Enough

When I was in fourth grade, the school psychologist IQ tested me. We played  with puzzles and she asked some questions like,"How far is it from the US to London?" to which I answered "Well, it depends. Where in the US are we starting from?" (My snark started young.)

When we were all done, she spent a few minutes with a calculator, my papers, and a pen while my  heart raced and I pretended to do another puzzle. I didn't know God, but I sure was praying.

Praying that the score would be high enough.
Praying that I would be good enough.
I didn't know what "enough" was, but I believed this score could make me one step closer to it.

The psychologist shuffled some papers, flipped my academic file around towards me, and started pointing with a pen. I guess she never got the memo that you don't tell nine year olds their IQ score. She pulled out a chart that showed what scores fit into which categories. I held my breath as she told me my score and my eyes scanned for the category that I had hoped and prayed for.

I was enough.
I was special.
I literally fit into a nice little box with nice little definite numbers.
I knew where I stood in the world.

I went home that day, a spring in my step and a new sense of pride. At dinner, my mother asked me my score (because, ya know, that's casual elementary school table talk). I beamed, yearning for her approval, and blurt out the three numbers that now defined me.

My mother, without missing a beat or looking my way, snorted and said "Yeah? Well my score is XXX," a number three points higher than mine.

I deflated.
I was not enough.

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I spent the rest of my life fighting for numbers, fighting to be cerebral, to be the best, to have the highest scores and GPA and grades.

Consequently, I also spent the rest of my life attacking myself when this naturally could not happen.

Somehow I also believed that our intelligence was a natural gifting; an IQ score was something we are simply born with and maybe can fluctuate slightly during early development thanks to nutrition, caretaking, and other environmental factors.

I was simply the product of a lucky roll of the dice - and therefore could not pride myself in my accomplishments, because I was "cheating" the system by riding on a gift that I had not worked for.

I shrugged off everything my dear mentors, friends, and professors tried to show me about who I was. I ignored everything that Christ said about who he made me to be.

At one point, I was praying that I never got a head injury because I would lose all of my worth if I was no longer smart. (Ironically, I did have a MTBI my sophomore year of college - and my friends still loved me, I still had a job, and I still graduated.)

But grades were never meant to be enough.
IQ scores were never meant to define us.
Numbers were meant for making exchanges and keeping dates, not for defining people.

I knew this - but I also had no other way to judge my worth.
Ironically, nobody really likes a kid that is fighting to be the smartest in the room.
In our culture of success-is-best, any other redeeming attribute I had was largely overlooked by an over-inflated GPA.
So I assumed that I was not kind, compassionate, funny, empathetic - all of the characteristics I thought were far from me because I was too smart.
Or maybe because I was just smart.

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A lot of people ask me why I am in social work and not science.
I need to be a good social worker for myself as much as the world needs good social workers.
I need to discover strengths and talents beyond my head, and I need to learn to lean into my weaknesses.

Today I won Field Intern of the Year in my cohort. Not the Research Award. Not the Outstanding Student Award.

It's the biggest honor I have ever received - because it has nothing to do with IQ.

My supervisor said she had clients in her office crying because I had left. She described me as intelligent, innovative, creative, and empathic.

Empathic.

Finally something that I could not judge by a number.
Finally something that wasn't centered around intelligence.
Finally something that was human to human, Imago Dei.

I think a lot of my clients struggle with some of the same beliefs. When you have a severe mental illness, it is hard for the world to see what you have to offer. It's hard to believe in your God-given value when everything around you tells you you're invaluable. Like my biological gift, it's hard to see yourself beyond a pervasive biological barrier (sometimes science and numbers will mess you up). It's hard to make room for Christ when you don't feel like you can even make room for yourself.

The good news is that Christ made the room for us.
And he made many rooms in his Father's house.

Finally, after a year telling, reminding, modeling, and providing a safe space for my clients to discover that they always have been and always will be enough, I can start to believe it for myself too.

The last 100 days

A paper chain hangs in my dining room. It takes over an entire wall, zig-zagging back and forth because special reasoning is not my strong suit and one-hundred strips of paper is apparently a lot.

I graduate in less than one-hundred days.
Eighty, to be exact.
In eighty-one days, I'll get on the 210 one last time, me and Bear and an auntie and uncle who are now my professional cross-country movers.
In eighty-two days, I'll pull up in front of a house that will seem foreign but become my home.
In eighty-three days, I'll wake up in my new bed for the first time.

I'm spending these last 100 days like I have spent the last four years.
Going to work, school, huddling with friends around a tiny laptop to watch trashy television while drinking wine in our yoga pants.

But I'm doing it a little bit slower. I am soaking in the moments a little bit longer and giving myself the grace to not mop the floors because I will always have floors, but I will not always have these friends or these hills or this taco shack down the road.

I'm tattooing what 6am looks like on my mind.
I'm doing things I always wanted to do but never made the time.
I'm etching the feeling of sand between my toes, the stop-and-go of 4pm traffic, and the smell of morning smog into my mind.

I'll need it later.

I'll need the 6am city lights when my new town has just gotten a little too small.
I'll need the sand when I sit through my first winter and learn just what the rest of the world was talking about.
I'll need the stop-and-go traffic when life has gotten complacent and just a little bit boring and my goodness, where is the culture and why do I keep seeing the same people everywhere?
I'll need the smell of morning smog when... well, never. That one I won't need. But it will bring me back to where I am, that much more grateful and aware of the fresh air around me.

I'll need these memories when I miss my friends and my beach bonfires and my rhythm that I have developed over four long-quick years.

I'll need it, I'll use it, and then I'll make new friends and new mountain bonfires and establish a new rhythm - because maybe the last 100 days are really just any other 100 days.

When home isn't home anymore

"It's so good to see you! How is it being back home?"

It's the most-asked question I get on my first Sunday back at the church I grew up in. I don't know how to answer.

How do I tell them that this is not my home? How do I tell them that my heart is out west and it aches to be back?

"What are you doing after you graduate? Are you moving back here?"
"It's going to be so good having you back here in May!"

How do I tell them that my sweet friend who dropped me off at the airport had to force me to get onto that plane? How do I tell them that I was filled with hesitancy when my plane finally landed? How do I tell them that moving back to Florida is nowhere on my radar?

How do I tell them that I feel like a foreigner in the town I lived in for fifteen years?

"Welcome home! Well, I guess it's not really home anymore, is it?
"There's not really anything here for you anymore."

At first, I was taken back by the last comment.
There's not really anything here for you anymore.
Does that mean I am not welcome? Does that mean I can't return? Does that mean I've locked and sealed a door behind me?
No. Not even a little bit. Unless that's what I want it to mean.

Finally, somebody got it.
I no longer long for the afternoon thunderstorms of Florida, the damp morning dew, or the familiar crashing of ocean waves. I no longer have to do the grocery store shuffle, shifting down other aisles to avoid awkward small talk with people I recognize. I no longer have to carefully schedule in coffee dates with old friends.

My life, my joys, my passions, my job and apartment and friends and sunrises and mountains and valleys are out west. I know the curves of the hills, the ebb and flow of the traffic, the rhythm of an urban life that was once foreign, strange, and frightening.

Some days it's hard.
When babies are born or babies grow up, sunrises on the beach show up on my newsfeed, and old friends have gathered together. When I want nothing more than to drink wine and watch Dance Moms with my aunt. When the traffic is piled up and I just want to get out of the car. When the desert hasn't seen a drop of rain in ages and there's no such thing as "weather."

Most days it's easy. It's gotten easier every day.
When the mountains get the first snow of the year, the foxes trot along beside me on my morning run, and the temperature is a steady 75 degrees for the week. When new friends pile up on the living room floor because we don't have a dining room or a big enough kitchen table. When babies are born here and babies grow up here. When the sun sets over the water, or the rivers flow along the street. When the canyons wind and a road trip is planned through the painted deserts.

Florida is no longer my home, no longer the place of familiarity.

And that's okay.

On abandoning dreams

"Hey, Dan. Have you considered yet that maybe this is not where I want you?"
It was that still, small voice that I had not heard in so long.
I had nearly forgotten the sound of his words, the cantor of his tone, as my eyes glazed over towards the candles burning in the pew aisle.

I had decided that grad school would be happening in May 2015.
"Lord, where do you want me to go?"
I saved my questions for the second line.
I had already decided the plot. I only needed God for the solution.
I needed a hero, a Savior, but I had missed the wanderings in the desert.
Yet I still somehow found myself lost in the middle of nowhere, buried in a pile of applications, mystery, and frustration.

You see, I have been fighting for months to make grad school happen.
Punching, kicking, screaming, swindling, doing - controlling whatever I could.
Going to bed exhausted at night.
Waking with eyes glazed, not a spark left, but still stuck on the prize.

"Okay."
Freedom. Anxiety lifting. Peace rising.
The candles kept flickering, slow and steady.
The spark returned.

It wasn't fighting against opposition.
It was beating down a path I wasn't meant to be on.

This doesn't mean grad school will never happen.
It doesn't even mean it won't happen this summer.
But it's hard to abandon dreams.
It's hard to hear "Trust me."
It's even harder to say "I will follow you."

How the church can be a voice among the voices of mental illness

I woke up at 5am a couple of weeks ago, ready to start my day with the sunrise and a run to clear my head before going to the clinic.

As I sat in bed checking emails and Facebook posts to wake up to the bright light of my phone, my heart stopped. A shooting at FSU.

I frantically began texting friends.

As the news unfolded, we discovered that the shooter had heard voices and believed the government was after him.

I have seen this before.
In fact, I see this every day in the mental health clinic I work at.
Symptoms noticed.
No intervention.
A psychotic break.
Tragedy.

It is time we start talking about mental illness boldly, constructively, with open and welcoming arms.

It is time "depression" can carry as much stigma as "hay fever" and seeing a therapist is as normal as seeing the dentist.

In my own experience with mental illness, I turned to my church for support. I was met with both judgment and acceptance. It was the former part that stuck with me when I could not unstick myself.

"If you have anxiety, you aren't trusting God."
"Pray and read your bible more."
"Count it all joy. You are blessed."
"Taking medications is cheating."

Paying, reading Scripture, counting our blessings, trusting God, and having faith are all excellent things. Maybe faith is being able to say, "I believe God is good, but I am still broken and hurting."

Here's twelve ways the church can be a voice among the many voices of mental illness.

1. Accept that mental illness is as valid and legitimate as any other disease. There are reasons we call it mental health and use terms like "symptoms, diagnoses, treatment, medications," etc. It's because mental illnesses are medically, biologically, and scientifically based - but incredibly more complex than many physical illnesses because the spirit, the personhood, is what gets attacked. It is difficult to admit to mental illness because there is no x-ray to show, no wound to bandage, no surgery to have. Legitimize your neighbor's experience.

2. Understand that mental illness is not a spiritual deficit. Would you tell somebody that their asthma is a result of sin, something they need to "snap out of," or would be cured if they simply had quiet time each morning? No? Great. Yes, mental illness, like any other illness, can cause strain on your relationship with God. Research even supports that spiritual beliefs and practices can have a positive effect on recovery. However, that does not mean that somebody is automatically an unfit Christian. Your neighbor did not do something wrong to cause this. His feelings are not a sin. Talking about trauma or abuse is not holding records of wrongs or dishonoring a parent. It is truth-telling, redemption, and healing - and that's what Christ was all about, isn't it?

3. Educate yourself. Be willing to throw away old assumptions. Read reliable resources. Watch documentaries. Ask your neighbor what she recommends. Invite, but don't press, your neighbor to share about his experience. There's plenty of bold people on UpWorthy who bravely share their stories.

4. Understand that each experience is unique. Like our faith journey, one's experience with a mental illness is very unique, very personal, and very difficult to share when there is not a solid foundation of trust and acceptance. Understand that your neighbor may not fall into the extremes you saw on television (hello, Hollywood). This makes their experience no less difficult.

5. Resist the urge to say "But you're not..." See above. Does your neighbor suffer from depression, but he somehow miraculously got out of bed today and is smiling right now? Panic attacks, but you've never seen one? Anxiety, but she looks so composed? Bless the Lord, it truly is a miracle. Refrain from making assumptions of what your perception of somebody's illness is or should be like. Refer to #1 if you're still confused.

6. Understand that your neighbor is hurting deeply. Many mental illnesses carry a myriad of overwhelming, diverse emotions. Regardless of what the specific emotions are, your neighbor is likely hurting and confused. Additionally, he or she may be dealing with the aftershocks of trauma, even if the incident happened years ago. Even not being able to identify a specific trigger can be frustrating, guilt inducing, and leave our friends feeling like they do not "deserve" their illness or are being overdramatic. The mind is a tricky thing, and it will do anything to protect itself. Mental illness is often associated with poor coping skills - not due to a failure on your neighbor's part, but because we simply were not built to deal with all of the evil in this world.

 

7. Ask how you can support your neighbor - then follow through. Maybe she needs the kids picked up because she just cannot handle everything today. Maybe he needs somebody to simply sit with him. Maybe she cannot articulate what exactly she needs and crying ensues. If your neighbor is not sure of what he or she needs, make a few offers that you are actually willing and able to do. Fold some laundry, make some coffee, watch some reality television, or drag her out of a house for a walk. Do something - but also respect the space to simply not.

8. Provide a safe place for your neighbor to process his or her experience. Provide this space, even if that means anger and frustration at God, hopelessness, or doubt. Often, but not always, mental health includes some sort of trauma or abuse. Regardless of abuse history, it is an incredibly difficult and confusing time, and a safe place to talk or just be is a blessing. Faith takes a lot of work and energy that they may not be able to muster. Hold that space for her until she can fill it again herself.

9. Know your limits and where your neighbor can go when you've reached them. This works on two planes. First, know your own boundaries. Supporting somebody with a mental illness, like any disease, can be draining on you. This is okay. Take care of yourself, and be able to set loving, firm limits. Second, know what resources are available in your community. Do some research, make some phone calls, and offer to take your neighbor to appointments if appropriate.

 

10. Support professional treatment. You are not a therapist, so please do not try to play one. If you are a therapist, I probably do not need to say anything about "boundaries" or "ethics" or "conflict of interest" or "just plain awkward." Support your neighbor getting help, and support whatever treatment plan the professionals and your neighbor agree upon. Know that treatments do not need to compete with the church. They can complement and support each other. This is not about you and your beliefs, but about your neighbor and her well-being.

 

11. Advocate for the mental health community. Y'all, it is tricky terrain to navigate in the mental health land. It's hard to fight for treatment when you're exhausted from your illness. Maybe your neighbor has been diagnosed with a chronic illness, but only has ten therapy sessions allotted by insurance. Maybe there are not adequate resources in your area. It's hard to have self-worth and believe you can get better when the world is telling you that you are not sick "enough," whatever that means. Maybe the stigma is too much, and he lives in fear, guilt, and shame. Advocate for your neighbor in your communities by spreading the word about the truth of mental illness. Join the anti-stigma fight. Write to lawmakers to advocate for equality in insurance coverage and treatment provision. Let your neighbor know that he is not alone, he is part of a team, and you are on it.

12. Keep the door open. Many mental illnesses are chronic, like diabetes, or can cycle between remission and relapse, like cancer. Check in on your neighbor, even after it seems like everything is okay. Continue to provide a safe, welcoming space. Provide support and reassurance when symptoms return.

Outrun the sun

I woke up to darkness in Colorado.
I slipped into my hoodie, pulled on some black gloves, and strapped an ipod to my arm.
Then I ran.

I raced against the sun, fighting to beat it to the top of the highest hill in town, fighting to taste some of its hope for the day.

That's what I do when I run. I solve the problems of the world, only to forget the solutions once I've got my breath back.

I have seen some of the darkest places of the world.
The dusty villages in Mexico and South America made of old tires, cardboard, and rusting metal.
The sleeping bags and cardboard lining Skid Row and the sidewalk outside my gated apartment.
The inner walls of an inpatient psychiatric facility.
The red clay and bricks of Auschwitz, as if the blood literally seeped down the walls and into the earth.

I have also seen some of the most beautiful places in the world.
The same dusty villages with the toothy grins of children, the warm tortillas and hugs of mothers, and the firm handshakes of hardworking fathers.
The landlord who gave one of those sidewalk tenants a job maintaining the grounds.
The residents who finally got to go home.
The vineyards etched into the cliffs above crashing waves in Cinque Terre.
The amber gravity defiance of Moab.
The moss and fog blanketing the sea of trees in the Pacific Northwest.

Both places give me hope.
We have to create space for the darkness as much as we allow the light in. We have to allow the evil in, not to condone its presence but to say, "I see you. I know what you are doing."

We cannot say, "You are not welcome here," until we say, "I know you are there."
We cannot say, "I will fight for you," until we say, "I see what hurts you."
We cannot hope until we know what we are hoping for, but maybe also what we're hoping from.

The darkness comes again and again - but the light does too. The sun always rises, even in the darkest of nights.

 

Maybe if I could run fast enough I could leap right out of my own tattered skin that holds me captive. Maybe I could reach my hands out far and wide, touch the sun, and soak in its goodness. Maybe I could reach the light and let hope pour in as my selfishness, anger, and grief sweats out.

Maybe I could run fast enough to pass right through it like my own crucible, coming out on the other side to allow the sun to warm my back and light my path. Maybe the darkness could be all behind me.

Even if I can't run that fast, the sun still rises.

Pots and pavement

I looked at my calendar for the spring semester this morning, fighting to squeeze in a camping trip here, a beach day there. Time management gymnastics. March rolled around and I scratched my head at the thought of being out of town three weekends in a row.

Not too long ago, this would have been my dream.
To sleep in a different bed, bury boarding passes in my purse, squeeze shampoo out of a three ounce bottle, eat at a new table for each meal.

The journey was in the chaos.
Today, my heart feels more chaotic. Maybe I'm getting old, but I need the consistency of life to balance my wandering mind. I need the rhythms of alarm clocks and garbage trucks on Thursday at 7am and traffic creeping up right at three in the afternoon and a calendar that has more white space than marked.

I still love to adventure and explore, but maybe there is something valuable in planting roots.

I always thought I was a windowsill kind of girl. Never really committing to life inside or out, I could sit perched up on my slab of granite, watching everything around me. I could move to catch the light, be carried to a new window, even go to a new house. I could see it all, have it all, maybe even be it all.

 

 

But that's no life to live, stuck in a pot.
Potted plants live within harsh borders, unable to move and grow beyond the size of their confines. Sure, the pot can move - but it can never grow. Secure? Yes. Safe? No. Daring to push beyond the boundaries, to stretch and explore, will only lead to death.

If I am such a windowsill girl, such a wandering heart, then why am I being pushed towards the life of the trees?

Still. Strong. Waiting.
Generation after generation, growing higher and higher. Covering afternoon naps, supporting young climbers, stretching limbs out to wrap around all who come near.

Maybe now the journey is in the stillness.
Maybe my nomadic life is coming to an end.

Why then, am I being pushed to move again?
To uproot myself in the place I call home.
To pack up the boxes again and get a new driver's license.

Maybe because this place is built for nomads.
Everybody should live in LA or New York at least once - but leave before it makes you too hard.
It's been four years.
Maybe it's time to go.

Maybe it's time to explore a new place, to walk its streets enough that they become mine, to trip on pavement and forgive it anyway.

You can't take laptops on boats

My parents' defining moment was the moon landing.

When you see one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, you grow up learning "Anything is possible."

My defining moment was September 11th.
I grew up learning, "Yes, anything is possible - and you should be very afraid of it because it is not always good, and not in your control."

I grew up with security cameras, x-ray machines, and bag searches in an attempt to keep us safe.
I grew up with ballet classes, piano recitals, high-stakes volleyball tournaments, speech and debate competitions, foreign language classes, and hyper-competitive softball leagues all in an attempt to gain a foothold on this world that was so out of control.

Maybe if we do enough, we can be enough.

We developed medications to block out our worries and fears, and started prescribing them more frequently than antibiotics.
Nobody has time to be weak.
Nobody can risk an emotion.

We developed social networks, hoping that maybe if we knew everything about everybody at every second, we could be in control, be informed, and be safe and secure.

Little did we know that in our quest to know so much, we would come to know so little. In our search for safety and comfort, we would find loneliness and anxiety. Maybe in knowing more about the world, we know less about ourselves.

You can't take laptops on boats.

On a sailboat, you're out of control. You're at the mercy of nature.
You become part of something bigger than yourself.
You learn to communicate, reach for a common goal, let go, and fine peace in the chaos.

That's what we're all after.
Peace.

Yes, anything is possible.
Yes, we are out of control.
Yes, you may be scared - but I can tolerate scared.
What I cannot do is sad and lonely.

It is in facing our fears and releasing control that we find peace.
Accepting and leaning into the chaos.
Breathing in deep and exhaling the wind that unfurls the sails.
Closing down the laptop and looking at the faces in front of you,
Trusting that today is enough,
That you are enough
Because anything is possible.

This is Danielle. She is a social worker.

"This is Danielle. She is a social worker."

My heart skips a beat and I want to correct her.
This is Dani. She is a student.
Or perhaps more accurately: This is Dani. She is crying, bleeding, and scratching to get a degree. Any degree at this point, really. She thinks she might like to be a social worker, but she really has no clue what she's doing in life. She's here for an assignment and is painfully uncomfortable with old people. Good luck - to both of you.

The coordinator tells me that the woman was once an actress, and that I would love to hear about it over the next ten weeks.

"Honey, that was 51 years ago. I hardly remember it myself."

Honey.
It's as if she can see right through me.
It's as if she knows.
Knows about the reflections I'll write about her, the time log the coordinator will sign, the grade I'll receive.
Knows that in this moment I want to crawl under a rock and hide, and switch my major to chemistry where the subjects don't talk back, don't have feelings, don't have a spirit.
Knows about the discomfort I feel. I'm completely out of my element.

Social workers help people. I leave my dirty dishes in the sink for days at a time.
Social workers wear dress pants. I prefer scantly washed skinny jeans from the thrift, or an old pair of leggings worn down at the knees.
Social workers are ready for any crises at any moment. I have to set alarms to move my car before street sweeping.
Social workers are non-judgmental and moral exemplars. I watch The Bachelor.

This is Dani. She is a social worker.
The title is big and uneasy. Heavy and awkward.
I'm like a toddler trying to walk around in my ma's heels.
It's cute and charming, but I'm a danger with a title twelve sizes too big.

But for today it will be enough, for tomorrow has enough woes of its own.
If a social worker helps people, then today I will let this woman show me her sketch book.
If a social worker is ready for any crisis at any moment, then I will leave my phone in the car.
If social workers are non-judgmental and moral exemplars, then well, we'll still work on that one.
Today I don't need dress pants and my alarms are set and my roommates aren't yet home to notice my spaghetti pot from last night.

Today I am sitting with a woman, spirit to spirit, and listening to her life unfold like the card table we sit at.

Today I am Danielle, the social worker.
It's new and it's awkward and it's dangerous and I have a few arguments about title protection to throw around, but today it is enough.

Aunt Michelle's kitchen counter

When I was in high school, my "auntie"/youth leader would sit me down at her kitchen counter and teach me all things domestic. The first thing she would always ask was "How was your week?" which usually was followed by "Have you prayed about that?". I'm pretty sure I would then roll my eyes. (Sorry, Aunt Michelle! Love you, Aunt Michelle!) We would spend the next few hours talking about the issues at hand in both of our lives while sewing or cooking or taking care of babies or organizing a home.

It was her presence in the mundane that gave her authority to speak in the personal, and her willingness to be open that invited me to share as well.

 

Fast forward a few years and a fifteen year old is sitting at the kitchen counter scrolling through pictures on her handheld while another girl and I mix together cinnamon roll frosting and filling. She holds up different pictures of boys to us and asks if we think they are attractive. Most of them I cannot comment on without being flagged as a pedophile, so I just smile and nod and tell her not to talk to boys (which seems to be the bulk of what she talks about). She holds up another picture and turns it away from me, towards the other student. "Dani can't see this, but don't you think he's hot?" Something in her tone has changed. I ask her if it's the boy from camp she's been texting who she mentioned a week ago. Her eyes get big. "How do you know? That's so creepy!"

I smile and tell her, "I just know."
 

Maybe it's because I've been fifteen too, or maybe it's because I've had enough girlfriends to gush with before, but I just know. She mentioned the boy a week ago, and I took note of it. I want her to know that the words she says matter and that I am listening. I want her to know that I know her and she matters, whether she's sharing big things or silly things, not so that I can influence her, but simply because I love her.

And I do love her.

 

We move upstairs to watch Shark Week as we wait for the dough to rise. She starts asking me questions about college, my family, my Florida youth group, going to a magnet school, and growing up in a sleepy beach town. She shifts back to talking about boys, and then she starts asking me about my own boy of interest from college. Her tone of voice tells me that she isn't asking to tease. Suddenly our conversation shifts from gushing to very real sharing about insecurities and frustrations and unmet expectations. We empathize with each other over our "relationships" that are going nowhere.

It all kind of sounds silly, but this camp boy matters to her, so it has to matter to me.  

 

We're in small group writing our cardboard testimonies by ourselves in different parts of the dining area upstairs. I finish mine, pray for a few minutes, and then feel uncomfortable, like I have no idea what to do with myself, like I have never done this before. I see her from across the room and feel compelled to go over to her, yet I have no idea what I'll say or do and the risk of it being even more uncomfortable is high.

I walk over anyway and sit down on the floor next to her. She tries to cover her paper with her arm, and I don't know if I should stay or go. I divert my gaze away from the paper and simply look at her, making eye contact, and smile. She pauses, moves her arm, and turns her paper towards me, revealing difficult secrets. I put my hand on her as she flips the paper to the other side that shows how Christ has made her new. I don't know what to do in that moment. I haven't a clue what to say, so I just hug her.

I hug her and I tell her that I am proud of her.
 

The girls gather together for the end of small group, and as we go around in a circle I am not sure that she will share her cardboard testimony - but I put my hand on her again as she reveals her paper to a group of teenage girls.

The night ends and I tell her again, "I just wanted to thank you for sharing in small group. I know that must have been hard. I am proud of you." She thanks me and says "It was kind of difficult, but I've grown up past that." Suddenly, the student is teaching the "master". She's fifteen and she acknowledges the power and necessity in being vulnerable, something that I have made great strides in this summer but still struggle in.

I can't help but wonder if this is what God has been working up to - the coffee date a week ago where she got a text from a boy from Texas, baking in the kitchen and giggling, watching Shark Week and sharing insecurities, and creating a space that invited painful secrets to be shared and redeemed. Mundane and serious; silly and personal; student and teacher; all of these different paradoxes are colliding.

Perhaps at Aunt Michelle's kitchen counter I learned more than domestic skills. 

Why sharing my testimony is terrifying

I shared my testimony last night to a room full of thirty teenagers.

It was the first time I had publicly spoken of several things, putting my shame and fears and hopes and dreams out on the table like a Thanksgiving feast for the skeletons that had been hiding in my closet.

Y'all, I was 63 inches of sheer panic.

A couple of times I paused.
"Something's wrong. Something's not right."
Breathe, kid. Breathe. You're not breathing.
Take in air. Take in new life.
Exhale the shame, inhale the grace, and wait in the wonder of vulnerability.

A really wonderful friend and partner in crime ministry classmate carefully reminded me that my testimony is really not about me at all, but about God and his story.

It is about identifying how God is moving in real time, in a real place, in a real person.

Even a 20 year old girl on the western slope of Colorado in 2013.

I do not own God's story, and therefore, am not entitled to keep it to myself.

God owns my story, his story.

History.

Buechner talks about the bible as this awful, boring, confusing book full of self-righteous toolbags, murderous whores, whimpy leaders, whiny blame-shifters, and a God that seems to want to smite everybody, including himself (let's not get into a conversation about the trinity for the moment), for the glory of himself.

Some book.
Some God.

But that's exactly what it is.
Some book.
Some God.
Some story that keeps telling the story of ourselves.
The story of a people who do every single thing wrong, but are still given grace from a God who sacrifices himself.

Yes, for glory.
Glory hallelujah.

The bible, our testimonies - they're about saying "Me too."
"Me too. I don't understand what all of this means, but I am with you. He is with you. Breathe."

And that is perhaps what makes the story of God so terrifying.
It is the story of us. All of us.

All is fair in love and shame

Mother's Day is a day of hiding.
Can I get an Amen from anyone in the crowd?

This Mother's Day will be the third in my life that I go to church - and two out of three have been because I worked at one.
The first time was a terrible mistake. 15 years old, bright eyed and bushy tailed - until I saw the mothers cuddling up with their doting daughters, my own hand left empty.
It was a rough day for my already-volatile teenage heart.
Mother's Day is now a day of Netflix, closed shades on the windows, and 48-72 hours of Facebook-free time to avoid playing too much of the Comparison Game.
The game where everybody loses.

I struggled with the foster families I lived with, being both included and excluded, constantly reading mixed messages about what it means to be in a "family" if it simultaneously tells me to remain loyal and yet reminds me that I am not one of their own.

"She's the girl that lives with us."
A charity.

I still struggle to call my closest friends "family" because t is an f-word of the most offensive nature. It means deceit, abuse, betrayal, abandonment, kicking, screaming - anything but love.

So when the God of love says I am part of his family, I shudder.
My mind races to a thousand "I love you, but..."s, a fistful of different house keys, and a dozen "mothers" and "fathers" that never were.

As if the One who both created and adopted me is also unwilling to deal with this mess.
Or maybe I am just his charity case, a pitiful face on the side of the road.

Somehow we came to believe that love can't be won.
It can't be won through a pile of paperwork - sometimes adoption just "doesn't work out."
Like the kid is a piddly puppy or a too-firm mattress.
It can't be won through inviting the stranger (or even friend) into our home on a holiday.
Because what would the rest of the family think?
It can't be won through waiting patiently with and fighting passionately for the drunk uncle or the prodigal son.
Sometimes people are a lost cause, like an over-cooked souffle.

This isn't to shame anybody, but our reality of physical family mirrors or image of spiritual family.

Love cannot be won?
If we believe this, then we believe that love cannot (and therefore, was not) won on the cross.
We believe that God creating us, shaping us by hand out of his own vision and image, was not enough.
We believe that God choosing to adopt us, taking us back during our runaway teen years and terrible twos, was not enough.
We believe that God promising to remain our Father forever, giving us his own last name and adding us onto his will, was not enough.

And so we hide.
Shame runs deep.
Or maybe it runs thick. Sometimes thicker than blood.

We feel like charities at best and orphans at worst.
As if God doesn't have a special love for the orphans.

Shame takes the things we enjoy most and turns it into our biggest source of pain and frustration.
Shame tells us to hide in our rooms on Mother's Day because we are not worthy of being daughters, or maybe because we are not worthy of being mothers.

God made mothers.
And God made daughters.
But God did not make shame.

So this Sunday, I'll be making a public appearance.
Partly because I have to teach Sunday school to a dozen tweens and teens.
But also because love wins.

Love wins

The earth - saturated and wet with the mood, appropriate rain falling from the cold, grey sky. The mud reminds me of red Mexican clay, but this ground is stained with a different kind of blood; a different kind and yet blood all the same.

It's the ground that saw the fates of 200,000 men, women, and children; fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters, and sons.

It's the ground that spoke of evil and now whispers of hope, fighting to believe that love really does win.

It's the ground that may forever know suffering as pilgrims leave silk flowers for their loved ones, falling to their knees in the sinking muddy earth from the weight of it all.

It's holy ground.

It's holy not because ti's the earth that Jesus walked on or bears the bush that burned and spoke, but because it is the ground that Christ died for. It tells a story of evil and sin so great that no man can bear it, yet Jesus whispers "You are no better."

It is holy because Christ died for all sin and all people and bore a hope that no man could destroy. A hope that can't be dragged into a gas chamber or buried in a ditch.

It is holy because even in the darkest hour of human history, faith stood tall. Christ, carved into prison cell walls. Men, martyred at the walls between Barracks 10 and 11, falling to their knees one final time. Bibles and communion wafers, smuggled into the gates of hell, reminding all that love wins.

And so it goes, as my feet stand at the door of a young girl's home.
Anneliese Marie Frank.

We share the same middle name and I pray that we share the same spirit.
The spirit of a God who is greater than our greatest enemy.
The spirit of grace for the fallen and forgiveness for the pushers.
The same spirit that never believed evil would win.

A walk through Berlin tells the sale - the tale of a battle fought, lost, and won.
A battle where hope appeared to falter but now stands tall, tall like the pillars that commemorate those who could stand no more, through no fault of their own.

So we remember the fall and we remember the death, and we remember the one who fell and died only to bring hope and life.

He is here and He is good

This little gem kept me company on the dozens of ours of train rides during Eurotrip 2013. I couldn't put it down.

One phrase stuck out to me more than anything - more than the recipes of American food, the tales of lakes and summers and sunshine that I longed for, the stories of families and friends that I hadn't seen in months.

There was one phrase:
He is here.
Here is here and He is good.

It'll likely end up painted on canvas in my kitchen sometime soon, overlooking the table.
The place that holds us together, feeds us, and reminds us of our own humanity.
The place of hard conversations with held hands and hot cups of tea, warm laughter over heaping plates of pasta and salad, Pinterest projects and homework projects and glue and string and tomato sauce.
It's a place where food, time, and words all pass, allowing for a community that all can be a part of.

I was in a friend's kitchen last night stirring onions, zucchini, and garlic together in a skillet as noodles boiled and the music blared.

And there it was: an explosion far off, but too close.
Sirens wailed within minutes.
We peaked outside, waiting.
After the events earlier this week, the whole nation is on high alert.

I went back to the stove, back to the comfort of rhythmic stirring and waited.
Waited for dinner to be ready.
Waited for an email telling us to close our doors and stay inside.
Waited for the smell of smoke or an all-clear or anything.

And then through the corner of my eye, I saw my friend running towards the siren wails.
And so we chased her, chased her to a car accident that looked like nobody could have survived.

Completely flipped, crushed in, slid across the black asphalt, loud enough to hear from a block away.
And a girl sitting in the grass, a thin line of blood dripping down her leg.
She stands, seats herself in the gurney, and heads off to the ER.
But she can't be the driver. She can't have actually been in that car.

The tow truck comes.
Flips the car over.
Flips it over and reveals an entirely crushed passenger side, and an intact driver's seat.
A space of safety. A hedge of protection.

He is here.
He is here and He is good.

So we go back to the table.
The place where God always is.
The place where we break bread regardless of what has happened this day, because we still need food and we still need Jesus even when hopes and dreams and relationships and grades and cars are crushed.
And we believe that He is good - even when all goes wrong, even when all goes right.

Why you can't buy grace on the clearance rack at Primark

The following is the farewell speech I gave at the Final Symposium, celebrating the end of our time in Oxford.

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I'm half British. My understanding of the UK though was some sort of strange blend of C. S. Lewis, Harry Potter, and Downton Abbey - as if all three of them had a baby, and the baby was me. I thought that by coming here, I would find some sort of connection to my ancestry. I would discover my roots. I would identify with the British people and the British culture.

 

But I didn't. Although I have loved my time here, I found that I miss Hulu, Pandora, Target, and sunshine. I miss driving a car and serving sizes the size of my face. I found that I am not British. I am an American, through and through. And that's the problem.

 It's a problem because my identity should be in Christ first.

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer talks about abandoning all that we have and all that we are until the only thing we can cling to is Christ. Christ calls us to a life of sacrifice and suffering, but all I want to do is get some In N Out and lay out by a pool.

I didn't come here to find beauty. If I am honest, I came here because I wanted to. I distinctly remember the chat I had with God that was more like a monologue. I remember boldly telling Him that I was going to apply and I was going to go to Oxford. But like all good Christians, I covered my tracks by convincing myself that I would let God lead my life by allowing Him to deny me to the program. If I was rejected, I wouldn't apply again because I was obedient, yet He and I both knew that it was only because this semester was the only time I could travel.

But our God is a God of grace, and He sent me here and He taught me things that no tutor could.

My blog's title is Finding Yofi. I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but yofi is the Hebrew word for beauty. Over the last couple of years, I have been actively seeking to find beauty in all the wrong places, all the mundane places, all the places that our chaotic lives and glamorous culture teach us to ignore. It's not hard to find beauty in Oxford. Everything is beautiful here - the shops, the libraries, the very building we are sitting in. We don't have to look far and we don't have to try hard to become settled and content in the magic and wonder.

One of our friends who we have made this term from another school was over for dinner a few weeks ago. My flatmate and I were talking about our time with Mexico Outreach, and this friend asked if Mexico was pretty. I said yes, but it's not a normal kind of pretty - as if there is some sort of secret beauty that only some people are able to understand.

And there is.

There is the beauty of Christ. There is the beauty of the cross, a murderous weapon of shame and pain that somehow has become a symbol for the last two thousand years of grace, love, and hope.

I'm finding yofi here in Oxford, but sometimes I wonder if it is too good to be true.

If it's a faith that is simple that is a faith that is best, then I've got a faith that is much too complex.

I've believed a lie that the more I know, then the better I will love, but the truth is that I am at the mercy of the God from up above.

I try to figure God out like He's a topic to study, like if I read enough books in the Gladstone Link then I will finally understand. Maybe that was also the desire of the first man. Of Adam, the guy who wanted to know what God knew. The guy who lost it all and suffered not because he represented Christ and chased after His grace, but because he identified with himself and bought the cheapest understanding he could find.

In my own life, my faith is one of how much I can learn and how much I can know. It's not the costly faith that Bonhoeffer preaches of. It's not yofi. My faith, it costs me nothing. Sometimes I even think I bought it at Primark.* In my head I have memorized a lot, but in my heart I know little of the suffering that Christ endured, little of the martyrdom that Bonhoeffer was subjected to. My God is a pocket full of sunshine, and although these Oxford skies may be grey and dreary, I risk little and expect all the blessing.

We know that knowledge isn't cheap in dollars. We know that APU charges more for two semesters than the average American makes in a year. But what if we spent the same amount of time, money, and effort on the Kingdom than we did on our diploma? I'm not saying education isn't good, and I'm not saying our school is bad - I am saying that where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also.

I encourage all of you as this chapter of our lives comes to a close to find the yofi wherever you go. Even when the food isn't good and the pub doesn't have enough ketchup. Even when the air is cold. Even when we have to be somewhere early in the morning. I encourage you to seek for the higher grace, the more expensive grace, the grace that costs us yet gives us all the more.

* Primark is a budget clothing store in the UK. Very cute. Very cheap. Very low quality.

Finding yofi

I changed my blog's web address.
Finding Yofi.
Yofi, the Hebrew word for beauty.
Finding beauty.

Finding beauty in that which beauty is easy to see - the mountains and valleys, the oceans and sunsets, the kind people and warm smiles.
Finding beauty in the ugly, in the mundane, in the difficult, and in the trivial.
Finding beauty in whatever happens. No matter what happens.

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I sat in the Lamb & Flag tonight sipping my water with lemon, a bold contrast to the traditional Oxfordian Friday night.
We went through a mental list of the most controversial topics: abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, capital punishment - everything you would not discuss at an American bar.

"Really, if you're a mom and you are going to put your kid into foster care, I think it would be better to not have been born at all. That's a terrible life." Despite our last few months together, he was completely unaware of my own past, the harsh words my mother had said of her second pregnancy and the reality of my last couple of years of childhood.

I was caught between my desire to crawl under the table and hide, and my urge to reach over it and slap him in the face.

So I spoke.
"I was fostered for two years. Now I'm at Oxford, so..."

Finding yofi.

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"Is Mexico pretty?"

My mind heart races back to the place I haven't been to in nearly a year. 

"Yes. Yes, it is" I tell him. I pause, unsure of how to transfer all that I am feeling and envisioning to him, a boy from DC. "But it's not the normal kind of pretty." He stares at me, as if there is some secret, special type of beauty.

And there is.

There's beauty in that red clay and broken glass and the little brown hand that knows nothing and everything about a guerra de narcos. 

There's beauty in the tired muscles and hot sun and sweaty skin and the hair that hasn't been washed since the other side of the border. 

There's beauty in the people of God who live waiting for the Kingdom more than I do, relying on Christ more than I need to, and finding faith in a barren land.

Finding yofi.

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Mat Kearney is standing on the stage, serenading my heart with a song that speaks right to my soul. 

It's simple and it's cool. There's no pretense; it just cuts deep, speaking what we all think but are afraid to say. 

I am completely glued to the words, the acoustics, the melody, and the gingerly placed allusions to the One I love.  My body, my heart, my mind, my soul - they're all dancing and swinging to the beat, falling in love with the sounds of delight and Truth.

Finding yofi.

When bigger things aren't coming

Y'all, I'm gonna shoot straight.
I will not be an RA next year.
I am devastated.

I have been praying, wishing, and hoping over this past year for the Lord to bless me in this specific way, at this specific time.
And what do you do when it feels like the blessings have run dry?
Despite all that you have and all that you are, what do you say to the God who lived and died for you, but isn't enough to settle your woes?

And while I am surrounded by beautiful people who mean the best, somehow insults to my school's judgment calls, "You'll get 'em next year" and "Got has bigger plans for you" doesn't fit the bill. This is what I have always wanted. I stand there silent and stoic, but oh, am I wailing; beating my chest like a three year old who feels entirely out of control.

I am racked with anxiety, fear, and defeat.
Where will I work?
Where will I live?
Who will I live with?
How will I pay for all of this nonsense?
How will I arrange all of this while I am backpacking through Europe?
What about all of my hopes and dreams and plans?
What about my resume?
What about my pride?
What have I done wrong?

I make some immediate attempts to rectify the situation to no avail. It's still dark in England.
I've still cried about it more than I've praised about it.

Living abroad magnifies the problem. Makes it harder to solve, harder to mourn and to recover with my usual vices. Being displaced makes it easier to turn to Yahweh when my comforts are 7000 miles and 8 time zones apart; but I don't realize this, not at first, and maybe not still. I begin to question my ability to live abroad at all. I begin to question my entire life call as perhaps not a call at all, but the off-key sound of an un-tuned trumpet.

And suddenly an opportunity that was about to define my entire year is shattered.
And maybe that's the problem.

Maybe I'm like the little three year old more than I'd care to admit.
A child who made the little into the huge.
A child who simply hasn't gotten her way.
Who thinks she has better plans than The Way.
A disgruntled daughter who thinks that if she shakes her first at the Almighty, things will go well.
A daughter who forgot who is her Father.

We sat around the dinner table tonight. Four of us, all from the same school, but never having met until England. We shared stories about the rather-forget times in middle school and laughed at how ridiculous we were, how things that were so silly mattered so much. In all his wisdom, 21 year-old Peter exclaimed, "If I could go back, I'd slap middle school Peter in the face and tell him to buck up and stop throwing a fit. These things I got so upset and worried about don't matter. Bigger things are coming."

Maybe not all is lost.

Do I really want an opportunity, no matter how grand, that isn't what God wanted for me?
The God who knows the residents I would have gotten, the stress I would have been under, the other opportunities I would have.
That doesn't mean I won't meet difficult people, have times of difficulty and despair, or come across something I will enjoy even more - but it does mean that there is a God who understands infinitely more than I could fathom.

I am not so sure that God has a specific road map for my life. Maybe He does. Maybe He doesn't. Maybe it's not my job to figure His job out.

Maybe my theology prof was right when he said, "We would pray for whatever God gives us if we knew everything He knows."

Foreigners in the frost

This picture was taken last week at the Marble Arch in London. 

Fun dresses, tights, and jackets that are promising of spring.

Y'all, it was (kinda) sunny with a high of 55. What more could a island girl want on for her birthday celebrations? (Besides the birds to go a way. Nobody likes a park pigeon.)

Well, my birthday came and went - and with it, the warmth fled.
It's a wind chill of 15 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't even know what that means. There is snow and hail and I am starting to doubt that global warming is an actual problem. Please, Globe, please do warm, and do it quickly.

It's supposed to be 90 back home in Cali this week. Half of me thinks "Well, I'll take the snow and the sleet over heatstroke" while the other part of me longs to be back in the sunshine and hot, dry air of the foothills. Back to the warm smiles and familiar faces and long afternoons sitting on the Walk with a reading list and a notebook. Back to In-N-Out, authentic Mexican cuisine, and a stove that reads on the familiar Fahrenheit rather than gas marks. A place where I am not constantly translating temperatures and currencies and distances and pronunciations or cultural norms in my head.

Sometimes I think I am not cut out for this whole "world traveler" thing.

But maybe that's the point.
I am not a worldly traveler, defined by the foods and accents and tourist hot-spots of a new place.
My expeditions are defined by the people I meet. The neighbor that laughs when we try to say his name. The new friends at the dinner table who do not understand why we always ask for the salt. The student who reads economics (as the Oxfordians say) and does not understand why I believe in an economy of mercy, but will stay up late at night to hear about it in my living room. The pastor who picked his whole life up from the sunny land that I love and came to a country so desolate and dry, searching for a God that they did not know the name of; a God that makes all of their magical history, military success, and beautiful buildings look like rubbish. Maybe He's the One I am meeting the most.

And suddenly, it doesn't feel so cold.