to fast forward to the part where i graduate and i'm holding hands with the guy i'm going to marry. so i could skip the school for sure, and then skip the wonder. but you know? i'm thankful there are no fast forward buttons. no options to mull over the bad stuff (that is really probably good stuff, you just can't see it yet) just to get to the "good stuff".

so for now, i'll live in the right now.

(unfortunately my right now means i have to go to school)

immigrant

2010-06-15T22:22:00.002-04:00

'immigrant writers, for example, often discover that their new home has more than a fair share of problems and limitations; what started as a quest for freedom produces a disillusioning awareness of restrictions and limits. one of the great themes of immigrant writing is the paradox of new losses and failures... but what if such full measure [of this new environment] involves the surrendering of much, if not all, of the identity the immigrant arrived with?' {modern period/paul lauter}

so who else kind of feels like an immigrant writer? i do. i feel like there's this big attractive/terrifying idea out there called Jesus and i just really want to know why people choose him. why the heck do i choose to stake what i've got on someone i can't hear, see, or touch?

let me just be straight up with you, because i'm so gosh darn tired of everyone beating around the bush... it's hard for me to explain Jesus to people who don't know him, because sometimes it's really hard to make Christianity sound not petrifying. i can't lie to someone and tell them that as soon as they make a decision for Christ, their life is just going to instantly become overwhelmed with feelings of worth and purpose. i can't sugar coat the God situation by saying that he makes things easier...

a friend of mine asked me a couple weeks ago, "hey - can you tell me about God? i've been going to church and trying to pray, but i feel like i want to ask you what's going on.." i told her how i felt about the Lord. i told her how my relationship with Jesus is ever evolving. i told her that sometimes it's really hard for me to believe in someone i can't feel all the time. and i told her that committing to a relationship with Jesus is hard. the commitment makes everything different, not easier.

i tried to tell her that becoming a christian does not mean completely losing yourself, but surrendering yourself. and i think that over the last weeks i've been learning this myself... for me having a relationship with the Lord has not meant making this decision to totally ditch who i was - but rather be overcome with a willingness to be who he wants me to be, and who i want to be in him.

i really like that opening quote about the immigrant writers... like immigrant writing, i believe that one of the great themes of salvation is a surrendering of one's old self or life as they know it, but it's growing accustomed to the idea of new losses and failures as well.

i am ok with saying that i failed, because it means i tried.

me or them?

2010-06-07T23:59:00.002-04:00

upon moving to the south, i began to meet more and more people who were heavily involved in more "spirit led" movements. i am not sure if it has been the way that i was raised, or if i had come to these semi-conclusions on my own - but for some reason, certain aspects of these affiliations have not sat well with me. i have felt that if anything, these people/organizations were "feelings-based" and in turn, i listened to dreams, stories, and prophecies with a high amount of skepticism and at most times (unfortunately, albeit honestly) cynicism.

i've struggled back and forth between wondering who is right or wrong - me or them? who loves Jesus more - me or them? who has more evidence of a living breathing relationship with Jesus - me or them? and most of the time i've come to the conclusion that these individuals i'm referring to seem to have great walks with God, that i have some serious checks in my spirit when certain stories are brought up, and that we both love Jesus.

i read a quote today from NT wright that i found pretty enlightening: "part of the problem in contemporary christianity is that talk about the freedom of the Spirit, about the grace which sweeps us off our feet and heals and transforms our lives, has been taken over surreptitiously by a kind of low-grade romanticism... generating the assumption that the more spiritual you are, the less you need to think."

i am of the opinion that as a spirit filled christian, in certain groups, i am expected to pray aloud and speak in tongues and explain my dreams and so on and so forth. for me, this is as scary as a red tract with clip art on the front. i loathe the pressure to be publicly vulnerable and i listen with caution when people are tossing around the "God told me so" line or any variations of the phrase.

however, in all of this - there is a part of these people that i envy. their boldness and confidence, although sometimes inappropriate and far from being Biblically sound, are attributes of a person who really does trust the Lord.

so i'm pretty sure i've landed somewhere in the middle... i do not believe that love and trust are based on feelings. just like in any relationship, you can't just operate from the gooey mushiness or the red hot anger that is venting from your h-e-a-r-t. you'd be an emotional basket case in need of some serious therapy. i know that if the last nine months were filled with me acting off of every feelings whim, i'm pretty sure i'd be sitting in bed eating brownies all day crying. i'm doing great, because i have not just operated from the feelings portion of my body... it has taken conscious effort to get to a place of wholeness and wellness.

love and trust in the Lord is as needy for intellect as it is for faith (well maybe it needs like three tons of faith and a couple tons for intellect - or maybe i have no idea what the H i'm saying and that i just basically think it's important to think). think... think before you say, "God told me so." think - is this going to make me look stupid if this doesn't happen the way i said God said it would? but more importantly, think how it will make God look.. are people going to want to trust me or the Lord no matter how this situation pans out?

i truly believe that the more spiritual you are, if grounded in the Bible, the more you need to think. i'm so thankful to have a dad that pushes me to think about things and not participate in a relationship with the Lord that is based solely on feelings.

i do pray that whatever denomination, whatever way you feel or think, and whatever opinion you are of - that you never, ever cheapen the God of love for a low-grade romanticism. amen.