2016:: my heart.

Ah, the classic summing up of 2016 blog post. How quaint and cliche! I know, I know. I actually try to stay away from these in order to avoid the assumption that I have some sort of new take on life that will restructure the year and all the bad (and good) that occurred within it. This year in particular brought with it a lot of "realizations" that feel more like common sense than life changing truth, and in my pride I want to keep myself from blogging until I have something new and profound to say. But ironically, one of the things I learned this year was that sometimes I don't need new truth, I need to be reminded of the old ones. I need to be reminded that I am chosen, I am free, I am worth wanting. That I have already been made a new creation in God's grace, and even though I act out of my sin nature still (because the old me is all I know), that God continually, patiently, daily introduces me to and reminds me of the new Bethany that I am now. And as I walk in deeper understanding of God and the gospel, I walk into a new and deeper understanding of myself and how I bear Christ's image. And it is such incredible grace. "Novem te, novem me."

So without further ado, here are the things that the beautiful, chaotic mess of 2016 taught me::

Never apologize for loving people. My heart is always worried about making people uncomfortable. About whether or not this compliment, or that hug will make others think I'm weird or too much to deal with. Finally, I realized that if I spend all my time trying to predict how other people want me to act, I never get around to actually being me. And I realized that you never have any idea how you fit into someone's story, but as I walk in and out of the pages of peoples' lives I want my time there to be good. So speak truth, friends. Ask questions with the intention of caring about the answer. Give hugs. Write letters. Even when you're concerned it might be risky. You could be part of dispelling darkness and lies, and even when you don't know it, it's a beautiful thing to be a part of.

People give off starlight, especially when they're doing things they love. Watch them. THIS. I am surrounded by talented friends. They are intellectual, creative, artistic, have beautiful voices, can wax for hours on end about philosophical concepts, and put their hearts on paper in ways that continue to amaze me with every passing day. In those moments, they are alight with passion and promise and the unspoken realization that they are doing exactly what they were created to do. That kind of light is addicting, in the faith renewing, Christ glorifying, gospel type of way. And it has a crazy habit of making the people it touches rush to follow their passions too.

Everyone has a story. You don't need to know it, to respect it. I encounter image bearers daily. Some of them are kind and compassionate, and some of them are crabby, mean, and rough around the edges. They're the people who cut in front of me on the road that I scream at, and the family who shoves past me in the grocery store to take the last box of my favorite cereal. They infuriate me and make me want to scream and turn into a 5 year old and break things. And they remind me that I have absolutely no idea what's going on. At all. They're living a story I'm not a part of, and they could be having the worst day of their life. And even if I never see them again, for the 10 seconds that I operate within their world I can respect that their story matters, and not make it harder by shoving them back.

Jesus works in your life & doesn't seem to particularly care whether you want him to or not. Like, at all. I've tried everything. I've begged the Lord to change things, sulked because for some reason I thought THAT would change his mind, gone to church, stayed away from church, checked off my quiet time, told him I wanted His will done, told Him I never wanted to speak to Him again, and in the midst of all of it He continues to perform His quiet, consistent, loving renovation of my heart. It is painful and awful and horrible at times, but with each new sunrise He pulls me closer to who I am meant to be, and deeper into His love. And I've learned it's easier to just go along with it, and stop fighting. The ocean does not stop rolling just because I have planted my feet in the sand.

The things you get excited about, that light your heart up, are connected to your passions. They matter. No matter how small. I got into an argument with my best friend the other day because he said the phrase "well, what gets me excited doesn't really matter. It's things like video games and talking about book characters and analyzing big concepts that tie us together." And then he looked at me like he hadn't just said "yeah, what makes my heart beat faster is actually the meta-narrative weaving throughout all of humanity that shows up in stories and helps us realize what it means to be human." And then I threw a pillow at his face. Those things, no matter how small, matter. They are important. Pay attention.

Drink coffee to be functional. Drink tea to be cozy. My favorite memory from the semester is a night that I spent curled up in a friend's dorm room, drinking tea, as he, I, and two of our other friends read books together under fairy lights and just listened to the night pass. Associate good memories with tangible things, and when life gets hard and bad memories take hold, run back to the things that remind you of good. Like cups of tea and cozy rooms. Yes, we should always run to Christ first. But sometimes grace and peace on a bad night means holding a warm cup of tea with both hands, smelling the caramel as it wafts out of the mug, and remembering that all this cozy means that the bad doesn't last forever.

Take pictures. Lots of them. Live in the moment. But take pictures that matter. It's more than views. It's trying to capture that feeling of sitting around a table with your best friends, and knowing that you are known and know them in return. Or the light in someone's eyes as they open a gift that's perfect. Or watch a sunset. It's hard to capture, but those pictures and memories are worth holding onto.

Life is hard. Don't make it harder. Be kind, to strangers and to friends. Offer hope. Let those who don't have any borrow some of yours. Be patient. Lend out books. Share joy. Hold your tongue, and stand up for those who are unable to do so themselves. Fight for the weak. Fight for the broken. And love hard.

My worst was never meant to be compared to peoples' best. I scroll through Instagram every day and more often than not think things like "I'll never be that pretty, or that creative, or that adventurous, or that successful, or that spiritual." Because I know myself and my faults and my sins and my failures too intimately to ever think I have my life together. But my failures were never meant to be compared to other peoples' successes. Everyone is living a story. Everyone fails. We just don't broadcast it. Give yourself grace to have highs and lows, and remember that everyone else does to. Even when that's not what pictures reflect.

Transparency about what hurts leads to community. Be careful. But be honest. The friends that stuck around and became family know my heart, in all its brokenness and shattered pieces. They coaxed me out of darkness. It's the moment of "oh, you feel that to?!" that C.S. Lewis talks about. But that can only happen when we're honest about what we're struggling with. I'm not saying broadcast your story to the world. I'm saying let people shine light into your dark spots. And watch how much glory happens when it does. Because usually when one person starts being honest, it catches like fire.

It's okay to not grow up. Okay. Do adulthood and jobs and school and graduation and maturity and all the other things. But don't lose sight of childlike wonder. Get excited about beautiful sunsets and new books and puppy butts. Laugh for no reason. Dance in your bedroom. Find the bright spots in every day.

Darkness is necessary for light. This. This is the lesson I have been running from, fighting, and writhing underneath for an entire year now. In order to find the light, there has to be darkness. There has to be bad. There HAS to be. Because without those deep, dark, meaningless nights why on earth would I long for the sunrise? This year there has been an abundance of darkness, both in my life and on a global scale. And while it's been awful and horrible and I've hated it. But I have watched people step up and knit themselves together to form bonds in incredible ways. I have watched the world fight for the hurting, as my friends fight for me. I have grown attached, accustomed, in love with the sunrise because the sun just keeps rising, no matter how deep the night. And God's glory has been brilliant. It always is. But I see it most clearly at my darkest. And I become thankful for the bad parts, because they make me ache for the gospel. And I hate that. I wish everything could be ok and fun always. But that's not conducive to growth or becoming more Christ-like, because it's in the midst of the pains of growth that I realize God is moving. And sometimes I'm exactly where I'm meant to be (but think I'm not), and all of a sudden the light crests the hill and I realize the wilderness I thought I was walking through is actually the garden alight with morning dew. Christ's glory will always, always illuminate. But sometimes the bad has to happen first.

Welcome to the world, 2017. You have some big shoes to fill.

Emptiness & Grace.

I have struggled for what feels like months to find the right words. For writing, for friends, for blogging, for God, and for every other arena I am called to speak into and be present in. I'm still not sure I've found them, or if this will just be another instance of intense babbling that leaves the reader questioning whether or not anything of value was said, and couldn't it have been said in a significantly smaller amount of words? Probably. But that's not the way my brain works.

I have always taken immense pride in the ability to be the girl who stands up underneath everything. I have defined myself by my resilience, by my ability to take on the burdens and struggles of those around me and still stay strong beneath the weight. I have enjoyed being a bottomless dumping ground for my friends, a listening ear to process pain, excitement, anxiety, overanalyzation, and any other thought or feeling under the sun. My identity, for as long as I can remember, has been found in my ability to wake up each morning in the glow of the morning sunlight, and somehow still find good in the world despite the fact that things are horrendously awful. When my problems became overwhelming I focused my attention on my friends who were hurting, because if I couldn't fix me I was going to exhaust myself trying to fix them. It is a strange form of self-sufficiency, but it is sufficiency just the same.

This semester I have fought to drag myself out of bed. I have failed more often than I've won. I've spent a shocking amount of time in small, dark places because I couldn't convince myself that nothing bad was going to happen in the span of 24 hours. I've read what feels like every book on suffering, fear, control, and God's grace. I've found myself shaking in the middle of class. I've had anxiety attacks on bathroom floors. I've spent a whole day crying over ridiculous things like the fact that I couldn't reach the pen that rolled off my bed, then somehow not been able to shed a tear or display any emotion when my friend, weeping, tells me that they can't seem to find a reason to believe life truly worth living. I have run to God, run from God, decided to just be sad, decided to never be sad again, filled gratitude journals, googled the clinical diagnosis for every mood disorder under the sun, and finally exhausted myself to the point of admitting that no matter how far or how quickly I run, I cannot outrun something settled in my heart.

And I don't have answers. I have reached no conclusion about why I suddenly, mysteriously, seemingly irreversibly am no longer myself. Which makes it incredibly difficult to be any sort of help to the friends and family who ask me why they no longer feel like themselves. I have no answers, no conclusions, no helpful advice. I have been a fixer my entire life, and I cannot fix anything.

At some point, I looked around and realized that even though every heart friend I have seems to be hurting, aching, and searching, we are all crawling from the rubble together. We are covered in dirt, blood, sweat, tears, and every doubt and fear a human being can possibly carry. But we're moving. And we're doing it together. Occasionally we crawl over another body, dig them up, and drag them with us. When darkness seems all encompassing, one person points to light....and when no one can find that, we all reach for heaven. Somewhere along the way, I realized (through, I'll admit, a lot of ugly sobbing) that this is the church. This is the body of Christ. This is my family. I am surrounded by people that love me when I am absolutely awful, because Christ has loved them.I act out of my emptiness and desperation, and often hurt them because I am hurting, and yet they still love me. I am shown daily the grace of grateful hearts overflowing with mercy, even as they speak truth to me they don't believe themselves. They have never left me where I am, but they have never called me to be more than Christ has made me. To the best of their ability they demonstrate through their broken, fallen humanity who Christ has called them to be. And in their brokenness, I find my faith is strengthened. In the midst of the unconditional, grace-filled, authentic acceptance the very things I hate suffering enable me to love those around me better. It is pain that drives me to community, and it is community that drives me to joy. And when I cannot find joy, it is community that reminds me I am not alone.

We are called to love. Not based on performance, acceptance, agreement, tolerance, allowance, or desire, but because we have been loved, eternally and unconditionally. Our lives encounter others daily, and each interaction has the potential to hold eternal significance. No one is simple. No one is easy. But each has been created by the same God who, for completely unknown mind-boggling reasons, chose me to be His own. In loving others, in walking with them, I understand him. We are not defined by our beliefs, our political ideologies, whom we love, whom we don't, what we believe about the significance of life and death, or how we voted (I had to). And if we don't look past that, we will never, EVER be able to interact with or love one another well. At the end of the day, whether I agree with their choices or not, I am interacting with someone who bears the image of my suffering, glorified, enduring Savior, and one day I will be called to account for how I loved them, forgave them, and cared for them.

I'm not saying abandon truth, or stop urging one another towards holiness, righteousness, and integrity. I'm not saying stop having hard conversations, or to let the friends in your life barrel headfirst towards destruction because you're loving them well, and that's all that counts. What I AM saying, is that if the foundation of love, unconditionally given, is not present, then nothing you say will make a difference anyways. And if we continue to abuse, hate, and attack people based on things that are true about them but are not who they are, then we will be called to account for that as well. If I had been bombarded with truth this semester, and not told that I was loved despite where I was, what I believed, or what I could offer, I'm not sure I'd still be here. But here I am, by the grace of God and the unbelievable, life-giving love of my friends and family. It is love that makes the difference. Not argument, not fighting, not self-righteousness, not legalism, but love. Love shaped by truth, gospel, grace, and holiness, but love just the same.

Thanks you guys.

I Don't Have To Be Right To Be A Friend

The large majority of my days are spent in Columbia, South Carolina. Though its claim to fame is being the capital of a beautiful state, life echoes relatively slowly. My days are brightened by the people I know and love, the friends that have finally after many, many years spent together become closer to family. 

Though I could fill my blog post with handfuls of people who make me smile, the large majority of my day generally revolves around two beautiful blondes and it is them I will dedicate the beginning of my post to. These two people have loved me, lived with me, cried with me, laughed at me (this happens more often than anything else), cuddled me, fed me, and generally made the darker days infinitely lighter. As they know me, I have grown to know them. 

I've learned what they look like when they're sad, and what they look like when they're happy, regardless of what their face seems to indicate. I've had to learn (through MUCH error) when her yelling "leave me alone" means "help, I'm hurting" and when it means "leave or I murder you". I've feel incredible pride when she hits notes higher than I thought the human vocal chord could produce. When he produces a piece of writing that I read and then raise my hands to cheeks, confused, only to realize that I'm crying. I hurt as they hurt, laugh when they laugh, and occasionally hope for their success harder than they do. Not only do I get the incredible blessing of being a part of their lives, but step for step, gesture for gesture, love for love, they are also a part of mine. 

Orlando hurts. Orlando continues hurting. It echoes every time I hug my friends and am reminded that there are Floridians who will never get that chance again. Because I realize, have to realize, am forced to realize that regardless of my beliefs about Pulse, gay marriage, homosexuality, there are 49 people who were and are viewed by the people they love in the same overwhelming way that I view the people I love. There were mothers who waited for the sons to call, best friends who giggled over a glass of wine, women watching the driveway for their wives to come home. They were musicians, writers, intellectuals, dancers, parents, children, daughters, sons, people. They were image bearers. 

People whose creativity, loving nature, suffering, intelligence, and life reflects the God who made them regardless of whether they acknowledge it or not. 

I don't have to agree with them to mourn them. I love them because I look at the people God has allowed me to love, and realize that somewhere there is an image bearer feeling the absence of the person they love most. Most likely they are carrying the weight of that pain, absence, world changing loss without any Jesus to help. And that makes me love them more. 

For better or worse, we are living in a historic time. More than that, we are making history. We wake up every morning, and individually contribute to our own story. I contribute to my own and my friend's and my family's and my school's and each new chapter is an honor and a blessing. As the church we contribute to more than just our own. We contribute to theirs. To those hurting in Orlando, or South Carolina, or the US, or the UK, or anywhere on this earth that God has created. Because we can not share the truth if they don't believe that we love them, and we cannot love them if we don't remember that we were first loved unconditionally. Before we accepted the Lord, before we stopped running, before we stopped cursing and burrowing into dirt because the light was absolutely terrifying. 

I love them because Jesus loves me and because I love my best friends (there are more than 2) and sometimes Jesus even lets me love them well. 

That is my story. It is why love wins....because love is love is love is love is love is Jesus and me when I accept that I don't have to prove I am unmovable in my beliefs before I can sit down and fellowship with another hurting soul. Because I don't have to prove that I'm right to make a friend, and it is when we make friends that we start healing wounds. 

The Year I Didn't Read My Bible

I know that the title sounds strange coming from a girl who just received the bible degree she's been working four years for, so let me see if I can add a little clarification.

My senior year of college, I did not read my bible.

I think it started when the school year picked up and I realized that I had too many questions that there weren't easy answers for. I had spent the summer reading through a "get through the Bible in 90 days" program, but apart from giving me a distinct sense of accomplishment at being halfway through the Old Testament, it hadn't done much. As the school year dawned I tried everything I could to experience my quiet times in a way that left me feeling content, rested, full, anything that made me feel closer to the Lord. I looked around at my friends and classmates who seemed to be getting so much from so little effort to "do it right" and finally landed on the (drawn from comparison, whoops) conclusion that I must be doing something very wrong. I was frantically flipping pages, attempting to read between the lines, re-reading the same verse repeatedly, viewing the bible as a whole and then in pieces, before finally sitting down exhausted and admitting that maybe I wasn't getting very much out of this at all. So, I stopped trying to read.

I'm not saying it sat on my shelf, untouched and gathering dust for a full 365 days. There were times when I'd take it to class to look up a verse, or grab it on my way out the door to church out of habit. There were times when I'd shove it in my book bag and carry it around with me because knowing it was nearby made me feel a little bit safer. But that was the extent of my interaction, for a full year, with God's word.

What started in exhaustion, blossomed into unfamiliarity. After two months away from it, I found trying to come back and have a traditional quiet time felt like walking into a book club and finding out everyone else had finished the book you were one chapter into. I looked back through my journals to times when I wrote about the depth of joy and comfort I was finding in my time spent with just Jesus, and wondered pretty often what it said about me as a Christian if  I was learning more from my literature classes then I was from Scripture itself. And around October, I finally gave up.

I ignored the incessant voice in the back of my head that whispered I was a failure for not wanting to spend time with Jesus. I scrolled past super artsy pictures of my friends with their bibles and journals and heartfelt captions about how the Lord was working in their lives and pretended that it didn't bother me. Instead, I kept praying that somehow, something would change. I woke up every morning and yearned to meet the Lord in a new way, a way that made me want Him more. I prayed and hoped and wished on every dandelion I passed that I would be able to love those around me in a way that reflected the gospel, even if I couldn't really find it myself.

I kept living my life. And somewhere, the Lord met me.

And I found that sometimes when you're not being bogged down in figuring out what you believe, and which theology you adhere to, and whether something is 100% right or only ok, you look at people and just see people. And all of a sudden loving them becomes more important than anything else in the whole world. I found that when my friends talked to me about what they were struggling with, I could just listen. I wasn't spending half the conversation scrolling through a list of verses I could give them, or trying to figure out how I could lovingly point out to them that the position they were holding was very, very wrong. Several times I found myself wondering whether or not the position they were holding was in fact wrong, or if I was just incredibly proud, incredibly set in my thinking, and incredibly unwilling to consider any other options. And it led me into some of the most beautiful, grace defined relationships I've ever experienced in my (almost) 23 years.

So my senior year, I stopped reading my bible. But my senior year, I also found the Lord in a way I never had before....easily. And I'm not saying that's the answer. But I am saying, if you find yourself struggling to remember why you do what you do, maybe think about taking a break for a second. Don't shove yourself into routine just because it's what you think you have to do as a Christian. Be willing to take a breath and let the Lord work in new ways. Let people teach you, and let yourself learn. Along the way, you might find yourself wishing for that thing that made it so hard to find Jesus in the first place.

My Grey Area

As I write this blog post please understand that regardless of the views expressed, the point I'd like to emphasize MOST is that I'm 21. I'm young. People tell me I'm a young adult, but most of the time I feel like a baby. I'm still growing in my life, my walk, and most of all my faith. So please understand when I say that I'm coming at this so cautiously & humbly, that my stomach gets a little knot in it when I think of hitting 'publish'. I know the importance of this topic. But for what it's worth....here is my heart. 

The world for the past 6ish days has been up in arms because the Supreme Court finally decided to declare the ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. Now, I know there's many "could they even do that?" and "that wasn't legal!" viewpoints to be considered, but for the first few days that wasn't what I saw or understood. What I DID understand was the people it affected....on both sides. I understand the pain {and the subsequent panic} of Christians who feel the need to make sure their beliefs are heard & not misrepresented. And I understand the absolute elation of people who essentially just won something they've been fighting for, for so long. What I don't understand, is as a Christian who falls somewhere in the middle, how I'm supposed to feel. 

Because I'm not yelling. I'm not one of the people who are depressed because SCOTUS passed gay marriage, but doesn't care that there are LGBT & transgender kids committing suicide because they feel so alone & hurt so badly. I break, cry, hurt, and way too often question God, over BOTH. The fact that there are people THAT alone & experiencing so much pain that death seems not only acceptable but preferable, infuriates me & absolutely breaks my heart. I'm somewhere amazingly, annoyingly in the middle. The Facebook battle isn't about me, my beliefs on this particular issue are, I think, ok....I'm just trying to learn to somehow, someway, love people WELL while they're hurting and try to make it hurt less, and right now I'm not sure how to. 

This is made even more difficult by the fact that the LGBT people I've encountered in my life aren't who I've seen the media depicting...they're some of my favorite people I've met ever. They're beautiful & wonderful & encouraging & intelligent & understanding & willing to listen & have time and time again picked me up when life got too heavy, even if they didn't know they were doing it. Almost all of them claim Christ, and do their absolute best to follow him & seek his truth. And yet, some of them are still figuring out if this "same-sex marriage" decision can be done in a God-glorifying, Christ honoring way. They're not trying to stick it to the church, destroy marriage, or put the Christians back in their place. They're part of the church, and just want to be told that their feelings, hearts, and loved ones fit into God's plan somehow. They feel the weight of what they're being asked to sacrifice and it's unbelievably hard, and so often I think we forget. I know that there is nothing that should be counted more important than Christ, and that includes ANY sexuality or future relationship that ANYONE might have or hold, but so often that's not a future we as Christians are asked to lay down. They're not (truly) who all the yelling & hatred & disgust is about either. I realize they may be the minority here, but they're the ones I encounter. And I'd like to love them well. 

I think here I should say: personally, I believe homosexuality is wrong. I believe it is not what the Lord intended, and I believe the Bible provides evidence that yields that belief its foundation. But I think I should also say: this is the hardest, most painful belief I have ever had to admit to holding. And I have never, ever, ever in my life wanted so badly to be wrong about something. EVER. But as of right now, June of 2015, it is what I believe. 

That being said, I would like to believe there's a world where I get to believe that, and still be with my hurting friends while they are in pain. The world seems to have answers for how to deal with Christians who seem to hurt more people than they help, and the Church seems to have answers for unsaved LGBT members who attack Christians for being close-minded & hateful. But for those who fall into both circles, both the ones figuring it out & the ones that have, I've largely experienced confusion. 

So I suppose my blog post at this point has served two objectives: one, to say that in the midst of epic culture shift & the confusion of much of what has been considered "normal", I am just as confused as everyone else. But two, to offer my (probably not very valuable) two cents and say....be careful. And I hesitate to say that, because I am young & still in college & so amazingly inexperienced at dealing with the world & standing up for Christ. So I say this humbly & open handed....but please. There are so many people that aren't trying to ruin America or destroy the institution of marriage or rip apart truth or come for the church or any of the other accusations I've watched be thrown. They're just trying to feel like they matter, that they're humans & they count for something. That they're valued & seen & have a place within humanity to make their mark & offer their gifts. They are looking for who they are. What better place for people, also sinners whom Christ have chosen and who are also STILL LOOKING FOR ANSWERS (because identity is literally something we all deal with) to come alongside so we can all figure it out together? 

And thirdly ("oh my gosh I thought you said two? Just hush already!" I know, I know so sorry), a wonderful (new) friend reminded me this week, that God doesn't need me to fight His battles for Him. I don't say that as an excuse to never share my beliefs or opinions (clearly), or to ignore or run away from our cultural conflict. But I do say it as a comfort. It's important to stand for truth....but if that stance ever causes me to act unloving or un-Christlike it's nice to know that I can step down & trust that God has this situation truly, absolutely under control. That He is sovereign. That He is loving but also just. That He sees, understands, and hurts for people more than I could ever imagine or begin to. That He will be glorified, REGARDLESS. And that ultimately, my calling as His child is to love people, and do my best in my broken attempts to cause people to look past me & up to see Jesus....no matter what conversation we're having. 

And now, I'm going back to my life. Excited, confused....and kind of okay. I don't have all the answers....I don't really feel like I have any of them. And that's why it's such an unbelievable honor & blessing to be able to walk with people as we find them together. Yes, there will be hurt in the future. But there will also be joy. And ultimately, as cliche as it sounds (and I've seen this flying around too....), this earth is so temporary, and not going to last forever. I don't say that as an escape or a consolation, like "yeah, they passed same-sex marriage, but it's okay cuz heaven", I say it as.....well, as peace. Like my pastor said on Sunday, as the eternal validation that every moment of pain felt on earth will be everlastingly worth it, when we all finally look on Jesus face.