early.

There is just something about early mornings that get me.
Move me.
Challenge me.
Refresh me.
Change me.

The challenge is always - ALWAYS - the constant fight with my snooze button. I literally have to set three different alarms, all five minutes apart with an increasingly more obnoxious ringtone each time. I have tried all the tricks of the trade...putting my alarm across the room so I have to actually get out of bed to turn it off, rewards for if I do actually make it out of bed on time, going to bed at an extremely early hour. But no matter what, the battle rages on.

Most mornings I don't make it. I roll over, hide the phone under my pillow, turn off the alarm completely, block out the world and the rising sun around me. I lose the battle and happily slumber on until I finally decide to make the commitment of letting my feet touch the ground.

But there are those mornings - so few and far in-between - that by sheer forcing of my will (and, you know, God's grace) that I don't roll over at the sound of my first alarm. (Okay, okay - usually I don't even hear my first alarm. Or the second. So let's make that the third alarm. Yes, I don't roll over at the sound of my third alarm.) A few deep breathes, mental reminders that it will be worth it and I literally drag myself out of bed.

And. it. is. always. worth. it.

There is just something about early mornings that get me. Waking up with the sun, sharing in the silence that unfolds in those hours before the world begins to stir. All my senses are heightened - everything seems deeper and fresher and newer.

These mornings are so grace-filled for me. They lack all the hustle and bustle of a normal race-against-the-clock morning and are saturated with a thankfulness and stillness that stays with me the whole day. A sweet holiness that grounds me. A quiet sacredness that fills me.

I am not naturally a morning person. In fact, there is nothing natural about it for a girl who loves sleep as much as I do. But this supernatural quality is why I find them so rejuvenating. Inspiring.

So I will continue to fight for them, these grace mornings of mine. Because it is in this sacred silence - the silence of the heart - where He speaks.

words.

Getting lost in a book is one of my absolute most favorite things to do. Words can carry such hopeful weight and terrifying beauty. I love when people who see the world differently then I do use their words to challenge my thoughts, beliefs and emotions. When their words can tug on my heart strings or stretch my mind. Here are a few people's words who did that for me this summer...


"People are willing to be brave when they admit their smallness within the enormity of the world, and  the best way to understand our smallness is so leave our comfort zones and start exploring, one foot in front of the other."
 -Tsh Oxenreinder

"To avoid unseemly places is to avoid God's grace in its most abundant and often scandalous form."
-Kris Rocke

"It's sloppy theology to think that all suffering is good for us, or that it's a result of sin. All suffering can be used for good, over time, after mourning and healing, by God's graciousness. But sometimes it's just plain loss, not because you needed to grow, not because life or God or anything is teaching you any kind of lesson."
-Shauna Niequist

"God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice."
-Elisabeth Elliot

"My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?"
-C. S. Lewis

"Either Jesus is on the throne ruling all things for you or this is a good as it gets."
-Tim Keller (on suffering and sovereignty)

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing, live your way into the answer." 
-Rainer Maria Rilke

"The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun - but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise." 
-Jerry Sittser

Bill.

"and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee them." 

-Isaiah 35:10

It is not often you meet someone for a short amount of time that has such a strong and lasting impact on your life. Often times, I believe, it is people that have something that you yourself long for - a specific type of character that refreshes you by simply being in their presence.

One of those people for me was Bill.

Bill showed up in Managua last week to spend ten days on a work team, doing construction each morning and neighborhood outreach ministry each afternoon. He was not your average "work teamer", being somewhere around eighty years old, but he quickly proved to us all that age is really only a number. On his first day in Managua he told me, "I just wanted to see a different part of the world. And I wanted to prove to people that old people can still do things! We can still go places!"

To put it simply, Bill exuded joy. It was something that was just a part of him, a natural state of being. Even in the hot (HOT) Managua heat, even in the long days and no AC nights, even in the working and the playing and the lack of Spanish - Bill still had a way of loving, serving and caring for people deeply and widely and wholly.

It was evident that this joy and love for others came as an overflow for His love for Christ. He never ceased talking about Jesus. Bill saw Jesus everywhere - in the wall we were building, in the basketball courts we were painting, in the faces of the Nicaraguans we were serving. His simple yet profoundly deep love for Jesus was reflected in all areas of his life.

On the second or third day of knowing Bill, that I found out tragedy had struck his life only ten months earlier. Last October, Bill woke up to find his wife of fifty-one years had a stroke and passed away in the middle of the night, suddenly. It was shocking to me to find that something so terrifyingly sad had happened not even a year ago. You would never know this upon meeting him. 

As he talked to me about his wife, Janice, he told me about her likes and dislikes, her hobbies, what they enjoyed doing together, her love for the Lord and her family and how not a day goes by that he does not think about her or miss her. Not surprisingly, Bill shared with me that there is one word that comes to mind when he thinks of Janice: joy. He spoke of this joy she had as if it were a special gift, something he never wanted to forget about her.

Above everything else, the reason I was so drawn to Bill's character was because he held this sweet sense of hope. And without hope, I am learning, we are left desperate for something more then what life generally offers. Tim Keller writes that "the erosion or loss of hope is what makes suffering unbearable." It is obvious that even in the midst of a tragic turn in Bill's life, he never lost sight of hope. And it is this hope in Christ that brought about the joy that seeped from his heart.

Without knowing, Bill taught me many things last week - but high among those simple lessons of grace, thankfulness, and laughter was this:

never forget to hope.

Hope can brought about in even the smallest of ways - a simple touch, a few kind words, a genuine smile. And the joyful, hope-filled smile did not leave Bill's face the entire week.

surrender.

Having the luxury of time to write has become a thing of the past. I often find myself "writing" in my mind, late at night when the insomnia kicks in. Beautiful words come and lull me to sleep before I ever have the chance to write them down. Before I know it, morning has arrived and I'm tired and I need coffee and I'm off to conquer the world. At least, this is how it feels most days. (And I generally fail at conquering the world.)

This summer has been one giant whirlwind of traveling, camps, reading books that change me, physical labor, spiritual labor, laughing til it hurts, lack of sleep, mental breakdowns, sweet conversations, seeing people I haven't in a while, not seeing people I normally see all the time, missing South Carolina, falling more in love with Nicaragua - and amidst it all discovering more and more of this thing we call grace. 

Surrender: to give up, abandon, relinquish. Two thousand fourteen has been a year surrendering for me. Expectations. Timelines. Relationships. Ministry. Schedule. Heart. Certainty. Comfort. But it is in the surrendering that I find peace. When I attempt to hold on, I am unable to free fall into the abyss of grace. And I have found that it is only there that I can live fully. Though often I fight it, grasp at control, lose sight of hope, retreat into my walls - He is always there to remind me that I can trust Him.

And that in surrendering, the eyes of my heart are opened to see Jesus for who He really is...and He is always good.

May.

So the month of May happened. I can hardly believe that it's over (this longest month ever) and I can hardly believe that it actually ended. Do you ever have those months - the ones that happen so fast yet drag on unbearably...but then when that new number one of the next month rolls around, you realize how desperate you were to see that fresh start?

I always like the start of a new month. A new thirty days. (Or thirty one. Or twenty nine. But let's not get technical here...) A new beginning, middle and end. A new breath of fresh air. New lists to be made. New plans to made. (And then, new plans to be scratched out and changed again). A new month to be scribbled at the top of each journal page. It was not until last Sunday morning, when I wrote "1st of June" in my journal and let out that sigh of relief, that I realized how long this last month was. That I realized how desperately I needed something new. Now don't get me wrong, a lot of great things happened during the (what I'm now calling) Longest May of My Life. Some of these things include (but are not limited to):

Attending Campamento de Crecimiento (aka Growth Camp, aka Vida Joven Managua Leader Weekend)

Celebrated Young Life's last club of the year with "A Night at the Oscars"

Parents and brother came to visit for some surfing and beach relaxation

And got to spend Mother's Day celebrating this babe of a mom!

On Tuesdays, continued to help out with a local Vida Joven (Young Life) club at a Nica university

Moved into my very own place...

...and welcomed my new roommate to her new home in Nicaragua!

Then started to do super grown up things like make fresh orange juice

Continued to have some amazing Cabin Time meetings on Fridays after school with some freshmen girls from the American Nicaraguan School

Had a pre-celebration birthday scavenger hunt for my dear friend and teammate, Jen (complete with rhyming clues, embarrassing bike ride decor and challenges to complete at each location)

And celebrated this sweetness turning a year old

So yes, all of these (and many more) super fun and exciting things made for a lot of laughs and smiles - but all being crammed within a thirty-one day time span was enough to make my head spin. So I welcome you, month of June - with your own up and downs and twists and turns and business and relaxation and going and coming and just living life.

A Franciscan Blessing.

May God bless you with discomfort...

     At easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships

     So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger...

     At the injustice, oppression

    And exploitation of people

      So that you may wish for justice,

      Freedom and peace.

 

May God bless you with tears...

     To shed for those who suffer pain,

    Rejection, hunger and war.

      So that you may reach out your hand to comfort

      Them and turn their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness...

     To believe that you can

    Make a difference in this world,

      So that you can do what others

      Claim cannot be done.

questions.

It has become hard to write recently.

How do I write about something that my heart has yet to work out? That still makes my head spin? It keeps me awake at night, a constant string of thoughts bouncing around in my mind, much like the ping pong game that never ends.

Before I moved to Costa Rica and then to Nicaragua, they told me about culture shock. They told me about how tired I would be all the time. They told me about how making decisions would suddenly become difficult. They told me about how my capacity to complete everything on my to-do list in one day suddenly would become impossible because some days, just going to the bank or the grocery store can take hours. They told me about the decrease of real, everyday community. They told me about the cultural differences: that being late is normal, that rice and beans is for breakfast, that men will stare, that shorts just aren't worn in public (no matter how hot it gets).

I feel as though I was fully prepared for all these things and more. And after a 10 month stint of language school in Costa Rica, where most of my transitioning consisted of laughing off the tiredness and indecisiveness and counting every mistake made as an adventure, I felt even more prepared for Nicaragua.

But was I wasn't expecting, what I wasn't prepared for, what hits me everyday like a ton of bricks is the questions. The questions that have rocked me to the core of who I am and what I think. The questions that before now, I was never allowed to think about. Or never needed to think about. Or never wanted to think about. Or some mixture of all of those.

Questions about myself, my faith, my theology, my God suddenly become popping up left and right as I began to experience life in Nicaragua. As I began to experience a new world beyond the sweet little Southern city I lived for 23 years of my life. Some days it feels like everything I thought I had figured out is wrong. And it is terrifying. So when the questions first began to come, I stuffed them down (knowingly and unknowingly) - I didn't want to think about them. But they kept coming and they keep coming and I am still unsure with what to do with them or where to turn with them.

Still, I am learning to lean into the questions. To let them come, to let myself ponder them. I am learning that questioning and doubting and being unsure are not the antithesis of faith. In fact, they may be the portal that opens the doors for a deepened faith, a wider view of God's kingdom and a sweeter taste of the grace of Jesus.

I recently read a book about "the questions". This is what the author writes, in her conclusion:
"And yet slowly I'm learning to love the questions...and slowly I am learning to live the questions, to follow the teachings of a radical rabbi [Jesus], to live in an upside-down kingdom in which kings are humbled and servants exalted, to look for God in the eyes of the orphan and the widow, the homeless and the imprisoned, the poor and the sick. My hope is that if I am patient, the questions themselves will dissolve into meaning, the answers won't matter so much anymore, and perhaps it will all make sense to me on some distant ordinary day."

This is my hope and this is my prayer - that the questions would keep coming. That I would not shun them away in fear but that I would let them enter in, stay a while and keep my faith alive. That I would know and believe that the hope is not in the answers - hope is found in the questions themselves.