Worse Than 30

I turned 30 in November. Some of you may remember my husband's beautiful tribute to me on that day (yeah right).

When you turn 30, people freak out for you.

Their questions start pouring in. "Is it weird?" "Do you feel old?" "Are you freaking out?" Or, "I remember turning 30, I cried for three days straight!"

For the most part, I let other people do the "oh-my-gosh-she's-getting-older" freak-out for me, because it seemed other people were more concerned about the big day than I was. I played the role of a slightly shell-shocked 30-year-old graduate, but deep down, I was happy to be turning thirty. I was un-phased. The number thirty gives you more credibility. More stability. I felt like people were already taking me more seriously. I felt instantly wiser and more grounded. 30. A good sound number for a new mom and wife of almost nine years. Turning 30 was nothing. I decided that day- I loved getting older! I would relish the dwindling years of my life! I would age without worry! Without shame! Without fear!

I decided that day that getting older is enchanting and beautiful and rich.  Getting older is complex and simple all in the same breath.  Getting older is the great-adventure of life. I was so settled in my mind about aging...

UNTIL LAST NIGHT.

Last night, my friends, the unthinkable happened. And there I was begging the sweet Lord to please let me be 21 again. Because what happened last night was way worse than 30. What happened last night shook me to the core. What happened last night made me want to run, not walk, to the nearest fountain of youth. What happened last night was this...

My first gray hair. A long, silvery, thick, coarse, old-lady-that has 13 cats- gray hair.

I was traumatized.

The face of trauma.

Ryan immediately plucked it from my head and I immediately stuck it in a zip lock baggie. I don't really know what you're supposed to do with your first gray hair, but it seemed way too monumental too simply let it float to the floor or to simply toss it in the trash can. I assume I will keep it stored away with my two permanent teeth that my orthodontist pulled (without warning and without anesthetics) in the eighth grade. I'll keep it with the door stopper that the Romanian doctor stuck into my cast when I dislocated my achilles tendon from my heel, while living in the middle of no-where Romania. I will keep it with the one report card I have from junior high. And with the love letters from high school boyfriends. I will keep it in my memory box with all the other memorabilia that brings back horrifying or joyous memories.

Note: this will be categorized under the HORRIFYING memories!!!

We had a football party at the house last night and I told my girlfriends about the gray hair. My friend Becca thought I was "being dramatic." As if I am ever dramatic! So I went and got the zip lock baggie. Apparently they thought it was funny that I was saving it. But come on people... you gotta have memory standards. I have no idea where Annie's hospital bracelet is, but I'll be darned if I lose my first gray hair to the Dyson. So I showed everyone my first gray hair and that's when Becca said, "Dang, that thing's been growing forever! I thought you were just being dramatic."

On both accounts... thanks a lot Becca!

No- I'm not being dramatic Becca. I have a gray hair. A big, long, 'been-growing-forever' gray hair.

And let's be honest... I've scoured my scalp since then and found three more.

And with all my heart I wanted to write something inspiring or challenging or insightful today for you... but I just can't. I'm dealing. I'm coping. I'm begging God for my youth to be returned to me. I'm wondering if I need to start getting my hair colored. I'm wondering if I am stressed or if the hairs are just coming out because I'm truly on the downhill spiral of old age! I'm wondering at what rate they grow and how I'm supposed to find the ones on the back of my head? I'm wondering what's next. False teeth? Prolapsed body parts? Poor vision? Ugly feet?

I gotta say. Thirty was easy.

This is WAY worse than 30.

The Day the Snow Fell.

I recently visited my parents in Albuquerque and desperately needed some time away from civilization. Without going too deeply into my own demons can I just say that sometimes being a part of "Church" sucks? Every few years it seems someone else I love is fired from a church in such a demeaning and hurtful way that they and their families are terribly wounded; division between the people left over in the rubble is inevitable; and once again, being a part of a church feels like a cruel joke. I catch my self asking God, "Really? This was really what you had in mind? There's not a better way?"

Of course the answer is, "No, there is no better way." People are people; prone to make bad mistakes, prone to wound each other, prone to leave rubble in our wake. For better or worse, we grieve this fact, ask tough questions, require fairness and dignity from those who make such decisions in churches, and then we decide, "Do I take off and go no where at all? Do I go somewhere new and wait for the new people to fail. Or do I do the hard work of staying put and working through this with my current faith community?" At the end of the day I believe the answer for each person- in different seasons of their lives- is different.

One of my favorite memories from childhood is going to Six Flags on Easter Sunday morning. My mom had just been fired from her first church out of seminary. I was in fourth grade. I didn't really understand everything, but I knew mom and dad were hurt. And I knew, for a season, we weren't going to go to church. Instead, I remember dad telling us why Easter was important that morning and reading something from the Bible and then loading us up in our green Aerostar minivan and driving us to Six Flags. I have to admit, at first, I was slightly traumatized. I was sure there were secret, undercover, Baptist press writers that would show up and take pictures of us like religious papparazzi and we'd show up on the front page of our local Baptist paper, "Blasphemy: Southwestern Seminary Graduates take their daughters to Six Flags on Easter Sunday." I was sure they would never find jobs again and even more sure that I would be written up in a religious newspaper with a mugshot of me riding a batman roller coaster ride. I tried to be holy that day at Six Flags. Not too much smiling or joy in my turkey leg on the day that Jesus stopped being dead and started being a ghost that popped up all over the countryside. I was convinced that this sin might be unforgivable. But then, as the day went on, the park stayed nearly empty, and I rode some roller coasters two and three times without ever even getting out of my seat!  Between cotton candy and Batman and the ride that just drops you in a free-fall, I forgot about the sin and realized that going to Six Flags in the Bible Belt on Easter Sunday was one of the greatest ideas my parents had ever had in their whole entire lives.

I realize now that it was a season. For a season- my parents needed to be away from church. For a season, sometimes that's the best answer. Turkey legs and roller coaster rides.

Ultimately though, whether you hide, run, or stay put in the wake of being hurt by a church I think it's important to remember what makes us rather human is that we are rather human together. Eventually the goal is to get back in the game, get back in community with people, get back into the painfully-beautiful mess of doing spiritual life with others. To experience church is to experience the community that Jesus himself modeled. It's the heartbeat of being human.

Still, I will be the first to go there kicking and screaming. Because the truth is, sometimes the ugliness of the church sucks. And it sucks the life out of us. And just a few weeks ago I was ready to quit church all over again. There is much to be said about the under belly of the church, the hurt souls it has left in its wake, and the responsibility of sane, integritous Christians to step up and stop this cycle of spiritual violence from happening. Perhaps that will be my second book. (My first book has way too many references to cupcakes and road trips gone bad to really qualify as a road map for a call to integrity in our churches). So for now, I just want to say that my friend Lauri said something that helped me a lot. She said, "Sometimes we need to mourn a person in the church. The loss of a relationship or the likes." Like a leader who embezzles money or has a slew of affairs, or some other tragic event. "Sometimes we need to mourn the loss of a specific church."  The childhood church. The one where you first heard Jesus whisper to you as an adult. The one you have to let go of.

And sometimes, she said, "We just got to mourn the whole d*mn thing."

I went to Albuquerque to mourn the whole darn thing. Past, present, future. All the pain it has caused my family and so many others. All the pain it has caused in the past and all the pain the church will cause in the future. That is not to say the church is all bad. It isn't. I would also be the first to say that my communities of faith- both now and in the past have been life-giving, beautiful expressions of Christ in this world.  Still, every few years I find myself slightly over whelmed with the current religious state of the union. I feel the desire to quit it all and go work at a surf shop and raise my daughter in a tiny cottage near the ocean somewhere and spend the rest of my days retreating by the water.

I have vowed not to quit church. Not a particular church. But church church. The idea of existing with others in love and unity. Drawing close to Jesus Christ and living for something beyond myself and family. Quitting is easy. Staying in is hard. And sometimes... mourning the whole darn thing is the only thing to do.

So I went to Albuquerque. Snuck away to Santa Fe. Checked into a hotel room. And began to write about the climate of the church and the things I have experienced this year in churches across the country that make me want to pluck my eyeballs out and then I wrote about my friends who were just hurt by the church and then I started thinking about my family and our own painful experiences, the negative comments I get from Christians on a regular basis as they judge and sum me up on stage, and by the time I was done I had worked back to the Salem Witch trials and the crusades and I mourned the whole darn thing. I needed to. I needed to grieve what I have seen these past years traveling from church to church.  I needed to grieve the people that have been hurt. I needed to grieve my own hurts. I literally just went to Santa Fe to grieve what I have seen while being in the trenches.  I cried for hours. Uncontrollable streams of tears.

I fell asleep in a puddle of tears...

and I woke up the next morning to an earth covered in a beautiful, thick, white blanket of snow.

I hadn't done a lot of listening to God the night before. But I think He had. He listened to me. And the next morning he answered. Sometimes our tears cover the earth and then God covers the tears with snow. He lays them to rest under something beautiful and cleansing and pure and new.

I laid in that hotel bed. Opened up the two little doors. Cranked the heater up. Turned on Sufjan's Christmas album. Brewed coffee. And sat on the bed, under a pile of blankets, watching snow fall to the ground for three straight hours.

I caught myself smiling at the beauty of it all. At the impeccable timing. That snow covers a multitude of ugly things and gives us a new reason to esteem them is a miracle.

A miracle I needed.

I headed out later that day and drove up and down little roads to explore.

These are a few of my favorite pictures from the day the snow fell.

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Space

My prayer this new year is for space. I want space in my closets. I want to see underneath my bed again. I want space in my bathroom. I'm tired of taking Advil that expired in 2006- it grosses me out and I'm convinced it's waging war against my liver and I will suffer from an early life ending disease because of it. I want space in my freezer- I really have no good explanation for the three gallons of Blue Bell ice cream and the nursing mom's Freezer to go Pouch that is sitting in there. I haven't nursed in over 15 months. Ryan says I want space on my computer, though for the life of me, I cannot wrap my tiny mind around the idea of non-existent space. I want more space in the trunk of my car, in my daughter's room, and I could use a little more space in my blue jeans which are admittedly not fitting so well these days.

More than all of that, I want space in my heart. Space in my brain. My soul. My schedule. My agenda. My desires.

I just want some space. Not the kind of space where I scream at the world in a selfish flurry- "GIVE ME MY SPACE," though I have my fair share of those moments too.

But the other kind of space. The kind of space you give to someone who has just passed out in the middle of the mall and everyone seems to be staring at. The kind of space that allows the person on the ground to breathe.

The kind of space you give to a row of heirloom tomatoes planted in your garden. The space to grow.

The kind of space you give to an artist who is painting a canvas. The space to create something out of nothing.

The kind of space you give to a surgeon. The space to stop a bleed and mend a wound.

The kind of space you give to your grandma when she is rearranging the furniture for the fifth time. The space to try something different.

The kind of space you give to your almost two-year-old as she reads her first book out loud by herself. The space to explore like a big girl.

The kind of space you make in your home so that really, your home is not just your home. The space to welcome in.

I'm just looking for some space this year. Some free places in my heart, my schedule, and my world where I can let new things flourish. Places where life can grow. Places where oxygen sits idle and sun shines brightly and the earth is content to wait on whatever is beneath the surface of the soil- whatever might be waiting to grow and bloom.

I've never been the kind of girl that does real well with mission statements or broad sentences that supposedly capture my identity and sum up my purpose. But I guess this is my mission statement right now: I am cultivating space. And I pray the same for you. Space in your heart and mind. Space to breathe again and to be real again. Space to feel. To laugh. To cry. To be challenged.  To be inspired.  Space to take a deep breath and just be.

The Magical Kingdoms we Call Home.

As I reflect upon National Cupcake, Sprinkles, and Other Happy Things Week  (ah- just saying that gives me a big smile and great satisfaction) I think about the many things that make me happy when I am in my own home. Clean, crisp sheets. Warm fuzzy slippers. Mashed potatoes. A bubble bath. Chocolate cream pie. And my new cinnamon apple spice candle (from the amazing people in the town of Taft, CA and the Jesus Shack- promoters and people who made us feel so at home.)

The ticking of the silver clock on the wall. The hum of the refrigerator. The clicking that happens outside my bedroom window before the air conditioning kicks on and sends a blustery blast of cold air into my bed.  The sound of the crickets in the grass. The blankets piled around me for warmth. The smell of clean laundry.  And the tenderness of the rocking chair that I rock Annie to sleep in.

The cracks in my shower. I know them. They are my cracks.

The order of my closet and the space under my bed reserved for crafts and boxes of ribbon and tissue paper.

The stains on my carpet.

The feel of the heavy wooden chairs around my dining room table. Oh my gosh- I have a dining room table! How crazy is that? I feel way too young to own my own dining room table. Yet, there it sits. Majestic. Heavy. Firmly rooted into my dining room. It reminds me, sometimes, that I am a real grown up. I own my own table.

For better or worse, these things belong to me. The cracks, scratches, stains, strange noises, unique smells, and unique flair. It's only a 900 square foot apartment. But it is mine. It is my mecca. My comfort. My joy. My security. My niche that holds me tight, secure, joyfully, away from the rest of the world.

It is my home.

***

Along the way- as we have struggled to make ends meet- numerous people in our church have offered to let Ryan, Annie, and I move in with them to save money on rent.  While this offer is incredibly generous- and might be the most wise thing for us to do- we have never been able to.

Because although it is small, and there is nothing too special about it- we call this space ours.

We have created it. Worn it in. And loved well within its walls.

We have fought hard in this place. We have cried a bit. And done a lot of movie watching and pizza eating.

We brought a tiny baby home to this place. We called her Annie, and in the walls of this small apartment, we learned what it looked like to lose ourselves in the tiny eyes and fingers of a critter so small, even her crib seemed to swallow her whole.

Now we build tents here.  We play dress up. And at night, we fall asleep saying the names of all the people we love who live outside the towering walls of our magical kingdom.

Matt. Kemmy. Greggers. Ravis. Yosh. LALALALALALALALA.

***

This is our home. This is our kingdom. This is where we dream big...

and when those dreams fall a part and crumble,

this is where we come back to dry our tears. to mend our wounds. to become a family again.

This is the place we call home.

***

This week, take a look around your house and be grateful for your home. What is it that you love the most? Leave a comment describing three details about your home that bring a smile to your face and WIN the first prize I've ever given away on my blog! Some of my favorite things that I keep around the house: Starbucks Holiday Coffee, New Candles, and great Christmas music from some of my favorite INO recording artists.

(Winner will be randomly selected Friday afternoon, November 19th. So please check back to see if it's you!)

***

While I am remembering what I love about my own home this week, I am ever mindful of the rising rate of homelessness in our country and around the world. There are many people who have no place to call home this holiday season.

For these men, women, children, and families... their last hope is a local homeless shelter or mission.

Want to give someone a home?

Join me THIS Friday, November 19th, to learn more about the homeless among us.

Be a part of giving back to local homeless shelters and missions all across the country.

Hope to the Hungry Live Webcast!

Friday, November 19th.

Share the link with as many people as you can.

Invite your friends.

And please join me for a profoundly life-changing day as people all over the country donate money and time to their local homeless shelters.

"Hope to the Hungry is a cooperative effort of rescue missions and homeless shelters to raise awareness and funding to help feed and care for those who are homeless in communities across America. These efforts are highlighted in a live 12 hour webcast on Friday November 19th."

Join us at http://live.mediasocial.tv/hopetothehungry

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