Tag Archives: Relationships

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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Jun 11 2022
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Relationships

the smallest grasp

My friend’s youngest is learning how to walk. TBH, if I were her, I’d keep letting suckers like me pick her up to snuggle until I’m 18, but apparently that’s not how developmental stages work.

Not long ago I was sitting on her kitchen floor, arms outstretched, coaxing her to take a step or two. She’d done it before, so we knew the feat could be mastered, but she was paralyzed in a tiny little 16 month old stance. Making eye contact with me, looking at my hands, my fingertips just out of reach of hers. I balled up my fist and offered her just my pinky – because we’re classy ladies. #pinkysout
She took the tiniest hold on the tip of my tiniest finger and immediately raced across the tiled floor into my arms.

I scooped her up, we yelled “YAY!!”, and tried again.

I’ve been thinking about that small, necessary grasp a lot since then.

Thinking about how often I am paralyzed, reaching out for the smallest point of connection in order to move forward. And once I have that connection, how easy it is to run with zero hesitation.

Thinking about how, often, Holy Spirit is just waiting for me to take a step on my own. How Jesus – my Savior and Example – is cheering me on, knowing that I’ve done it before and I can do it again and it is okay to trust myself.

How just the smallest grasp – the tiniest tip – of connection and safety can propel forward soul-shifting action.

Often all I’m looking for with Jesus is a point of connection. His pinky finger outstretched in front of me.

The thing I hope this little one knows is that my pinky will always be there to grab hold of.
The thing I hope I never forget is that Jesus is always there to grab hold of.

Movement forward doesn’t need gigantic signs of confirmation, perfection in the steps to be taken, or zero-risk on the road ahead.

It just needs the smallest grasp.

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Jan 03 2022
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Word of the Year

2021 – the year of abundance

It’s time for a word-of-the-year recap! The only consistency this blog has offered in the last 3 years!

2021 saw me leave behind hope in an effort to move forward with abundance. 2021 was going to be the year that I watched God grow up out of the ground all of the things we had been planting together over the last few years. It was going to be the year that I asked, of every person/situation/choice/etc, “Is this life or death? Because if it’s death, I want nothing to do with it.”

The verse that I sat with for 365 days (2021 wasn’t a leap year, right?) was John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

I said to myself over-and-over again…

iykyk

“Is this trying to steal, kill, or destroy? Or is this bringing me life?”
One is from the thief.
One is from Jesus.

And if it’s from Jesus, abundance will follow.

The tricky thing for my heart in leaning in to that line of thinking was/is – does declaring something as God’s abundance mean that I think He is some kind of genie? That all along it’s just been up to me to ‘name it and claim it’? All God has been waiting for was for me to say some magical word and then He would open the floodgates of heaven?

Youth group worship song session, anyone?

I used to think that abundance would have to show up as grand, big, and uncontainable. But it doesn’t. Turns out, God’s abundance – the kind of life giving abundance that Jesus came to give to His people – found it’s way in to my life in really small, ordinary, what some might call mundane things.

His abundance was found in a condo with friends making homemade birthday potstickers.
His abundance was found in a new pair of cycling shoes.
His abundance was found in my nephew seeing himself as Iron Man on a poster for his third birthday and losing his mind in the best of ways.
His abundance was found in weeping on friends couches because I’d been delighting myself in the Lord for so long and yet He had not given me the desires of my heart and nothing makes sense anymore.
His abundance was found in a vacation in the mountains with my family.
His abundance was found in a thousand small ways that prior to this year I would have never given Him credit for.

The thing I learned from this year is that I need to keep asking, “Is this trying to steal, kill, or destroy? Or is this trying to give me life?”
Because if it’s life, it’s from Jesus.
And if it’s from Jesus, abundance will follow.

And if simple life from Jesus is all the abundance I ever get, I think I’ll be set.

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Feb 14 2018
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Friendship, Relationships

teamwork makes the dream work

teamwork makes the dream work.png

 

Happy Valentine’s Day, lovers!

lovers.jpg

That’s all I have to contribute to the holiday.

Now.

I was at a conference this past weekend. Some of you may know about it. It’s called the if:Gathering. You can learn more about it here. I enjoyed the time I got to spend with some ladies from my church and came away with quite a bit to think about.

The structure of the conference was: listen to a teaching, talk about it at your table, eat some snacks, repeat. One of the questions that was asked at our table was, What is my dream for my people and my place?

The first thing that came to mind was: team.

Now, being the washed-up athlete that I am, that might not be surprising to most. But more importantly than what first came to mind was the images and feelings I got while I thought through it a little more.

My junior and senior year’s of high school basketball were some of the most fun I had as a player of the sports. It was so much fun to be on the court with my best friends, competing together and having the time of our lives.

One image that kept coming up over and over again this past weekend was our inbound plays – in particular, under-the-basket inbounds plays my senior year.

My friend Brandi and I had the best chemistry under the basket. As guard, I was responsible for getting the ball in play. If the play was busted, Brandi just knew where to cut and when to cut, and I knew she would always be there. I could no-look-bounce-pass Mr. Spaulding into the lane, Brandi would snatch that sucker up, and the LadyCats would have 2 more points added to their total. I never worried about a 5-second violation because I knew Brandi would be there.

We even played in a three-on-three tournament a few years later and did the same. dang. thang. My teammate was there for me.

Knowing each other that well didn’t just occur after one day of practice. We sweat together, bled together, went through hell week together. (side note: have you ever had 2 weeks of Christmas break practice with NO GAMES to play?! it’s the worst. you want to quit everything and just go home to eat Christmas candy.)

And that’s what I want from my people and my place.

I want my team.

I want us to be there for each other.
To anticipate one another’s moves.
To remind and ensure each other that, even if the play is busted, we’ve got each other’s backs. We don’t need to worry about hell week by ourselves because our teammates will be there in it with us.

A year ago I wrote about standing on holy ground with others. How there is something sacred about holding someone else’s story with them. And I’m so thankful that’s how my team has formed.

I know my team holds my story and I feel so thankful that they allow me to hold theirs.
I know we all stand on holy ground with and for one another.
I know that the sacredness we share in spiritual friendship is rare, and I hope I never take it for granted.

Whatever my dream is – or ends up being – I know it’ll be easier to chase because of the stellar team I’ve got on my sideline.

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