Everybody

“Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.”

― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Snow Patrol also told me to Just Say Yes

As far as 20 year old wisdom goes, most of mine revolves around my the best time of day to people watch at Starbucks, how many pretzels and peanut butter is too much (no such thing), and how to organize a bookshelf so it looks organized, but not like you tried too hard.

My wisdom has not quite cultivated it's two most essential nutrients: time, and plain old life.

I have, however, been taught by a God that does not require my false wisdom to be given his unfathomable truth. His wisdom. His understanding.

All I know is to say “yes.”

To say yes even when I don't realize I'm doing so.

To say yes to the inconvenient, the taxing, the uncertain.

To say yes to the sloppy, the time-consuming, the ordinary.

I think of all of the moments spent drenched in God's grace, the intimate moments, the ones where your heart hurts because it dawns on you there is, in fact, a God, and He takes you very seriously.

All of those moments, for me, were followed by a "yes" of some kind.

Each yes to God led me to something greater, and each nod of my reluctant head brought me into plans even the most efficient advisor/travel memoir/Jane Austen quote, or whatever else I turn to for advice, could offer.

I so desperately wish I could sit with you at my kitchen table, mugs of coffee steaming in front of us (or tea, whatever you prefer I suppose), and trace where I am now back to where I said "yes" to the holiest of holies, years ago, days ago. Honestly, even a resounding "no" lead to a "yes" eventually. No matter  each of them always leads me back to Him. 

Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon. 

 ― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on ChristianSpirituality

 I love this because this God, this savior of mine, He entered to my life and a series of apprehensive and curious "yes's" beginning at the sassy age of three asking my mom while sitting in church, "what is this place?!?" And the thing is, this place is His, and He shares Himself with me every day, even when I'm to selfish to acknowledge it.

Whole30 Challenge

Hello friends!



I am beginning a 30 day look at what I eat, how I approach food, and how to become a healthier version of myself! I am keeping a separate blog to keep myself accountable and hopefully provide some inspiration for myself to keep going when I begin to wonder what the heck I was thinking.

You can follow my Whole30 experience right hrrr.

Should be a hoot!

Meaning I'm terrified, but don't worry, I already extensively listed every emotion I've ever felt about it in my first post. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's neurotically rambling about things that could be summed up into a sentence or two. But hey, we've all got our talents!

Just wanted to note that summer 2013 has been a memorable one. I don't want to glorify it with perfectly punctuated sentences about how these are the glory days of college livin'. There's still a lot to be learned, a lot of messes to overanalyze, and a lot of sweet corn to ingest. It's been a memorable one.

 

My "Them"

This is my family, and they love me well.

Nothing can replace the ones that have watched your pimply angst slowly progress into what we hope to be adulthood. They are the people that permit a certain kind of freedom to should a loud "NOTHING" when asked what you've been up to because you're grumpy and probably hungry too. There's conditions with a big fat "un" in front of it. Intentional time is not intentional at all because entering the laundry room with intent to kick your sister's load of three dishtowels out may end with a three hour conversation about how life really is going. It's intentional with another "un" in front of it. My joy is incomplete without them, and their patience with me makes me better. They are my "them"

Yet I have been granted another place to call home, another safe zone of people that will love me through moody mornings, flippant attitudes, and any other emotion I can dish out. College friendships possess a rare intensity. An intense amount of time spent not just physically in the same place, but the shared experience of stretching and growing at a rapid, almost manic, speed. Bonds are formed and love is given alongside vulnerability because any guard you ever held becomes obsolete. Inappropriate, even. Why bother pretending to let people love you when they can do it for real?

I have experienced this love, and I promise, none of these smiling, slightly fearful-of-the-future-faces could grasp this kind of love without Jesus loving us first. I owe everything I have to The Great I AM, including these beautiful, messy, hodgepodge group of people I love so dearly.

Shout-out-to-summer

Shout out to summer and instagram-worthy moments.

Sunny and I were talked about the notion that instagram pictures typically have more of a story behind them, or just more personality, then the funny angles and obnoxious hashtags (#guiltyofthat).

I like to pretend mine do, too.

Bough a whole mess of produce at my favorite local grocery story several blocks away from my rundown porch steps and neighboring parrot that squawks "GOODBYE!" at me when I drive to work

I also (for some unfathomable reason) felt pinterest-y lately, just in the mood to do things like roast almonds and pretend putting belts over my skirts make me trendy. Thus, berries coated in a thin layer of plain, Dannon yogurt (didn't have greek yogurt, though I think that would be even more scrumptions/hip), and then frozen to summertime perfection. YUM. 

And yes, an apron was involved.

These were flowers brought to my unexpected rescue from a man that knows when I need to go be by myself and run my feelings out and make me laugh when I let him find me. Unfortunately, they went all Beauty-and-the-Beast on me and wilted their petals away (though not in a glass case ah-la B&B) BUT that's because they were handpicked and not quite ready. Still lovely all the same.

This salad looked summary, and tasted delicious. I was not allowed to instagram this one (though I never understand why I am always denied the ability to add a little blur and an artsy filter to our food!) I am an instagram fiend. And this salad was prepped and ready to go by the time I got home from work, can you say winning?? I've never eaten so regularly/well in my whole life!

This was the "after" photo.

After my run.

After my God drenched me in truth, in his spirit, in his purpose.

Clean dishes and a cloudy Wednesday

Sometimes when you're 20 and summertime hours are your own, dinner consists of a bag of popcorn, dried mango strips you strategically placed in 10 separate bags of trail mix to avoid eating all of them at once (Ha! Thwarted. Take that past me), and more coffee just because it sounds good. I do not advertise such habits, nor do I regret my decision. I only wish mango strips came in larger quantities, they really are swoon-worthy. Apart from all of this, I am grateful to be in Lincoln for the next few months. No, this is not a post consisting of the challenges I will face and an adolescent list of things I hope to overcome with a large portion of Jack Johnson and a heaping side of nostalgia. I've told and retold that cheesy story several times already. I'm done with it.

I do miss home. I do. But to be quite honest with you, I'm tired of missing home. I'm tired of longing for the view of my backyard from my bed. It's time to embrace looking out my Lincoln window means encountering a shabby brick wall courtesy of my next-door-never-bringing-over-a-bunt-cake-because-you're-sketchy neighbors. I'm exhausted from trying to recreate the stillness that can only be found in my Minnesota kitchen on a weekday morning. My current kitchen holds the echos of young hispanic cries that rent out the basement. It's not that I can't tune out the noise, I definitely can after living here 9 (almost 10) months, but I cannot expect the quiet breeze of suburbia. I am done holding my Nebraska home to Minnesota standards, it will always lose. Not because where I am now is 'less than,' but because the present will always lose to the past. It all seems silly, nostalgia. This is the life I want. The one The Lord has so graciously given me, and yet there's always a more enjoyable walk, crisper air, more joy lingering in the subdivisions of memory lane. It's time now. It's time to relinquish my grasp on where my family has always been and make wherever I am my home. I've become pretty good at that, thanks to the sovereignty of my Heavenly Father who has built a home amongst valuable Nebraskan faces, eager international students, and dusty wood paneling. I cannot bring myself to utter the phrases "over the past three years" or "since coming to college" because, well, for one thing I'm a stubborn snob when it comes to cliched phrases, and two, there is a time and place for reflection, but there also is something to be said for sitting in your pajamas, reading this book, and embracing traditions of summer no matter which state you reside it.

Just to be ironic, black and white photos of summer and this song seemed appropriate:

Or if that's too dark and melancholy, there's always this alternative

Happy lazy Wednesday, folks.

Finals Week

This Song and these photos remind me all things are made new.

It has been a memorable semester.

Side note: I cannot WAIT until the day I do not have to measure periods of my life in semesters, breaks, and 50 minute time blocks.

- but anyway -

My posts always manifest themselves as lists, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Hope you are too.

     Thankful for the change, the blurry nights of no sleep and coffee headaches. I'm thankful for grace, lengthy modernist texts, and fiction writing that makes me feel free. I'm thankful for wet boots and icy mornings. I'm thankful for new vacuums, for mismatched furniture and spontaneous trips to the cheesecake factory.

     There's so much left to do. So many more countries to explore and (slighly neurotic) pages to write. I have much to learn about the Great I AM and how losing myself in His grace is the only way to live. I am a broken mess and continue to grow - in small bursts and over large stretches of "I can't do this." And yes, the next several days involve seven painful pages of French literature analysis and an early morning final. I have responsibilities. I have groceries. I have worries. Yet I also have confidence in The Lord and in this:

Isaiah 43: 18-19

"Forget the former things; 

do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing! 

Now it springs up; 

do you not perceive it? 

I am making a way in the wilderness 

and streams in the wasteland."