Blast from the Past

Knowing I wanted to write, I have been contemplating "what" for a few days now. Even had an entire post written out last night. Do I write about Hawaii? My new job? Dallas? So many new and different things in my life the past two months to document. But then I went to Redeemer this morning.

And I saw my next door neighbors. My childhood friend. My middle school friend (who married one another). My college friends (now married). My high school best friend. My former boyfriend (now married). And my best friends parents.

One from every season of my life. The group together could tell you about some of the moments I killed it and others when I completely bit it. The ones I bit it probably moreso, since that occurs more often.

It was not expected, considering I didn't think I really knew anyone there, to all of the sudden feel so...um...exposed is the word that comes to mind.

I think most of us head into new seasons of life thinking we can "start over" in some way shape or form. I certainly didn't feel a need to, there is nothing to start over from necessarily. However, I still got that vulnerable feeling of exposure. I'm sure I was inconsequential to most of these people, but each of them represented a consequential time in my life. And now I go to church with them.

My natural inclination to this kind of susceptibility is to hide. Emotionally, and to be honest, physically. I want to avoid contact and ignore the reality of it all. Not because of any ill-feelings toward them, but because I am insecure about who I have been in my life and being seen accurately by them now.

All of that to say, I started to feel that way and then Communion occured. The blood and the body being consumed by each of us. More than any of the other insecurities I felt, there was camaraderie with them. That regardless of my immaturity, naivety, and blatant young-ness with some of those people, that we are living under the same banner of redemption.

Seeing all of these relationships from a perspective of being done with the hard parts, I am easily seeing this side. The beauty of working through hard things, of allowing each other room to grow and mess up and offer grace and love in return. The messiness of relationships and the overwhelming peace that the Gospel creates through healing.

This morning, the one with the weird emotions, pointed me so directly to the absolute hope of the cross to not only redeem my self-ness, but to redeem our relationships with one another, for His own sake. Jesus doesn't provide healing amongst us for only our benefit, but because there is no better depiction of redemption than seeing broken relationships healed for broken people by the Perfect one. There was not conflict with all of these people in my life, however, I know and can immediately recall my offenses to them during the seasons they were in my life.

I Need Thee Every Hour was the chorus sang this morning, how apropo. I need Thee every minute, and regardless of my recognizing that, He is providing for me thus. I love hymns because their beautiful depth and consistent accuracy over the years. How they still resonate with my 1991-born self. This morning was no exception, hearing that hymn and sitting with these feelings. Often times I see things through MY lens....and this morning I caught a small glimpse of the US side of the Gospel. Our communal need for Jesus and the complicated beauty of the Gospel reflecting through relationships. The togetherness factor enters in such a nuance that cannot be experienced by ones self alone. I forget that in my independence and introverted-ness.

All that to say. Church is helpful to me. People are helpful to me. And the Jesus makes both of those things so. Today I see that, and I wanted to pen that so I will remember that when this perspective is far from natural.

Grad-ee-ation

Very rarely in my life do I hear my full name. Em, Emmie, Emjack (and it's inappropriate cousin), Jackson, Em Dog, those I hear on a regular basis. But only two occasions warrant the use of my seven syllable moniker. Getting in trouble and graduation. Saturday morning around 10:38 was one of those times. Making eye contact with my favorite professor as he read my name, I cautiously walked across the stage to grasp an empty tube and cordially shake our very southern and very iconic university president's hand as he reached for the next empty tube to hand to the accounting major who was blessed with the opportunity of sitting by me.

Supposedly graduation is supposed to be some sort of solemn occasion. But that's not the world I live in. My cap fell off mid-ceremony. Twice. Blowing into the row behind me, down about four seats so that everyone got to participate in the Great Cap Return of 2013, only to be followed by the attempt to be sly and put it on without creating a spectacle. Besides having to pee in the middle of the ceremony, and then having to wait until the very end, and be the last row dismissed to be allowed to do so, it all went rather smoothly after that.

Suffice it to say, I am a college graduate. At this moment, sitting in Starbucks as I have almost every other summer of my life, things don't feel so different yet. They felt different on Friday when I had to say good-bye to my guy. They felt different when I received a phone call from my brother in Afghanistan on Saturday morning before graduation, congratulating me. They felt different when I packed up my little Hermit House for the last time. And they certainly felt different as I drove out of Bolivar for the last time. But then I got here, and nothing seems to have changed yet.

I'm sure it will take time to settle in. But I think the part that's the weirdest is that I have no idea what I'm settling in to. Saturday afternoon, sitting for the last time in the boy's infamous loft, we were discussing the future. Scott, the ever impulsive one, is heading into Physical Therapy school in the fall, strapped into another three years of school. I, the planner, have no plans.

Oddly, I'm not afraid of it, and I haven't been for a long time. God has been generous to provide me with whatever I needed when I needed it, and just because this season of change is layered with goodbyes, His provision is consistent. But in that conversation, my friend pointed out how open things are for me. Open. For the first time, I have zero responsibilities in my life, heading into nothing. He made mention of how this enables me to just look to God and be faithful to anything. While I have always had freedom, never has it felt this absolutely free.

Up until today, I have been avoiding the processing phase of all of this. The final few weeks at school I stayed busy, packing, working out, soaking in my friends, it wasn't time to be sad and think about this part yet. Sunday I arrived home and continued in my stay-busy-mode. Seeing a few people, shopping, unpacking (somewhat). And today I think I need to start sitting with the weighty hard parts of it all. There are still tears left. Mourning the end of an extremely hard and equally wonderful time in my life. Steeping in the freedom of my current situation and asking the Lord what to do now. It is an odd feeling this time of life, never before have I not been a student. Never before have I moved away from friends not knowing how often or if I will get to see them. Never before have I had the option to make whatever choices I wanted and not been afraid of disappointing people around me. So many new sensations that I still have no idea what to do with.

As you may have noticed, I have changed the name of my blog. Heading into post-graduate life I wanted somewhat of a fresh start with this. I want to hold onto the things I learned in college, which is why I did not create an entirely new blog, however, I want this blog to reflect who I am. I want to nurture the small thoughts and events in my life. The whims. I want them to have room to be planted and flourish however they may look. I want to be diligent to pen this time in my life. That's important to me. My blog is a place for me to grow up as I may. For the people who will one day be in my life to be able to see from where I came, who I was at 19 and 22 and so on. Here I can mark the stakes God sets in my life. Stakes of grace, pain, movement.

So that's where I'm at. Sitting at Starbucks. Starting to feel reality sink in, knowing it's good. This is all good.

Pay Attention

In the past 9 days I have been to a concert in Nashville, Spring Break in Panama City Beach, a wedding in Springfield, and then hopped right back into normalcy. My poor little mind though has been reeling with these experiences and I just need to pen them down. I want to remember.

The Local Natives blew my mind. This concert was the culmination of so many college memories. Who Knows Who Cares has rang as an anthem for me in college, not so much lyrically as the string of experiences it was latched on to. Suffice it to say, to hear it live, right next to the stage was awe-inspiring. I am so grateful I was there. So grateful to have this stake to go back to in years to come, a zenith to the theme this song has carried over the past few years. 

Spring Break was lovely. Dynamic and exciting, yet it's own kind of restful. I love trips because they are equally as lovely to experience as to remember. Part of the fun of a vacation is the coming home. It's like what Frank says in You've Got Mail about the VCR. 

"Technologically speaking, the world's out of hand. Take the VCR. The whole idea behind the VCR is that it makes it possible for you to tape what's on TV when you leave the house. The whole idea behind leaving the house...is so you can miss what's on television."

I keep company with great people. I tend to be drawn to those who are very opposite of me in many ways, most of whom were on this trip. But with the whole opposites attracting thing comes the sweet rest that comes with being together and enjoying the same things: laughter, the best seafood of my life, and sunsets. 

And finally, the wedding. The wedding of two people I have known all of college. The first two friends who I saw meet, be unsure, date and decide to love and marry one another. We started college together, Brittany and I, suite-mates, babies. We learned how to do college, faced the woes of being gawky freshman, self-assured sophomores, exasperated juniors and seasoned seniors. We inaugurated "The Herd" and watched it deteriorate, seen each other through new relationships and break ups. Driven the other mad, seen sin abound and then grace more, and walked heinously hard seasons together. Trevor, Brittany and I, though not always close, have grown up together these past four years and their wedding was such a wonderful testament to all of our friendships.

As I sit here, summarizing a weeks memories and seeing years of building up to them, I know why I had the thought I did this morning. 

I stayed over in Springfield last night and woke up at 6:30 to study for a test that I had procrastinated studying for. As I'm driving to Panera to nurse my wounds with hazelnut coffee, I watched the sun begin its ascent. I was contemplating, as I often do, Ann Voskamp's thought about how we pay tribute to God by paying attention. And as I sat their soaking it all in I thought, "isn't that the point?" 

If, as John Piper says, God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him, then isn't the point of my life to pay attention? The Gospel is all about paying attention. I see it with Lent, Good Friday and Easter. Sacrificing something for 40 days to remember Jesus' sacrifice. To pay more attention to my heart and asking to see where I have subsequently created idols that take away from my realization that Jesus is my only need. I bring nothing to the table and incapable to do anything but watch. I need the Gospel and nothing. 

I couldn't create the sunrise if I wanted to, nor can I create a heart change in myself. I am only a participant in watching Jesus work in me. Please don't hear puppet. Paying attention is certainly not passive. It is being engaged in my surroundings, asking questions, attempting to understand and see clearly that which is occurring, but not being responsible to do the actual work. 

By paying attention, I am allowing Jesus the room to work in my life freely. Not withholding because of fear of hardship or not wanting to change. Watching means that I am open-handedly and curiously seeing what He has for my life when I don't get in the way. 

Looking at the past nine days and history with the people involved in them, I can see clearly how He was present, despite our sin and close-handed naivety of His goodness. By paying attention, I choose to hope in His goodness, expecting Him to show up. I am able to see the empty tomb as a joyful, not a problem. I am able to grieve the cross and revel in the resurrection. Easter is all about paying attention, about curiously and actively believing that He is working things out infinitely better than we ever imagine He can, and waiting to see it happen. 

He is Risen.

Stick. Gloves. Shirt

That's right players I just quoted the Mighty Ducks.

Except the story of my life right now is more like: Resumes. Suits. Interviews.

May 18th is encroaching, and with the the looming fact that I need a job. I just got done with an "Interview Blitz", so I'm rewarding myself with a vanilla latte.

Every time a professor tells me that I need to wear slacks to a class event I want to vomit. Who invented slacks. It's one of those words that the more you say it, the weirder it sounds. Slacks slacks slacks. Mehhhhhh. I don't even own slacks. And I digress.

If you know me even a smidge, you probably know that all I want to do is own a coffee shop. My own peaceful entrepreneurial acreage of french roast and ceramic mugs. Far away from the land of slacks.

As I spend my afternoons on websites like Monster (which I never thought I'd be on), I just keep thinking of how daunting all of this is. How does one find a job? How does one graduate? People do it all the time, but somehow it is still some ethereal abyss of ambiguity. There's no five step process. There's no rule book. One just does it.

I just got good at college. Bolivar got a coffee shop. I have a house and roommate and dog. And in 2 1/2 short months that reality swiftly becomes a memory. Most of my conversations these days revert to this thought. And those in the same boat as me express the same sadness and nostalgia, but then we also speak of the excitement of what's to come.

C.S. Lewis said there are far far better things ahead than we leave behind. Which I suppose should be comforting since this all has been so wonderful, but the elation is eclipsed by the fear of the unknown. And I remember this feeling, exactly 4 years ago in fact. I'm not good with the unknown. I like to be able to form expectations. To lean on a concrete circumstance. And up until now I have been able to do that.

It's not that I'm afraid of not finding a job or not "making it". Honestly. The only thing I'm afraid of is change. My life is full of familiar things. And I find so much rest in familiarity. With friendships, homes, routines. There is something so easing about knowing that you have a good thing going and you can count on that. As much as I am able to excuse myself from having to believe in future good by hiding behind my personality, I have to stop absolving myself from my lack of faith. My lack of belief that the Lord knows my future familiarity just like He knew four years ago that I would be sitting here in the Bean and looking fondly on college.

Every new experience stops being new at some point. I want to stop ascribing so much weight to my circumstances and rest in the consistency of my Father being good to me. Good to pulling through hard and providing respites. I'm expecting the next year to be hard, because regardless of my best intention, I am always prone to having difficulty rolling with change. I want to lean hard into Him and his superseding glory. Because by my dragging my feet or being worried, I am screaming that my situation is more important than His absolute goodness. I am proclaiming that I don't trust His good is good enough.

Rereading One Thousand Gifts, she talks about leaning into time. We are never going to have more of it. And the way to make the most of it is to lean hard into the current moment. Here in the present is where I am able to worship. I can't reform the past and the future is fleeting, but now I can be where I am at and be looking for Him. I pay homage by paying attention.

So while I never want to wear a suit, own a leather briefcase, or be in a cubicle again, I do want to pay attention to where I am. I want to lean hard into now, enjoy the Bachelor watching, health food talking, party planning days I am in, knowing that the joy from those things is not rooted in those things, but in the Lord fulfilling desires through unexpected means.

And I need a job. Anyone hiring?

'Membering

Many times in the past month I've had some fleeting idea and I would think "I could blog about that".

But then I didn't.

So here we are on a nice free Saturday, and I can't remember all of the things I wanted to blog about....such as it is. I'll just tell you the things I do remember.

I do remember that I am going to Florida in four weeks for my last Spring Break. It's also going to include the Local Natives in Nashville, which psyches me out man. It's also going to include really great friends. It's also going to include a mini van. Ridin dirty.

I do remember that our dog went to the vet yesterday after finagling her way into a half bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips on Valentines day. Poor thing. I understand baby, you think chocolate will make it better, but then you just end up foaming at the mouth and seemingly even more like a lost cause than before.

I do remember that my bro-friend Seth and I had a conversation the other week about weight distribution. And not of the thigh vs. muffin top kind. The kind that has to do with friendships and not seeing them as if they're on some weighted scale. Like to allot more weight to one person, you have to subtract weight from the other. Which is where my mind tends to go. Moreso that I tend to feel as if that is happening to me. It's not Gospel-centered to feel that way. All that thought process does is cause me to feel insecure and disposable. Both of which have been taunting me lately. I miss things when I am caught up in false-grief over friendships. get I inside my head and become sensitive, looking for the ways that I can pinpoint feeling like I'm not wanted. The Gospel says that I have nothing to prove to anyone and they don't have to prove anything to me and it manifests itself through freedom in relationships with people, freedom to speak our minds, laugh, repent. I'm praying for a righter mind in this, more compassion, less insecurity, more rest, less mental run-arounds.

I also remember that I got flowers for Valentines day. Call me cliche, but flowers rank up there with all time favorite things. They are organic, vibrant, simple, diverse, they simply enthrall me. This happy bouquet was a simple grace to me.

I do remember that I'm re-readying One Thousand Gifts. Trying to engrain in myself to remember to see the graces like flowers. And to foster gratefulness. The Gospel breeds gratefulness, which then causes me to not live in the cycle above. My fickle eyes glance to and fro and miss the blatant goodness right in front of me. I want to really see, to be looking for the beauty, to see the Giver.

I do remember that a few of my friends have picked up A Severe Mercy, my all-time favorite book. I love when people love the things I love. Especially that book. I could talk all day about how good it is. My roommate's beau told me he'd give me five bucks if I could name 600 things I love about that book. I dare say had I had the time, and it was worth more than five big ones, I could probably do so.

There ya have it. Muffin tops, flowers, and books. The three things most prevalent in my mind.

Jam Term

Jam Term 2013

Seven people. Good food. Good movies. Good music.

This. This is called jamming. Or in layman's terms listening to some very talented fellows violently send everyone in a 50 foot radius into a coma of amazement.

Things like this have slapped me silly by the Eucharisteo again. The unwavering gratefulness that is not derived from circumstances, but because I see mercy and grace constantly evident in all of our lives.

These run ins with the beautiful things, the music, the crafting, the wit, they bring me back to the unhurried pace of living in thankfulness. It's been a full two weeks, vacillating between soaking in the grace upon grace in my life and getting comfortable and expectant with it.

Fourteen days of laughing, napping, annoyance, conversations, quiet. Fourteen days of being immersed in each other. Not every moment has been the best, but every moment is a grace.

Grace: I have to work through my anxiety and insecurity of people getting "too much" of me and them no longer wanting to be around me.

Grace: being invited into other people's (albeit sometimes blaring) creativity

Grace: the free kind of laughter

In the monotony of even two weeks of repeating events, I lose sight of it. My eyes cloud over with entitlement and insecurity and those begin to supersede the gratitude.

Today I am resting in the gratitude. In the fact that the Gospel allows me freedom to give up my right and not hope in friendships, but to only gain from them and not have to lose, to be in the hard with one another and not become weary of it. I have been given everything I need to embrace the freedom of being around these people, unhindered and in the full face of gratefulness. In hard, beautfiul, nuanced community. And I pray I can stay here longer this time, remembering to insist for this mindset, to pray and beg to operate only under these pretenses.

I want to remember this, to document the reality of sweet friendship. It's why I have this blog. Not just to process through thoughts, but to remember. For the fleeting to be a little less fleeting. To collect moments.

Keep your face always toward the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you.

                                                                                                Walt Whitman

Nuances and Light

Hazelnut coffee, sitting amidst others conversations and a window seat, it's good to be back in the land of Panera. Break has started, which means I am finally taking a moment to sit in my thoughts of how the past six weeks have been. Since I last wrote my uncle passed away. It was hard. Hard to see pain overcome my family, hard to know what was the right way to feel about it all, hard to feel that much. Hard in the deep, weighty way. There is no but in that statement. Loss is loss. 

It has been one of those seasons where I have had to ask God for stubbornness. Stubbornness to not gloss over things because of the level of difficulty, to stick to my guns about asking questions and figuring out who He is and what He has for me and my family in this. Ashley Ann of Under the Sycamore, was given this beautiful cutout with these words on it. I've remembered them a lot in the past months:

Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, earthy. 

I just want to wear a t-shirt with that on it every where I go. I have always believed in hard things. Like it says, bittersweet is complex and deep. It holds so much more in it besides happiness or pain alone, bittersweet things force us to dig a few feet deeper in the hole. But only by remaining in the light. 

At church a few weeks ago, Kevin Cawley talked about what we are willing to give up for the gospel. Not self-righteous sacrifices. But truly release for the sake of others. Being right in an argument. Getting my way. Being seen in a certain way. My understandings of pain. Have I been affected by the gospel in such a way that the weight of that truth supersedes my natural tendencies and desires?

I have to repent of that daily. I am constantly holding the gospel too loosely and my habits too tightly. I follow a woman named Lindsey Michael on Instagram, her IG name is HerWelshness, she has no idea who I am (I know....I tend to write a lot about people who don't know me....it's not THAT weird), but her Instagram is one of my favorites. Not because of her cute kids and adorable style--bonuses--but because she is constantly posting quotes or scripture under her photos with the tag line, "Keep me where the light is". 

You see. This woman understands so fully that she cannot remain close to the Father by her own ability. She acknowledges her fickleness and is constantly and proactively reorienting herself to remain in the light. And it's beautiful to watch. I have never met this woman, but I see how the gospel has so clearly affected her and left her hungering to remain in it, to remember. 

In painful things it is easy to long to remain in the light, because I haven't my own leg to stand on, but in the past few weeks when I have a little more normal, I have swiftly returned to simple normality. 

My whole family was together last night, that is an extreme rarity, only occurring 4 or 5 times a year. Because it does not happen very often, gratitude wrecked my soul with the grace of siblings and siblings-in-law and parents and a niece. You see, it's like I have learned before, gratitude and grace always point to the Father. And gratitude and grace are everywhere and in everything. They are reflecting the true light. But my laziness and fickleness cost me depth and true beauty of seeing the gospel permeate my life. It's not that the Father stops gently pushing me towards it, it's that I stop looking. 

This month of all the months I should be proactively wanderlust for it. It is the advent, the waiting with baited breath for the thrill of hope. And do I not still believe I need the hope that Jesus redeemed me? Have I not seen how profoundly the hope of true Justice and Mercy changes how I view the bittersweet and hard realities? This is what He has been bringing me back to for over a year now. Graces and gratitude, bittersweetness and complexity, all of which keep me where the light is. I am the worst sinner of all and He simply doesn't see me that way. My weary soul rejoices at that.