Mi ancla tú serás

I would like to begin by saying,
I very much enjoy waking up, messy hair and glasses on, making a good cup of coffee and catching up on my blog reading/ writing. I tend to be a perfectionist with my appearance, so these days are a good break from that pressure I put upon myself.

Quick update on life: this describes me pretty well right now...

"You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things."

I am so thankful to be surrounded by people who both challenge and comfort me. I consistently struggle with the passions of my heart-- wanting to go to the sick, starving, and dying, bringing them Hope and love. I know beyond knowing that people right next door can be hopeless and in need, but there's an unsettling desire within me to go far away from what I know or what I'm comfortable with. To Africa, for example. Maybe it's a selfish desire, maybe I just want to travel and not deal with certain things or people in my life. I should take time to process through those possibilities. But anyway, besides that constant nagging, life is extremely good and I am so happy. I start nannying full-time in September, which means I am for sure staying here for winter. I will fight the desperation of wanting to hop in the car with some snow-birds going South. I can do this! Who knows, I might be really good at ice fishing or something...
So all is well up here. Friends will be visiting me soon, and I cannot say how grateful I will be to see them and have some sameness & familiarity around for a bit.

Last week or the week before, I really wanted Kip to read Don Miller's posts about relationships. To my great sadness, Don took them off his blog site! I respect him for it, because he felt he was too blunt, maybe unnecessarily offensive. So I hope he wouldn't mind if I shared a bit of what he wrote. I found great wisdom and conviction in his words, as usual. Hope you do, too!

[ This is to the ladies ]

Living a great love story doesn't look like winning the lottery, it looks like training for a marathon. It's hard work and you have to do the work long before you ever meet Mr. Right, otherwise you'll be the girl who shows up for marathon having eaten a gallon of ice cream every night, listening to Taylor Swift songs, and watching love stories about vampires. No good man can run with that girl, not for much longer than a mile...

Tell a great love story and you'll dazzle the world. Do the work and enjoy the benefits. The world needs some great love stories, but few people are willing to do what it takes to tell them. No wonder we all love them so much!

Do you want a great love story? Do you want to run the marathon it takes to be married to the same man after fifty years? Do you want him to look you in the eyes with so much respect it brings tears to his? If you do, start training for the marathon. No good story comes easy. A great love story is still possible. Go for it!

... It feels boring in the moment, but in twenty years you'll be crying your eyes out over this man who stuck with you through the thick and thin, and who honestly didn't care that you got fat. :)

[ This is for the boys]

Women don't just fall in love with flowers and chocolate. All that crap is fine. But what they fall in love with is dependability, strength, kindness, community, structure, and character. Being the leading man in a love story is, basically, aout being just that: a man that leads. Be a good man, a man with character. Have vision, lead the story, and be the man she's been dreaming about.

A man brings peace and order into chaos. You have what it takes to do this, I believe it firmly. You were designed to leave a wake of peace everywhere you go.

[ I've never heard that before, and I think it's very true! ]

You should want to make the world a better place, and you should be very focused and dedicated to making this happen. This means going to college, starting a company, coaching a team or teaching a class. If you want to make a woman's dreams come true, pick up your X-box and throw it in the trash, and start doing something with your life.

Most people think love stories only benefit women, but don't be fooled. There's a lot in this story for you. God designed it so a man felt his most powerful while guiding a woman through an amazing love story.

Stop falling for the romantic version of life and start realizing that a romantic story is told with an enormous amount of pain, sacrifice, suffering, and patience.

Isn't Don so good?! I appreciate his perspective on life and love and God and everything. Not that I always agree, but I appreciate him nonetheless. And I wonder what his wedding is going to be like?!
Anyway, I'm being challenged in what I've preached since I was a young high schooler-- the importance of seeking God over seeking a relationship, setting and keeping boundaries, not letting anyone have more of my time or love than Jesus. Yeah... it's hard. Snaps for everyone who abides by strict relationship rules. I'm needing so much grace in this time of my life! Which I think is a lesson in and of itself. I need to be reminded on a daily, hourly basis, that He does not want or expect perfection. Relationships are messy, even our relationship with God. And that is OK!

"I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover, and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.

I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.

God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him unto us."

a whale of a tale

"I think there's a reason bedtime stories always end with 'happily ever after.'

Once everything is happy & there is no struggle,

then there's no more story to tell."

-Steven James, Story

I have this thing about me, this dreaming side. I am enthralled by stories, as imaginary and unrealistic as they may be. I come alive in them. I don't want the story to end, unless I am sure another even greater story is coming next.

So here is my dilemma: First, what is a great story? Second, how can I write a great story with my life? I could abandon all, leave this town, pursue great mountains or great fame, but would that entail a great story? Or would that just be new and fun for the moment?

My friend Donald says that a story is about a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. And, "A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important."

Aha, this could change everything...

I love the above quote from the book, Story. It makes sense! As much as we want a fairytale life, that life does not exist. Fairytales exist because of what is conquered and accomplished before the happy ending. Forgive me if this is cheesy, but we have a great happy ending waiting for us. I am eagerly awaiting the day I see this Jewish carpenter/rabbi who has captured my heart and turned my world upside down. At the same time, I know that once that moment comes, this story ends. I will be with my Love forever. And as beautiful and happy as that sounds, I know it's not all that I was created for.

I watched a documentary yesterday called The Human Experience. Ah-mazing film. If you have Netflix, find it and watch it! It's about these guys who have been through hard stuff in life and want to know what life is like from other people's experiences and perspectives. One philosopher who was interviewed said, "Life IS other people." I thought that was a profound statement.

I've recently been very disturbed by the fact that I can walk by a person without acknowledging them. Or that they can walk by me and completely ignore my existence. That, to me, is a major sign of our broken reality. How did we get to the point of being able to shut down our emotions, live without compassion, and desensitize ourselves to each other's humanity? As MLK, Jr. said, we have developed a "thing-oriented" society versus a "person-oriented" society. So sad. I want that to change in my life. I want my story to be intertwined and given meaning because it's a part of other people's stories. I know I cannot do this on my own, and I wouldn't have made it this far if I had attempted to! We are all connected. And this is both what makes life wonderful and what makes it so hard.

[from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, after Don & friends biked across the U.S.]

"But the people who took the bus didn't experience the city as we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way."

[from The Human Experience]

"Suffering is a journey deeper into the heart of life."

What if a good story is about making your ordinary life extraordinary, not by travel or fame, but by love, laughter, service, sacrifice, and pain? What if a good story is dismissing the fantasy and embracing the every day opportunities to give yourself up for others, for the greater good? What if good stories are really possible, and what if we could create them by focusing on where there is need, who needs it, and how we can submerge ourselves in a calling as worthy as loving others as much as we love ourselves? What if it's not so much about enjoying beauty as we see it, but searching for and seeking out the beauty disguised in the ugly and unforeseen?

I feel like this entry has been patchy and disorganized. I have pieced together thoughts that have been whirling in my mind and heart for months now! I hope it's follow-able? If not, well, this blog is more for me than for you. I need the space to organize my mental processes and the accountability to know other people could possibly be reading them also. And maybe, just maybe, you need to process and hear this stuff, too.

Enough for now. I need some of this fresh, Minnesotan air!

"Dear friends, let us love one another

because love is from God."

1 John 4:7

reflections

Today was Minneapolis's National Night Out. Fun times, even funnier people! I love how diverse we all are. A beautiful dark skinned lady in a bright orange dress; a funny keyboard player with a long ponytail and goofy smile; young, hip couples; old, rugged people; cute grandpa eating a hamburger in his khakis and biker helmet. Just wonderful.

One of the city representatives said this night was so important because we all come together, meet our neighbors, and see the humanity in each other. I think that's simply powerful. I took it all in, and only met a few people in the process. Got some great blisters. Enjoying life more & more in this interesting place!

We were at the cabin this past weekend, just the Jones clan (still minus Alli, and plus myself, now included in most Jones family activities). It was super windy and a bit rainy on Saturday. I was bummed because you know me, I need my tan-- hold the skin cancer, please. It was crazy wind though, not sail-able in my opinion. So there we were: reading, sleeping, eating. Blah, but good. We got some swimming in later that afternoon and the sun met us out on the boat. The loons, too. (I'm still a bit frightened by them & their red eyes & hugeness).

But Saturday night... oh man, what a night.

GREAT food

EPIC sunset [I had tears in my eyes]

Beautiful lightening storm

Perfect little fire

Family

Wine

Oreos [double-stuffed]

and in the midst of all of it, God. It continuously amazes me how often I seem to forget to direct my praise and awe to Him. I think He feels it anyway, because He knows He's in everything-- for it was all made in Him and through Him, duh. But you know what I mean? It's like... wow. This is my life. Wait... my life could be the extreme opposite. But it's not. Hmmm. Thank you, God. (???) All the while I'm questioning whether I would still love Him the same if my life was really different and harder and included much more loss.

And Kip & I talked about how we can appreciate this God who creates epic things like bright orange and gold and pink clouds that look like a mountain or a wave, coming at us like we could be washed away in glory, just because He can and He enjoys us enjoying the end of a blessed day. How can we even respond to that? I don't want to be a spoiled child that disregards it or on the other hand, begs for more. I want to be humbly and graciously thankful for that moment, not expecting another, but hoping to stay in that beauty forever.

One of my "strengths" is empathy. Strengths Finder had an interesting explanation of this characteristic:

"It's very likely that you are filled with awe by beauty in the world, in people, and in the cosmos. Whether you gaze upon nature's wonders or marvel at a work of human hands, you are filled with wonder. You can suddenly stop what you are doing to watch a sunset, listen to the rustle of leaves, stand before a work of art, hear a piece of music, look through a telescope, or hold a newborn child. You experience beauty at a level many people cannot imagine. Once the moment has passed, you can still picture the scene or hear the sound in your memory."

I feel. Deeply. And I wonder how what's going on in my heart or my head could be connected to Him. I've heard many say that He is closer than our very breath. It's hard for me to understand. How thankful I am that I can feel the reality of it and rest in that.

My God is here.

What precious Truth.