I Am From

I am from my mother’s curls and from my father’s laughter,

clear and long and low, like wind chimes.

I am from the birch tree planted at the corner the day I was born,

and I’m from the silent and mighty Mississippi, 

flowing relentlessly through thousands of my childhood memories.

I’m from towering tree canopies eclipsed by city skyline,

a corner of comfort in a restless world.

I’m from puppy paws and autumn leaves.

I’m from walks along the river in all seasons, 

yellow street lamps spilling light across the path

and night falling around us like many tasseled arms.

I am from skipping stones on the Mississippi,

from scaling fallen trees and splashing over creeks

with my dog close behind.

I am from books & stories,

from ink & paper, from keyboard & cursor.

I am from words spoken, words written,

and Word made flesh among us.

I am from the church “village” that raised me,

encouraged me, put a guitar in my hands and a mission in my heart.

I am from my mother’s addictions.

I am from court hearings I was too young to remember

and painful disappointments I’ll never be old enough to forget. 

I’m from, “where’s your mom?” 

and from, “why do you only live with your dad?”
I am from abandonment and unworthiness,

from depression and razor blades and a longing to be rescued.

I’m from perfectionism and fear,

and striving anxiously to be “good enough” so that I won’t be left.

But more importantly, I am from redemption and healing.

I am from a Father who never stopped loving me,

even when I couldn’t love myself.

I’m from “I love you twice as much as yesterday,

and half as much as tomorrow.”

I’m from morning snuggles and back scratches.

I’m from reggae music on road trips,

coolers full of soda, wind in our hair and sun on our faces.

I am from all manner of made-up hot dish meals,

from home-squeezed orange juice, pancakes for dinner, 

and movie nights with buttery popcorn and ice-cold Diet Cokes.

I’m from watching thunderstorms on the porch, 

huddled under a blanket while spidery purple lightning scribbled across the sky.

And I’m from the instant that the world I knew unraveled. 

I am from my dad’s death.

I am from grief, stale and weathered.

I am from tears and questions and doubt,

I am from wandering, ungrounded, untethered.

I am from longing and praying and nightmares recurring.

I am from loss.

But I am also from the hands that caught me—

the hands that still hold me steady.

I am from Tjoflats and Mahers and Wicklunds,

family not by blood but by choice, 

hearts who have claimed me 

and loved me deeply as their own in the wake of tragedy.

And I am from a Savior, a hope,

a deep love which stays me,

like the roots of a tree in tempest winds.

I am from the bread & the cup and the waters of baptism.

baptism.

I was baptized before, as an infant. I was dressed all in white by my father and my mother and I was carried to the front of the church, where stood my family and my godparents and all the people that supported us. And the pastor spoke powerful words that echoed into eternity, just as they do any time a human being is baptized, and the water ran over me, and the Spirit of God was there, and the piano played, and the congregation clapped, and we all welcomed this fresh, new, broken child of God into the family of believers. This was real and true and every bit as rich with meaning as any other baptism. 

But, I don’t remember it. 

I don’t remember how I felt the Spirit move that day. I don’t remember the expressions on the faces of the community who had just committed to raising me in faith. I don’t remember how it felt to be told that I would be raised to new life in Jesus every day, or to hear it proclaimed that I was, in fact, inherently a beloved child of God. 

I can’t remember, because I was none years old. 

And that’s okay. Not remembering something doesn’t make it not real, any more than not knowing something makes it not real. But I do know now. I have come to know Jesus, and have come to believe, with certainty, that he has saved me. And so today has nothing to do with the theological conversation of infant baptism or adult baptism, because I’m actually not interested in developing formulas for salvation outside of Christ himself. And it has nothing to do with claiming that my own adult, grown-up choice is what saves me, because nothing could be further from the truth, and let’s be honest— I’m only slightly capable of making adult, grown-up choices about eating vegetables, let alone something as vast as eternity. 

No, this day is about remembering. Because I believe that remembering is the function of sanctification. 

In John 13, Jesus knows he is about to die and he takes a tender moment to wash his disciples feet, modeling for them how they are to serve and love others. When he comes to Peter, the disciple rejects his offer because, duh, Jesus is their rabbi (not to mention the Messiah) and he “shouldn’t” be on his knees washing the feet of the people who follow him. Jesus then says to his disciples, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” And suddenly, Peter changes his mind and gets really excited about this washing thing, or he just has mad FOMO, but either way he says, “Then, Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answers him by saying, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean.” 

In case I lost you, I’ll be explicit— whole body washing = baptism, feet washing = sanctification. And sanctification is the reason we don’t need to be baptized every time we screw up. When we remember what Christ has already done for us, it draws us to repentance, to sanctification, to new life, and this happens again and again and again, every day, or every five seconds if you’re like me. It’s a continual process, and we are sanctified when we are drawn back to him to remember fully who he is and that he is the one doing the washing— the King of Kings bowed at our feet to cleanse us, continually. 

Remembering is the function of sanctification, and I want to be able to remember my baptism, to remember how he washed my whole body so that, when I remember, when I look back, I can present my feet to him with humility… every five seconds.

My dad’s birthday was two days ago and the anniversary of his death is coming up in a couple of weeks, and it feels completely appropriate that I would be baptized between those two dates, between death and life. My 25 years have been filled with so many “life out of death” stories— something dying and something else being brought to life in Christ, again and again and again. And so although I have felt nervous and anxious and unprepared for this at least a dozen times in the last few weeks, I remember that even when it was hardest, I have already chosen Christ. I have already been submerged, physically and metaphorically, and this day is a public proclamation meant to glorify the God that has already done the work. It is done.

I fully recognize that being baptized as an adult after already being baptized as an infant may present a theological nightmare to some of you, and to that, my response is GREAT. Let’s wrestle with that. Let’s talk about it and wonder and ask and seek, and maybe even dare to doubt a little bit, and all the while, we will come closer and closer to the heart of God, who pursues us relentlessly and reveals himself to us in our questions far more than he does in our answers. Today isn’t about answers. Today is about proclaiming. It’s about proclaiming what I already know to be true, which is that I am already baptized in Christ, and it wasn’t just on that day 25 years ago in a crowded sanctuary, it was on a dusty hill almost 2,000 years ago when death died, when Christ died, when I died, and God’s power pulled me and you and all of us back up out of that grave; and it was in all of the small, sacred moments, all of the tender steps I took towards Jesus, as I grew and matured and continued to choose him from age zero to 25 and a half. 

I will remember the Spirit’s movements today. 

I will remember these faces, the faces of people I love so much all gathered in one place.

I will remember what it feels like in my chest to know that I am a claimed and beloved child of God, that I am raised to new life every day. 

And I will remember forever the sound of my own voice proclaiming that Christ. is. it.

unscripted.

Thursday, March 17th at 10:17pm, the people of my church cheered, clapped, and tongue-tripped over foreign words of welcome as our Somali family slipped gracefully from old life into new.

Mom (Maka*) and Dad (Abshir*) strode confidently & wearily through the ticket barrier of MSP airport, mom with a 10-month-old strapped to her torso and an 8-year-old clinging to the long black folds of her hijab, and dad negotiating handshakes around the 2-year-old wrapped around his neck. They were gentle, regal, kind, beautiful, shockingly adjusted and remarkably poised after a 17-hour flight from South Africa. As we greeted them, I could see the weariness that clouded their eyes and draped itself across their shoulders. These first precious minutes of their lives in Minnesota were also some of their final staggering steps on a long journey from home to temporary settlement to permanent resettlement. Joyous though this moment may have been, this was not yet their sigh of relief-- this was a continuation of bated breath as they wound their way across the earth, stitching together half the globe in their longing to land somewhere that was safe and warm and permanently home. Somewhere that was refuge.

Handshakes and introductions were passed around, including the "unveiling" of the infant (the literal cutest baby I've ever seen) from beneath Maka's hijab. Joy and Ellene pulled out the winter coats and hats we'd packed for them, like colorful peace offerings, and began an awkward trial and error process of sizing the infant's head-- slipping on one pink polka-dotted hat, then another violet and grey, then another bright blue. We made small talk about the plane ride and asked the 8-year-old, Samiira*, how she was feeling. She looked abashedly from us to her mother and hid her face in Maka's side, overwhelmed by the attention and affection of strangers.

We made our way together across the airport to baggage claim, cleaving into two groups so that the family could ride together down the elevator. As the five of them hurried off to gather their twelve duffel bags of earthly belongings, discussion about lodging broke out among us. Due to some unforeseen problems, we'd decided it would be unwise for the family to stay at the apartment that had been arranged for them. Several hours earlier, we'd arrived at their soon-to-be housing in St. Paul with boxes full of diapers and silverware and bath towels, ready to set up a comfortable space for them to come home to that evening. And then we'd discovered the backed up drains in the bathroom. Which were completely unconnected to the other plumbing problems in the kitchen. And the carpet was so freshly shampooed that it had seeped up through the bottoms of our shoes and made sponges of our socks.  Not worst case scenario by any means. And not anyone's fault. But not ideal. 

So we stood around the baggage carousel, and new plans were made, changed, amended, miscommunicated, and finally solidified for the family's temporary resting place for their first night in America: Libby, David, and Minh offered up their home unquestioningly-- and entirely-- so that Abshir, Maka, and their three daughters would have hot showers, warm beds, and safe quarters upon their arrival.

THIS is why I am committed to this particular limb of the Body of Christ.

As soon as the decision had been made to move the family for the night (and as soon as group pictures had been taken), Joy and Libby and I rushed home so we could CLEAN LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS. This was just one of several dozen unexpected changes throughout the night-- phone calls overlapping phone calls, last minute carpool swaps, broken dishes and friends in need... It was a remarkably beautiful kind of chaos. Especially when the van arrived at the house to drop five Somali guests, six more of our church people, and twelve bags the size and color of newborn baby elephants directly into Libby's living room. It was busy and noisy and not at all as put together as we probably would have hoped. There were children climbing over each other and bags being pushed aside and meals being delivered... 

What an honor and a gift to share that space with them. 

Truthfully, though, I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt like I had too many arms and not enough words. I'd only rehearsed my "part" up to their arrival, where my script ended after "Soh-da-woh, welcome to America!" The work of building relationships, especially across cultures, is anything but linear. I wish I could say that my ability and desire to love these people outweighed all of my inadequacies, but admittedly, I felt out of place. There were no more scripted lines or stage directions, and I recognized the anxiety in myself at having to love in ways that were unrehearsed, uncalculated, and even a little (or a lot) broken and weak. 

But this is exactly why we are called to be the BODY of Christ, not the individuals of Christ-- where I was weak, my church family was strong. Where my love ended, they showed me how to offer Christ's love freely. Where I felt a pressure to perform and an anxiety when I no longer could, they demonstrated a love that was messy and a little all over the place.  

That's what love looks like when it's unscripted. And that's what love looks like when it's authentic. It's a hot frickin mess. 

To witness this kind of love being offered by my church with GLADNESS, even in the unexpected, poked several thousand holes in my heart that Thursday. The experience of meeting and receiving and gathering a family as they arrived to the first country they'd been fully welcomed into since their displacement was a much more raw and confusing and uncertain scenario than I had anticipated. It did not fit neatly into the expectations I had of movie-like simplicity, complete with eloquent monologues and violin music and slow motion hug-handshakes. It wasn't the air-brushed celebration I'd expected. But love which is honest does not often fit our romanticized expectations. It looks like everyday grit and grind, and then magically, it multiplies far beyond the limits of our expectations. It is not movie-worthy because it is gradual, and because it erodes and cultivates and wiggles around in our hearts almost imperceptibly, until it breaks open things inside us that we didn't even know needed breaking open. This is how it felt to watch everything unfolding-- like crumbling stone, eroding soil, melting wax, breaking heart. Love will do these things, and in much more powerful ways than cinema. 

As our Somali family finally settled in at the Lay & Tran household, Libby, David, Minh, and I bunked at James and Joy's home around the corner. We ordered what must have been the very last pizza made in Minneapolis that night and gathered around the kitchen table to decompress. As I was climbing into bed in the guest bedroom at 1:30am, my arteries humming with adrenaline and pizza grease, I was reminded of how much we actually all need refuge. We all need a place to land, a place that is safe and warm and home-- physically and spiritually. We all need a God who will stand and advocate for us, speak to us in our language, and welcome us in with pink polka-dotted hats and carts to carry our 30 pound bags. Jesus has rushed home to prepare a place for us and is so glad to call us his own.

What a beautiful picture of Gospel love.

I don't think I'll soon forget the anticipation that led up to meeting our Somali family for the first time. Upon arriving and parking at the airport, Libby and I realized we had no freaking CLUE how to get from the parking ramp to the ticket barrier. We were only just on time because a kind-hearted airport security guard happened upon us as we were spinning in circles under clouds of our own breath and trying not to panic. And yet somehow, even as we were sprinting through automatic doors, down stark white corridors and up escalators, past harrowed flight attendants and weary travelers who stared as we dashed by, I felt more alive than I'd felt in a long time. We picked up more of our church family on our way and it seemed like our collective cache of excitement snowballed with each additional person. As we leapt onto an escalator, David shouted back to the stragglers, "Come on, people, RUN WITH HORSES!"

Run with horses. Jeremiah 12:5. The scripture that began this church and the tattoo that our 60-year-old pastor felt so connected to that he inked it on his arm for the rest of his years on this earth. Jesus, help us to run with horses as we love this family and walk (or run) alongside them in this new life you've offered them. 

We are not enough... but you are more than enough.



* Names of the Somali family members have been changed for privacy and security purposes. But if you want to join us in praying for this sweet family, feel free to pray the pseudonyms. I'm certain God can figure it out :)

becoming.

I'm feeling a little bit like someone dug a hole in the sand and then shoved me in and covered me up to my shoulders. 

Spiritually, I mean. 

I don't feel distant from God, but I don't feel near to him either. I just feel stuck. I don't have the sense I used to have that his presence is permeating everything I'm doing. I sure think about him a lot, and I keep hoping that the focus of my thoughts and my conversations will become the focus of my heart too. Life's been weird in a lot of ways the last two and a half years, and I keep wondering and waiting and working to feel the connection I used to feel. I wasn't sensing any change, as I usually don't when I try to change myself by my own power. 

So I started reading books. And I started thinking about the kinds of things I am actually waiting for. And I started thinking more about why I can't seem to match that two-years-ago feeling. None of those things alone answered my questions, but I'm coming to understand something more about the character of God through all of it, and perfectly, beautifully, not-coincidentally, the things I'm learning about God's character are the exact things I have been waiting for.

Newness.

Transformation.

Becoming.

The faith I was committed to two and half years ago was rooted in newness. That's exactly why it felt so strong. Every day I was experiencing something new about following Jesus, and so every day presented new spaces to enter into God's grace.

Maybe this is a bold statement, but I believe it: God's grace is his defining characteristic. Grace doesn't mean forgetting, it means remembering but casting aside. It means East-to-West forgiveness, separating us completely from the old and worn and sinful and giving us newness that begins below and radiates up and out. The process of becoming something new is life-long and daily. Unless I can let go of the Jesus I knew two and a half years ago and see him in newness today, with the refined truth and goodness I now have to hold, I can't experience that piece of who he is. 

I have to re-learn who God is every day. Not because he is changing, but because I am, and because his character is so vast I cannot possibly contain it in its entirety.

What if we treated each day as a million opportunities to know God more intimately? What if we saw the morning as a sunrise, a starting over, a chance to look at the way forward towards God with more knowledge than the day before, but with a faith held by tiny roots that must be tended and strengthened? How differently would we see ourselves in the context of Christ, and how much more self-grace would we practice?

Maybe child-like faith means fresh eyes and careful steps, and maybe new mercies means organic grace and relationship with Jesus defined not by "more and more" but by "new and newer".

So tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that, I will look down the road and see him coming, and I will take those careful, tender steps towards him, with anticipation that my faith cannot stay the same. Because Jesus is not about stagnant resurfacing-- he is about continual becoming, methodical, day-by-day, perseverant renewal and cyclical refreshment.

I am so in love with the process of transformation.

I don't have the luxury of free time today to reeaally reflect on this. But these words were FIGHTING their way out after a weekend saturated with deep relationship, community around the table, & worship around a campfire under the stars.

God is good.

expand.

I sense my dad’s absence deeply this month. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, exactly where grief used to sucker punch me relentlessly every time I thought of him... and I feel it in the deepest part of my chest, heavy, like something sinking and dragging and clawing at my insides. It’s old but not stale anymore. Now it’s old like a crumpled newspaper is old- dry and crusted and flaking. It has become all of the ugly things that make me tempted not to share it, because by now it’s so old that I “should” be moving on from it. Right? I can hear Hannah’s voice in my head telling me not to “should” on myself. I still think that’s so funny...

The thing about writing is that it’s never done. The process of writing does something unique in my soul, and even though I post whatever I’ve been reflecting on, it’s never done working on me. And so the Friday night (more accurately the Saturday morning) after I last posted, I found myself still reflecting on home, and specifically home home. Like where I grew up home. My heart longs for it, sometimes almost more than I can bear. I guess this life gets more normal as time goes on, but it never feels the same. And I don’t think it ever will. There is no normal anymore. There is only normal-er than yesterday. Normal died with my dad two and half years ago, and then it was buried with my dog about a year later. Morbid, maybe, but true. Sometimes reality is ugly. 

My world got exponentially bigger when my dad died. The boundaries of my existence expanded and the future I'd imagined for myself, once so solid and manipulable, took on a fluidity, an uncertainty, that was punctuated by question marks. The protection and safety I'd assumed would always ground me was pulled out from under my feet like a tattered rug, and for the first time in the twenty years I'd been alive, I existed in this world without my dad. That still freaks me out. For a while I had to hang a curtain of feigned reality between me and the rest of that huge world, because living in it was like putting on a pair of pants that were six sizes too big and then trying to run a marathon. My heart was simply too small and agoraphobic to exist in a six-sizes-too-big world.

But even though it's taken me a while, I like to think I'm learning to grow into the size of my world now. I can peek underneath that curtain and breathe the fresh air without feeling so small and inadequate and anxious. And I can observe for a while before tearing that curtain down completely. The "normal-er" doesn't have to fulfill anyone's expectations, least of all mine. There's going to be discomfort, but I can lean into that discomfort because I know that's where I will meet Jesus. 

It doesn’t seem fair that beautiful things can carry grief. But they do now. I’m reminded of my dad in everything that makes me feel most alive- in God’s glory in nature, in deep and intimate friendship, in music that brings me to the feet of Jesus, in witnessing kindness and spiritual submission of others, in receiving love with real and complete gratitude... and every day, part of living normal-er is being willing to feel those things and let them expand my soul to fit the world, even though that process hurts. Joy HURTS. How is that fair? What the heck.

This is my favorite picture of my dad (right). It tells so many stories about who he is. I absolutely adore his contagious laugh and that kind of smile that takes up his whole face and makes his eyes squint like mine do when I smile that hard. I love that I’m like him. I never ever thought I would say that. But it’s true. I love that I laugh embarrassingly longer and harder than everyone else. I love that I’m reflective and want to learn about things that matter and then talk about them with the people that matter to me. He was all of those things, and I am becoming my father’s daughter. Completely. That is becoming my normal. And I’m completely okay with it.

Love you, daddy. You did good.

home.

306 South Fork Suites is currently sort of home. I say sort of because, as the name suggests, it’s campus housing. The funny thing about campus housing is... sometimes you get kicked out at really inopportune times. Like holidays. And not in the “you can come back in a day” kind of kicked out that your parents did when you were seventeen and needed an attitude adjustment. I mean I actually couldn’t get into the building for two and a half weeks over Christmas. The good news is, I really didn’t need to be here. I packed two bags, folded up some bedding, stowed my faithful six-stringed companion in its case, pulled on my boots, and drove into the sunset, quite literally, with a head full of knowledge that I forgot by dinner time and a trip itinerary about as long as this sentence. This itinerary included stays of varying durations in Minneapolis, Green Bay, Minneapolis, Grantsburg, Siren, Woodbury, Baraboo, Minneapolis again, and finally back to River Falls. 

Before you start feeling sorry for me, please don’t. It was amazing. I did laundry once. I drank more coffee than anyone should in a lifetime. I gave up counting the number of times I filled my gas tank. At one point I had to use a credit card for the first time ever. But more importantly, in those two and a half weeks, I saw more faces I love than I can even count.

In 17 days, 2 states, and 1100 miles, I never left home.

It seemed like a really important process. Seventeen days of living out of a duffel, while not completely unfamiliar to a camp counselor, was different and exciting and unknown. Dragging around a guitar case only added to the charm and appeal of the whole experience. It felt terribly daring, like I was the wayward, restless, prodigal child seeking some greater purpose. In reality, I was just experiencing the consequences of not being able to say no to any opportunity that was offered me. In this case, the consequences weren’t so bad. But fall semester was chock full of these scenarios - places where I spread myself incredibly thin because I wanted to do absolutely everything. I’m still navigating my way out of this habit, and I’m learning some things along the way.

* * *

Home and belonging are kind of weird concepts. They’re not limited to or defined by any words we can string together. They are woven into our stories, our conversations, our heartaches, our laugh-so-hard-you-cry moments. Build a house, any house, and try to find the thing within its physical structure that sets it apart as a home. You can’t. Describe the closest, most intimate community you are a part of and try to explain what it is at its core without describing the specific relationships and experiences that found it. You can’t. Home and belonging are deeply personal and spiritual concepts, and our understanding of them is often defined by our understanding of ourselves. Or maybe it’s the other way around, I’m not quite sure yet.

I do know that it’s hard to feel belonging somewhere you don’t go often. By nature, belonging comes from commitment to a space or relationship, or set of relationships. This is where I missed the mark, by about a mile. As it turns out, I can’t be committed to 72 relationships at the same time. There simply isn’t enough of me to go around. At the end of the day, some relationships end up with the crumbs, and if I’m being honest those relationships have historically been some of the people that matter most to me. And that’s not fair. Of course having a home team matters, but more than just having one, tending to one is what matters. Belonging requires more of me than five minutes here and there invested in the people I call my home team. They deserve so much more of my heart than that. Man, if I could go back and redo all the times in the last four months that I was flying from one friendship to the next, trying to be everything for everyone, instead of just sitting and listening-- being silent and still enough to hear the stories of lives I deeply cherish... If I had taken those opportunities to shut down my anxious thoughts and just be in the same place at the same time without feeling the weight of other expectations, real or perceived, I might have noticed those calloused places in me that were longing for connection and belonging. I might have noticed that I’d stopped being vulnerable all together.

A little over a year ago, I accidentally made a vow to myself. I try really hard not to do that because usually it’s something I regret, and self vows are extremely hard to break. Sometimes you make them without even realizing it, and those are the most dangerous. Anyway, the vow I made to myself was that I was going to stop being vulnerable. It didn’t matter that this vow was intended to be person-specific, and it didn’t matter that I only intended to numb vulnerability. This vow ignored my intentions and it generalized across relationships and across emotions. Because as it turns out, you can’t selectively numb emotion. If you numb the bad, you numb the good. If you choose to numb grief, you also numb joy. If you choose to numb pain, you also numb courage. And if you choose to numb vulnerability, you also numb connection and belonging. (I’m stealing from a TED Talk. Here’s my nod to Brene Brown- WATCH THIS VIDEO) There’s a reason I haven’t blogged for over a year. For a while, I lost my words. It wasn’t until I made a connection in my understanding of vulnerability that I found them again, and that connection was this: Vulnerability is about exposure of our truest selves, yes, but at its core, vulnerability is more about the other. It’s about the actions I choose to take to love other people, and it’s about being authentic and exercising conviction in my belief that the love I have to offer is good, without knowing if the recipient will agree. When I began to frequent vulnerability in this way, I began to regain connection, and when I regained connection, I regained a sense of stability and anchored-ness in my relationships. 

When I frequent vulnerability with others, I regain my sense of belonging and home.

A couple of friends and I have begun a new running tradition of playing Settlers of Catan together on a weekly basis. We started calling it “Coffee and Catan”. I know- super nerdy. But honestly, there are few things that have meant more to me than those Monday get-togethers. There is something about the “set apartness” of that time, both logistically and relationally, that gives me a sense of belonging. We have certain weird routines that we can always expect to happen every time we play- Elle makes coffee (or occasionally, we buy Starbucks), Bailey turns on a Pandora station, Fitz meows and pounces on our feet, Bailey builds “wedgewood” out of her Catan pieces, I start to make trades and then change my mind and everyone wants to punch me, Bailey has specific phrases that she shouts when the dice roll 6, 8, 9, or 12... and I have a consistent losing rate of about 90%. Meanwhile, Elle has dubbed herself the “Catan Queen”, and somehow we now have assigned seats AND assigned piece colors. DO NOT make the mistake of trying to change these things, because in all honesty, you might die. 

Even though I’m incredibly insecure about the fact that I have 3.5 wins after 20 weeks of playing (yes, they gave me a HALF WIN), I consider this one of the safest spaces I know. Why? Because it is somewhere I go often, and because it is somewhere I know I can be vulnerable. Elle and Bailey and I don’t always talk about hard things, but we know there is space for it. We know that we have safety in one another and we know that we frequent one another’s presence in a way that invites honesty. That kind of friendship is so unique and so valuable. And because I take time to invest in it and choose to dwell there often, my sense of belonging has increased exponentially. 

And you know what? It's the same with Jesus. Here's where all of my roommates roll their eyes and groan, because I'm constantly inserting Jesus connections into everything. But hear me out.

It’s hard to feel belonging somewhere you don’t go often. Remember when I said that? That applies here too. Ten-fold. Feeling of belonging and home in Christ comes from frequenting his throne room. I know that sounds super spiritualized and Christian-y, and all I can say is... it is. But it’s also truth. The more time you spend dwelling on Jesus, with Jesus, for Jesus, in Jesus, the more at home you will feel anywhere you are in his presence. The more you are able to be vulnerable with him, the easier it will become to dwell with him often. And the more often you dwell with him, the easier it will become to be vulnerable with him. See how there’s actually no way you can lose? His presence is the ultimate home. I have had to learn this in an extremely tangible way this year. And it’s hard, but it’s good. 

There’s a Danish word that a few of my friends have started using to describe the atmosphere they want to create in their home. The word is hygge, and if you ask me to pronounce it, I will change the subject. Hygge is hard to define in English because English sucks. But hygge is about deep relational comfort, and even more than that it’s about paying attention to the things that make us feel alive. It’s about closeness with other people and building connections that celebrate simplicity. It invites sanctuary in community, and it begs both authenticity and vulnerability. Hannah, Amanda, Chrissi, and Evalyn embody hygge. Over the 17 days that I was away from campus, their Minneapolis home (which has come to be known as the Four Seasonz) was a safe space for me to land as “home base”. I got to experience aaalll of the hygge. And it wasn’t in the physical structure of the house or the fact that the house had a name or even the fact that there existed a guest bedroom where I could stay as long as I needed. It was in those relationships- the provision and the care and the love and the vulnerability it took for them to extend that offer to me, risking an overstayed welcome or, alternately, rejection. It wasn’t an offer that benefited them and it wasn’t something they were at all obligated to do, but they were so thrilled to invite me into rest. That is hygge. Hygge is warmth and friendship and making ordinary things special. And they’re doing it right. There aren't many places in this world that I love more than the Four Seasonz.

So, to bring this full circle... what is home? Somewhere you frequent? Somewhere that’s safe? To be honest, I’m still not completely sure. But I do know this: Home is a heart space. Home is belonging, via vulnerability, with frequent intentionality. Home is commitment. Home is hygge and home is resting. Sometimes home is a duffel and a bag full of wrapped Christmas gifts in Green Bay. Sometimes it’s a cabin in the deep woods of northern Wisconsin. Sometimes it’s with family in Henderson, Nevada and sometimes it’s with friends in a River Falls college campus apartment. And it's not the fact that my stuff is there, or the fact that I have a key to the front door, or the fact that it's a few degrees warmer than the outside air- it's the people that I get to share it with. It's the connection that happens when we're in the same place at the same time and we choose to be vulnerable with each other. That is home. 

But more than that even, home is Jesus. Always, home is Jesus. 

It's not always easy, but it is always good. 

Peace and blessings.

harvest.

It’s fall, y’all- and I’m enjoying every single second of it. :)

In past years, fall has always kinda felt like a horrible deceleration ramp from summer to winter. Not this year though. This year I’m pumped. This year I know that God’s teaching me so many things I desperately needed to know, and I needed to be in this season of life to learn them. I’m a month into Fall 2013 at Bethel University and it’s already blessed and grown my heart tremendously.

Things I’m learning:

the importance of outreach- seriously, after spending a couple weeks sitting alone at lunch, you’d start to skip meals too. It’s not fun to be on the outside. And I’ve never actually been that person until this year. I’ve always been in the “in group”, which is great, but it means that for years I’ve been lacking in empathy. Making friends is hard- harder than I remembered. In fact, I haven’t really been in a position of actually needing to make friends since... probably Kindergarten. And at Bethel, making friends is a little more complex than just poking the nearest shoulder and saying, “hey, wanna be my friend?” (although, frankly, I haven’t actually tried that). All of that is to say that the Lord has given me a greater sense of urgency in outreach, and just generally making people feel valuable. Who doesn’t want to feel valuable? You literally can’t lose. Fight the awkward. Start a conversation. It really does matter.

the necessity of confession- and I mean real confession. The kind where you actually tell someone else about it, in all of its disreputable shame and disgusting familiarity. Did you know we were designed for that kind of vulnerability in community? I didn’t. But it’s real. Confessing my sin to someone who knows me and cares for me gives me a more deeply authentic contrition. It’s an encounter of immense beauty and intense discomfort, and the exposure both magnifies the reality of the sin and minimizes the power of the sin, at the same time. It doesn’t make any sense. But actually somehow it does. The catch is that the more you confess sin, the more sin you find you have to confess. I think because confession draws us closer to Christ, and the closer we are, the more like him we become. That's pretty cool.

the value of self-grace. Sometimes I think I’m doing the right thing, and sometimes I’m dead wrong. And on those occasions, I can give myself some slack, and I can backtrack and redo. Mistakes are mistakes, but the Lord uses them always. Mistakes and regrets are only related if I choose not to trust that God is sovereign. BOOM.

the understanding that God works through the process, not the end result. I actually have to remind myself of this daily. Because I’m impatient and whiny. My current favorite song is that one that goes, “So wake me up when it’s all over, when I’m wiser and I’m older...” because that guy GETS it. He knows how crappy it is to sit through the process of becoming wiser and older. I’d seriously rather just be wiser and older. Unfortunately, the only way we’ve found to temporarily black out and wake up after events have taken place is by drinking an excessive amount of alcohol. Which definitely does not promote development of wisdom. Moving on.

the precept of not drinking coffee after 5pm on school nights- for example: right now, I’m awake because I chose to drink a Starbucks frap around 11pm last night. Clearly I’m still in the process of learning this one...

Things I love about this fall:

• new friends, bonfires, and s'mores.
• HOT APPLE CIDER.
• hikes through sun dappled forests.
• scarves. every kind.
• road trips across Wisconsin.
• singing with people I love.
• photobooth pictures with semi-strangers.
• homework on coffee shop patios.
• apple orchards.
• late night walks in Minneapolis.
• celebrating engagements!!!
• autumn thunderstorms.
• friends that are family.
• Brene Brown.

Yup- it's good. And now it's time for a quick nap before Spanish class. 

:)