saddle up your horses

“August is a transitioning month for Wisconsin,” the man at church said. He was standing in my office and I was looking out my window, telling him I was already beginning to smell fall.

No, no, no, no, no. It is not allowed to be winter yet. It hasn’t even really been summer yet! It is not allowed to be winter yet. Not yet. No.

No.

I’ve been mulling over his words the past couple of weeks, chewing on them like a cow on verbal cud. August is a transitioning month. My teacher friends are starting work again. My school-aged friends are starting school again. The kids who are still 11 in my mind are posting pictures on Facebook of their college orientations. How did they become college students?

The past six months I’ve been living with my parents in the village of Glenbeulah, Wisconsin, population 463. Since I’ve been here they’ve opened this promising new establishment:

Good ol' Rusty's Oil & Tire (great name for an auto place). I walk past it sometimes with my finger on 911’s speed dial in case someone reaches out of the door and tries to snatch me.

I’ve also gotten to spend time with this family:

Aren’t they lovely? I gave my niece Annabelle her first swimming (AKA “kick the water like you’re a mermaid”) lesson and have already taught her how to blow raspberries and give zerbers and copy everything everyone says like an annoying echo. Emmalynn is still a little young to learn bad habits, but I’m working on it. I have a nephew on the way, too. I want them to name him JohnMcClane (no spaces or hyphens) but they probably won’t.

Over the past few months I’ve also learned a bit about myself:

1) I can eat ice cream for dinner many consecutive days before I feel convicted about it.

2) I hate mosquitoes so passionately I am willing to torch an entire community because sometimes lives must be lost in order to protect future lives.

3) My ability to make rational decisions diminishes incrementally the longer I go without seeing the sun.

3a) My gummy vitamin intake increases radically the longer I go without seeing the sun.

4) I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

I'll be 27 in September, and sometimes I envy my friends. You know, the ones who have homes and stable jobs and spouses and children and matching mugs and furniture and cars that have airbags and at least an idea of what the next few years of their lives will look like.

I have no idea what the next few years of my life will look like. I think this is fairly common for 20-somethings. I can't tell you how many 20-something friends I know who have moved back home to live with their parents after a turn of events. God bless parents who welcome back their 20-somethings with grace and spare rooms. And to my 20-something friends who are still trying to figure out their lives: Be encouraged! You are not alone.

Sometimes I think that instead of asking kids what they want to "be" when they grow up, we should ask them what they love. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. But I know I love the church. I know I love words. I know I love people. I know I love Jesus.

Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. – Luke 5:27-28 NLT

When people ask me what my plans are or what my goal is, I don't know. I'm pretty sure Levi couldn't have answered that either when he left everything. He probably would've said, "I'm just following Jesus."

That's the only real goal I have, too.

And that's when I don't mind so much that none of my mugs have a theme and the only furniture I own is what my dad has picked out of other people’s trash. That's when I'm okay with moving, picking up and leaving, and trying something new, because with my God, I can do anything. I can go anywhere, lose everything, start over, face any situation, any challenge, with my God.

My God is my companion, and He is my partner. And I'll go with Him wherever.

Which makes it difficult, sometimes, when I have things in my life I don’t want to leave. Like my family. And a good job at a church. And good relationships and friendships. I start to question what it really means to follow Jesus. If God isn’t really making it clear where He wants me in the future, wouldn’t it be okay if I just made my own future? Isn’t our main goal in life to bring glory to God? Does it really matter how we bring glory to God?

Have you ever felt a tug, a pull, a nudge, a thought, a desire, that you just can't shake? Like that one birthday candle you just can't blow out, and it keeps burning and reigniting no matter how much slobber you spray on it? My desire to be in the church is like that slobbery, stubborn birthday candle. I try to make up different futures for myself but they never ignite like when I think about being in the church. 

“Your greatest fulfillment in life will come when you discover your unique gifts and abilities and use them to edify others and glorify the LORD." - Neil T. Anderson

I have never felt quite as much like I am doing what God has created me to do than when I am emptying myself into the local church. I've tried. Believe me, I've tried.

So, in keeping with August’s theme of transitions, I’m transitioning, too. I'm moving back to beautiful Kentucky, to the great city of Louisville, to intern in the communications department of Sojourn Community Church. I will get to write. I will get attend their leadership school. I will get to be a part of creative planning. I will get to attend workshops and conferences. I will get to further develop my unique gifts and abilities in order to edify others and glorify the Lord.

Burn, little slobber candle, burn.

This is where I need your help.

The internship is unpaid, which means I will have to raise support and find a part-time job. Because of some generous people in my life, I'll only have to raise $6,000 for the next year of my internship. If 60 people gave $100, that'd cover the whole shebang!

I've never had to raise money before. I don't like asking for money. I don't know anybody who really does. It makes me feel uncomfortable...and weird. But I do need your help. I can't do this on my own. I'm so thankful for those of you who have already given, in more ways than one. Your generosity and thoughtfulness humbles me.

To join in supporting me financially, click here. 

I would also love your support through prayers and encouragement. Your words mean so much to me!

All of that being said, I'm so, so grateful for this opportunity to serve the people of Louisville with such a wonderful church. I will keep y'all updated!

ONLY TEN MORE DAYS.

I wish hair like this was still in style:

theirs not to reason why

(my StrengthsFinder personality profile)

We all want reasons for why things happen. We want to believe there's a reason for everything. That God brought us here so we could meet this person and this person would introduce us to this job which would help us gain this experience so that, eventually, we end up exactly where we're supposed to be, saving the world.

It's easier to deal with the things that happen, especially when they're bad, if we believe they're leading us to some ultimate, better destination.

But last night my friend Micah said something really profound. "Sometimes," he said, "things just happen."

Lots of people, including myself, have given me possible explanations for all the tough stuff in the past year. "Maybe God's taking ______ away to give you ______." "Maybe God knows that you're too ______, and He wants to make you more ______." "Maybe ______ will prepare you for ______."

Somehow we feel that, if we just know why, or at least know that there's a reason, we can trust God easier. It makes Him seem more sovereign or something, to know that everything is a part of His plan. It makes Him seem more faithful if we can point to why we went through what we went through.

But you know what I have discovered? It doesn't matter. Sometimes things just happen. Maybe they're the result of your own decisions, or the result of someone else's decisions, or the result of weather or the economy or bears. The point is, I think God's plan for us is a lot broader than we're comfortable with. And even though He daily carries us in His arms, I think He is less concerned with all the tiny decisions that consume our lives, and more concerned with whether we're loving Him, serving Him, and desiring Him above all else in all the decisions that we do make.

Sometimes God has very specific plans for certain parts of our lives, and sometimes He doesn't. He is still sovereign, He is still trustworthy, He is still faithful, even when we don't seem to hear Him leading or directing in any particular direction. And just because God has a plan doesn't mean that everything that happens is the perfect piece to fit into the next stage of our puzzly lives. It just means that God is really good at molding, shaping, and sculpting the things that do happen in our lives into the beautiful masterpiece He intends it to be. 

God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time. - Ecclesiastes 3:11 NET

directional thoughts

I miss creating. I read somewhere that humans long to create because they are made in the image of God, who is Creator. We create because He created and creates. But then I also read (maybe in the same place?) that we don’t really create anything, because everything has already been created – we just innovate.

Whatever. I miss making stuff.

The doctor at the walk-in clinic told me I should write more. Because obviously in the 5 seconds that he shone a light in my ear he learned a lot about my brain.

“If you find yourself writing all the time, maybe you should consider being a writer,” he said.

I don’t find myself writing all the time, I wanted to say back. I find myself sitting on my porch watching wasps fly into this whole in my wall and wondering how little wasp eyes see the world.

At first I was perturbed at Dr. Burns, whose large glasses and skinny body made him look like a guest star on a Saved By the Bell or Full House episode. You don’t know me, I thought. Stop trying to diagnose me psychologically and just give me something to make the glands in my neck stop mimicking golf balls.

But it’s been two weeks and I can’t stop thinking about his words.

Oh, transitions. Adjusting. Figuring out who you are amidst change, and what about you is foundational regardless of the soil you set your feet on. How much of who you are do you become through discipline, practice, and education, and how much of who you are, you just are?

This will be the prologue to my memoir. I’m currently accepting title suggestions.