Tag Archives: Relationships

Dec 28 2024
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the presence of kids

For the last 6 years my mom and I have gone Christmas tree shopping together on the first weekend of December. A weekend of winter festivities, this has easily become one of my favorite ways to usher in the post-Thanksgiving season. We venture to a local farmers market and pick out the perfect needled greenery for my apartment. I love having a real tree in my home this time of year.

Over the years the tree has gotten bigger, I’ve added more ornaments, and I’ve upgrade lights. 3 years ago I had to purchase a bigger skirt and a new star to adorn the top as the previous options had outgrown our needs.

This year my 6-year-old nephew and 4-year-old niece joined us for our festive weekend.

We walked the aisle of firs and spruce, determined to find the perfect December addition to The Light House. We picked out a delightful 6-footer, brought her home to my apartment, and the real fun began.

We plopped that sucker in a stand and went to work. Lights, candy canes, ornaments new and old. We dressed that tree like it was the most important thing we would do with our lives that day. Mostly because it was. And once we were done, I snapped this picture:

If you look closely you’ll see ornaments that are a little bunched together. You’ll see lights that aren’t perfectly strung. You’ll see three candy canes hanging under the star in a tripod pattern, just above three more that to most probably look like they are just randomly thrown up on some limbs. Mostly because they are.

I snapped this picture and sent it to my friend saying, “Guess where Sayge decorated?”

It was comical to me that this tree was very clearly decorated with no “purpose.” There was no visible order to what we accomplished. Usually, when you decorate a Christmas tree, you try to spread things out. You make sure you don’t have too many bulbs close together and that trinkets are hung with intentional care.

At first glance, there was no intention to what was adorning this tree.

We all closed the night with popcorn, Shirley Temples, and a viewing of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We fell asleep under the multi-colored glow of our tree decorating accomplishments and yes, my heart did grow three sizes.

The next afternoon I sent a Marco Polo to my friends showing them the tree and giggling about how disorganized it was. I mentioned that I had thought about changing it after the kids left, to make it look a bit more put together. But I had decided against it because 1) I’m lazy and 2) us adults are always coming in trying to fix what kids bring to the table and I just didn’t want to do that with this sweet tradition we had just participated in together.

In mid sentence to my friends I realized what a gift the disorganization on my Fraser Fir was offering me. My niece was so proud of her ornament placement. My nephew believed to his core that he was tree designer extraordinaire.

And for me to come in and mess that up because it would be “better” just felt wrong.

Kids offer us such simplicity. It doesn’t take much to entertain them and it really doesn’t take much to make them feel special. Some eye contact and an excited look whenever they tell you the sky is blue is usually all it takes.

And as we grow up, we grow out of that simplicity. We grow out of the amazement that there even is a sky. We stop basking in the wonderment that the simple task of decorating a Christmas tree offers.

We move from delight to perfection. From joy to obligation. And we lose the point.

Jesus tells His disciples to let the children come to Him because the Kingdom belongs to them.

The Kingdom belongs to those who delight. Who take joy. Who are amazed. Who wonder. Who simply do because it brings life.

So I didn’t straighten up my Christmas tree. Instead, I look at it and smile and think of the delight Jesus takes in all of our imperfect efforts.

He won’t come in to straighten up our clustered decorations. He’ll just delight in our presence with Him in the process.

PS – I wrote a book! You can order To Showing Up wherever you choose to purchase your paperbacks! Link to purchase on the Zon is here! Directly from the publisher, here!

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Oct 11 2023
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back to my roots

This January will mark 10 years of writing random thoughts and opinions on this here blog of mine. My first post, ringing in the new year of 2014, introduced my desire to have a discussion on singleness in the church. I survived purity culture and was ready to thrive. And I think I have…thriven? Irregardless…

Over time the blog and my writing morphed. There was a shift where I wanted to talk about more than singleness. I wanted to talk about life as a follower of Jesus. I was – and still am – single*, but I came to a point where I realized I had more to offer than just my take on a relationship status. I’m not “just” the single girl – I’m Kayla. And so I started to write as Kayla. Not single Kayla.

Yet here we are, nearly 10 years later, and I’m back to a blog post about singleness.

In other news – I like TikTok. I know I probably shouldn’t watch it, but we don’t like to should all over ourselves. LET ME LIVE MY LIFE.

Early today I came across a stitch (iykyk) responding to remarks that a very famous pastor made about women being “perpetually lied to” about the “inconvenience of a husband and children.” He (if you really want to know which man said this, you can figure it out on your own. I’m not typing his name here) talks about young women being so pumped about their lives and the freedom they have now. He goes on to say, “if they do a follow up at 50 they’re not going to be happy…they’re going to be lonely…have a couple of STDs.” He postulates that the true key to happiness is a husband and children.

A. Pastor.
A pastor who is supposed to be telling people about the good news of Jesus Christ – that we are so loved by God that He was unwilling to see us without hope and sent His Son Jesus to redeem us back in to right relationship with Him.
A pastor who is supposed to be reminding his church – and the world since he puts his words all over Al Gore’s internet – that abundant life comes through Christ and nothing else.

Instead, this pastor is reminding women that they will live a miserable life and die a miserable death unless they get married.

I wonder if he realized that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ Himself, was a single man? That MANY mothers of the faith were/are single women? And, shockingly, lived/are living full, vibrant, lovely lives for the sake of the Kingdom of God?

10 years.
For 10 years I’ve been waiting for the narrative to change.

So tonight, it’s back to my roots.
My single roots.

One of the things that fires me up about these words is that it lumps in singleness with loneliness and marriage with fulfillment. I am single and I have a thriving community of friends that help keep me from debilitating loneliness. I also know married people that are not thriving with their spouse and face greater loneliness that I’d like to imagine.

The assumption that singleness = a life of loneliness is such a freakin narrow approach to life. It totally goes against the full life of a follower of Jesus. A life that is designed to rely on God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and His church. It also takes so much pressure off of married people, relieving them of the opportunity to fold single people in to their lives.

“You’re lonely? Oh, well just get married.” – this is such a terrible cop out.

Not to mention, it leaves a lot of women at risk.

There have been 2 times in my life I was convinced I would get married. One of those times I was with an abusive addict and only through friendship was I able to get out of that relationship and not end up “unlonely” to a man that put me through hell. My follow up at 50 would actually have been that I was unhappy.

And that’s just one relationship. I can’t begin to describe the audacity of men on dating apps – Christian dating apps – that make me want to just move into my friend’s basement and live out my days as mom’s weird friend that just showed up one day and won’t go away. Nothing makes me want to be single as much as dating does.

My loneliness doesn’t push me toward marriage.
It pushes me toward Jesus.
It pushes me toward community.
It pushes me toward my friend and her son showing up to my apartment with flowers because I’ve had a terrible month.
It pushes me toward snuggling with my friends daughter before putting her down for a nap as we say our I love you’s and I remind her that she’s a queen.
It pushes me toward a 40 minute FaceTime with my nephew while I make and eat breakfast and he talks to me about his guitar and wanting to learn how to play Jon Pardi songs.

It pushes me away from despair.
It pushes me away from desperation.
It pushes me away from the lie that a husband and children are an inconvenience, but are rather a good gift to be cherished and celebrated, but not envied or idolized.
It pushes me away from the lie that Christ is inadequate.

What if we started treating people as people – married, single, parents, non-parents, etc. etc.
What if we started believing that Christ in me is the hope of glory – not any other identity or label I place behind my name.

What if Jesus is actually enough?

And that’s really it, right? That’s where this all started. A conversation around the question, “What if Jesus is actually enough?”

But the question today hits me differently. Instead of a question out of despair – a clinging the possibility that He could be – it’s a question of hope, of opportunity. What if Jesus is enough!? What can He and I accomplish today, together, if I really believe this!?

Check back in with me when I’m 50 and I might have an answer.

* I resisted the urge to write “single as a Pringle” because there is no such thing as single as a Pringle. Have you ever had JUST ONE frickin Pringle?! No. No you haven’t.

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Aug 25 2023
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feeling bad about feeling good

I have a face that prompts the question, “Are you okay?” quite a bit. I just have a stern look about me. Some might call it by another name, but to keep my internet presence pure (el-oh-el), we’ll just keep it at “stern.”

One time my dear friend yelled at me from across the church lobby, “Fix your face!!” Which was very helpful.

My face can give off the vibe that things aren’t always good with me.

I’m not here to talk about my face though. I’m here to talk about guilt.

I was once asked in a group setting, “What’s something you’re struggling with right now?” And instead of being honest and answering, “Nothing! I’m actually doing really well at the moment,” I spouted out some nonsense that I pulled out of nowhere because everyone else that answered before me was struggling with one thing or another.

It felt weird to be the only one who wasn’t.
As if, because I wasn’t struggling with anything, I probably wasn’t assessing my life properly. There probably was some hidden sin, or lack of discipline, or root of bitterness I was hiding in my heart.

I felt guilty for not feeling guilty.
I felt bad about feeling good.

My faith was formed during the young, restless, reformed years of church culture. Intense preaching from men that demanded perfection, lack of vulnerability from the pulpit, and a consistent focus on how terrible we are as humans led a lot of us in my generation to believe that if any minute of our day wavered from a focus on God, we were doomed. I spent so much time trying to find all that was wrong with me as a sinner that I missed the abundant love Christ has to offer to me.

That might be a little strong. But also, it’s not. YouTube sermons and podcasts that popped off in my college years were hyper focused on the wretched, sinful state of humanity. And don’t get me wrong. We are sinful. But we are also glorious ruins.

Dan Allender writes in his book Leading With A Limp: “To be like Jesus means that we must enter the complexity of both dignity and depravity. We are made in the image of God-glorious. We have taken on Adam and Eve’s hiding and blame-ruin. We are glorious ruins, bent glory. And it shows up in every moment of our existence until we one day see Jesus as he is and become as pure as he is pure.
We are both awful and awesome at the same time.“

Awful and awesome.

We are good.
And.
We sin.

We are glorious in our ruin because of Jesus.

And yet…I still feel bad about feeling good.

We don’t have a good theology of celebration. We have nailed our theology of sin and rebellion, and we know that we need a Redeemer. But what do we do with that redemption in the here and now? How do we live in our glory, given by Christ? I mean, we are his co-heirs, are we not?

On one side, it’s like we (I) need to keep our ‘pride’ in check – don’t feel too good and forget how sinful you are.

One the other side, we (I) like to play the game of “who has it worst” – the classic one-upper of how terrible our circumstances or current struggles are. Because it sometimes feels like pity from another is the easiest place to form connection. In reality, pity is where obligation grows, not love or relationship.

I think vulnerability is where connection, relationship, and love begins to grow. And not gross vulnerability that tries to hot-wire intimacy with another. Authentic, honest, this-is-where-I’m-at vulnerability.

And sometimes this-is-where-I’m-at is a good place.

“I actually feel really connected to God right now and it’s so sweet.”
“I had a great conversation with a coworker that was so encouraging.”
“Everything is really ordinary and normal right now and I know Jesus is near. That’s it. That’s the tweet.”

And it can be just as vulnerable to admit that you are in a good spot with Jesus as it is to admit the thing you’re keeping secret from everyone.

And it can be even more vulnerable to admit the deep joy you feel in a certain season of life because what if it ends? What if the season shifts? What if the other shoe drops?

So we self-protect and never celebrate. We feel bad about feeling good.

BUT.

If the joy of the Lord is our strength, we (I) need to start feeling good about feeling good. I need to strengthen myself and those around me with the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control that the Lord gifts to me. I need to share the faith, hope, and love that is growing deep roots in my heart – because someone might need to borrow from me for a little bit.

And when things aren’t good, I need you to share the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control that the Lord gifts to YOU. I’ll need to borrow your faith, hope, and love.

And instead of feeling bad about feeling good, we (I) need to feel great about being in a position to be seen, known, and loved for all the bad and good that we (I) bring to the table. Not only by God, but by those He has placed in the world around me.

So the next time I’m in a group setting and someone asks, “What’s something you’re struggling with right now?” if I’m not struggling, I’m going to answer honestly and say, “I’m struggling to come up with an answer for that because I feel held by my Beloved and it is really sweet.”

And I won’t feel bad about it.

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Sep 10 2022
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Friendship

a great cloud of withness

Did you have a basement as a kid? If so, are the we same type of weird where (if the light switch was at the bottom of the stairs) as soon as your turned the lights off you broke the land speed record getting to the top so you could stay away from all the monsters that crept out when the lights were off? There are even times now, as a grown woman, that I have to force myself to slow down and walk gingerly up the steps of my parents house, reminding myself that the monsters in the basement aren’t interested in me and will leave me alone.

My miniBFF recently asked me to come to the basement with him because he needed to grab a couple things for nap time. On the way down he mentioned that he was scared of going to the basement by himself. After a, “No problem, I’ll go with you!” he asked, “Are you scared of anything?”

“I’m scared of a lot of things bud.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes I’m scared of the dark, basements by myself, and being up really high. There are alot of things that scare me.”
“How do you not be scared?”
“Well, I ask Jesus to help me be brave, and my friends help me remember that I can be brave because they are there to help me too! When I’m scared, I just ask for someone to come with me, and then we can both be brave together!”
“Like we’re doing right now!”

Exactly.

(side note: it’s always the kids. pay attention to them. the kingdom belongs to these.)

I haven’t been able to let this interaction go. It holds the truest thing about my story over the last couple of years. It speaks to the great cloud of withness about me.

Withness is a term I swiped from Ann Voskamp. I don’t fully know the context she uses it in because I just get it from her Instagram stories, but ultimately she speaks to the witness and withness of Christ and His people.

We bear witness to the Gospel as we bear with one another.

As I embark on new adventures or travel back into wounded spaces, I can do so with great bravery because I know that I have the withness of those that love me in the journey. I bring those with me that remind me of who I am, and who Christ is, in the midst of the hard, beautiful, scary, dark, exciting, unknown places.

Sometimes that looks like a first date.
Sometimes that looks like a hard conversation with a friend.
Sometimes that looks like a celebration of a loved one for a thing that I’m longing for.
And sometimes, that looks like walking down the steps into a basement with a little one that just needs me to be with him to help him be brave.

I can be brave with and for him because someone has been brave with and for me.

So many of us are unwilling to go with someone because of what it might cost us. It could cost us time, energy, or even money. It could cost us vulnerability and having to actually be known by someone – risking both rejection and love. But if there’s one thing I know in the depth of my bones, it’s that the reward of going with has always (and I do mean always) outweighed the risk.

If you’re scared, bring people along.
Ask them to be with you.
Be with those that ask.

Getting through this life, IMHO, will be abundantly rich if we take with us a great cloud of withness.

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Jul 27 2022
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hopes & dreams

I had a birthday recently. Obviously, if you pay attention to the picture above, you know how old I am. I think I’m going to call this my triple-threat year.

One of my favorite birthday traditions with myself is to make some space for reflection over where I’ve seen God move and work in the days since my last birthday, and to dream dreams with Him about what we want to see happen between now and the next.

I’m not naturally prone to gratitude. If anything, I remind myself often of the lack – where I’ve missed the mark, where I could’ve done better, the gaps that I failed to fill. I threat forecast. I see where things have gone wrong, and I try to prevent those things from happening in the future. So, the practice of gratitude, well…needless to say, it can be life or death for me sometimes.

This past year has been the hardest.
Yet, the bravest.
The driest, yet, the most abundant.
The loneliest, yet, full of more love and community than I could have ever imagined.

It has felt…pivotal.

So many things were brought to the surface.
So many things took deep, deep root in the soil of my heart.

So as I entered in to my hopes and dreams for the coming year of my life, it was a tricky process.

How do I hope, when I’ve been hoping and nothing has changed?
How do I dream when my dreams seem foolish and unattainable?
How do I step into the unknown of year 33 with joy and gladness and faith and trust?

The short answer is – I don’t know.

I don’t know how to move forward on my own.
I don’t know how to navigate being a human in 2022 at the age of 33.

But what I do know is that God is present.
I’m not moving forward on my own, I’m moving forward with the Author and Perfecter of my faith.
I’m moving forward with a great cloud of witnesses surrounding me, sitting with me in my hopes and my dreams, in my losses and my letdowns.
I’m navigating being a human with other humans who know how hard it is to be human, but how infinitely full it is to be human together, and with Christ.

So, my hopes and dreams for 33 are basically this:
Remain with Jesus.
Remain with His people.
Trust the kindness of God to get me to 34.

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