Baseball game with Matty and Christopher

Last week I went downtown with two of my faves to catch an O's game.

We were pretty excited.

This child was about twenty HOURS old the first time I held him, two when he drove across the country with his dad to pick me up from college, and almost four when I lived in their house. So therefore it freaks me out that he is now a six and a half year old crazy-smart chatty grown up kid. Really?

He was our photographer for the night. Rocked it, Chris!

I like this guy a lot too.

Have I mentioned I love being home?

hosea 6.

"Oh, that we might know the Lord!

Let us press on to know Him.

He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn

or the coming of rains in early spring."

-Hosea 6:3

"Let us press on to know Him, let us press hard into Him..."

-Shane & Shane, "Hosea"

I love my mama.

Cancer: Not fun. But trying on hats and scarves, tots is.

Pic of me in the blonde wig: Intentionally not posted. If you need something to thank Jesus for today, thank Him for not making me a blonde. Good call, God. Dude.

We love each other a lot.

And snuggling is the best.

It's good to be home.

Home and on a walk with my bosom friend.

Dang I love this girl.

Life is good.

larger, stronger, quieter.

"The real problem of the Christian life... comes the very moment you wake up each morning.

All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.

And your first job each morning consists in shoving them all back;

in listening to that other voice,
taking that other point of view,
letting that larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in."

-C.S. Lewis

Moving.

Dear Packing Up, I am so bad at you.
Here's what my room looks like:




I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed:



"Kendra! Come here!" "What's up?" "Make a face like how is her room that insane!!"


I'm not sure I had enough coffee today to get me through this. Ooh, look, there's that Trader Joe's wine I bought last week... ok no Emily, it's 1 in the afternoon. So instead I'm being really productive and writing a blog post and... ooh, look, is that a box of books? Hm, I haven't picked up Life Together in awhile, maybe I should stop and peruse it for a few minutes...



No. I am packing. Right. Now.

Twelve.

The tree outside my window at work has full, green leaves on it.
A few weeks ago, I saw it budding.
The last time it looked like that... I saw it, too. Looking out of the same window.

I have now spent twelve full months in one place. For the last... ok, not 365 days technically, but over 350, which I say counts- days, I have slept in the same bed. I get up every morning and drive to the same job. And there every day I blessedly, wonderfully, do... the same thing I have done for the last. twelve. months.

The trees were just budding when I started there. As they were wide and green all spring and summer long, I drove down Roosevelt into West Chicago and did my paperwork and got to know my families. Through the humid summer, I ran on this prairie path, got frappuccinos at this Starbucks, finger-painted with my kids outside on the grass. This whole fall, I was here, carving pumpkins (three times, in fact, because I didn't have a fall my HNGR year and I was absolutely maximizing this one!!), going apple picking (twice- see what I mean?), taking long walks alone among the leaves. They changed and fell and it snowed and I walked in that too, and then I got sick of walking in it and watched it from inside, and drank hot chocolate with my roommates and decorated our Christmas tree. It kept snowing. I held a Valentine's craft party and walked on a frozen lake with my small group, my kids made cotton ball snowmen and we sang about spring coming. I dared to slowwllyy shed first the down jacket, then the jacket, and now, finally, the sweaters. I am in short sleeves and flip flops and swingy skirts and I meet friends by the lake behind Rez multiple times a week to sprawl on the grass as we chat in the sunshine. This week my babies and moms and I took walks and pointed out the colors of the flowers.

I have had a year of serving Eucharist at church on Sunday mornings. I've had a year of doing life with my small group every Sunday night. I've had a year of journaling in the same coffee shops I journaled in in college. I've had 52 weeks of coffee heart-to-hearts with Tamara, of family dinners with Ryan and Kendra, of running with Meghan and pre-work breakfasts with Chet. 52 weeks of Christine and Steve and Elise, of Rez and Iglesia and my ten beautiful families.

Jana asked me on a Saga date mid-last semester, "What are your non-negotiables?". We were all weighing so many things as we tried to figure out where we'd be post-graduation- job opportunities, relationships, adventure, finances... What were going to be my deciding factors?

I needed to be in one place. I needed to have four full seasons in one place- in a familiar place. I didn't know why. I just knew I did.

Seeing that tree (seriously- that was what made me think of it. It's a really pretty tree :-P)- seeing that tree, I realized I saw it go through its entire life cycle this year. It grew its leaves and lost them and stood bare and grew them again and now here they are. Again. I saw all of it. I saw Wheaton, I saw my families, I saw the same friends, through twelve whole months. Through one entire rotation of the earth around the sun, I was here, doing a few tasks and loving the same people.

Written down this sounds really obvious and not that exciting. And I know that after college, this becomes the norm- most likely in the not-distant future, I'll spend two, five, ten or twenty!, full years in the same place with the same people.

But this first year of it since high school, and especially the year after HNGR and cancer, I'm so grateful. This world turned all by itself as I walked the same streets and loved the same people and focused on my simple work. The seasons changed as I healed and, somehow, that let me just be.

And I am so grateful for that.

The tree outside my office, mid-October.

"...Summer and winter and springtime and harvest

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love."

1. Sovereignty of God; 2. There's something about newborns.

1. The sovereignty of God. It's been my question of the last 18 months. Is God sovereign, in a world where little girls are raped and terrified?

I have always believed God is present in the details, and one of the scariest parts of my wrestling, post-HNGR, has been questioning that. One way I could sort of keep believing in Him and His goodness, having heard those stories, was to think He wasn't involved in the details. Because what sense does a God who IS involved in the details make, when 'the details' led to those girls being born into those families, on those streets, living near those men, being given into the care of those people- or being given into no one's care?

The wrestling is grieving, and raging, for them. But sometimes, lame as I feel, it is also for me. How do I pray, with those stories? How do I believe God is working in my job situation, in where I go to grad school? Can I praise and thank Him for orchestrating a life-giving conversation, a roommate, fifteen minutes of blessed solitude in the midst of a stressful day? Providence in my life and providence in theirs seem incomparable, different worlds... at times, like given from the hand of a different God. I no longer know my definition of the word.


(...This is the part where I would love to transition into a satisfying answer. I don't have one.)


2. Every Tuesday morning, I arrive at one of my favorite* home visits (*they're virtually all my favorites. It doesn't make calling one that any less true!).

I've been meeting with this family for almost a full year now, and I vividly remember the morning at the public library last summer when the mom whispered, "I think I'm PREGNANT!". Another mom and I leaned forward. "What do you mean you THINK you're pregnant?!!". "Well... I took the test." "And??!". She grinned sheepishly, and rolled her eyes in mock exhaustion at the two little ones already playing at her feet. "It was positive." We squealed. The dad beamed across a stack of picture books. "This one's a boy! No question." (It wasn't. Thankfully, he reminds me a lot of another dad I know. He loves his girls.)

I was there all year, every week, through a growing belly, and the girls getting excited to tell me about the new little brother ("Jose! We don't know that yet!"), and then sister :-). I made the sweet, laughing mom reassure me that she was taking her pre-natal vitamins and handed her the required sheets on fetal development... then I would press my ear against her stomach and declare I could absolutely hear the baby telling me she couldn't wait to come play on Tuesday mornings, too. And then I got a text- "Maestra, ya nació la bebé!". "She was born!"

And now every week I patiently make play-dough and do puzzles and practice the alphabet with my beautiful toddlers... and then I grab that baby the second she's up from her nap and indulge in holding her sleepy self and marveling at her beauty.

One day recently, for whatever reason, those sovereignty questions were playing loudly in my head. And, I was weary.

I got to the visit and it was a quiet day. I got to hold her for a good solid half hour, smiling as the mom cuddled and read with her big girls.

And I just stared at that baby. That baby who used to just be a positive pregnancy test and then a barely larger belly and now was a human being, a yawning dimpled weight in my arms.

The word perfect came to my mind over and over and over.
She has perfect little eyebrows over two perfectly formed eyes. Her ears are right there on either side of her head, which is covered with hair soft and dark, already the color of her mama's. Her perfect lips make me understand why people always describe baby's mouths as rosebuds. The shape of her chin and the way she moves her head uncannily reminds me of her oldest sister's mannerisms. Her tiny (perfect) fingers can grip mine. She has hands! She has fingers!

This tiny little bundle of cells we used to not even be sure was there, grew and formed and stretched and changed, inside her mom's body. Into this person. This perfect, beautiful, baby- who wasn't even here at all a year ago, who we couldn't hold just a month ago. And here she is.

I don't know any answers to the sovereignty questions, but holding that baby every week, I believe God is in the details.

i love my Lord.

Who is He the people bless

for His words of gentleness?

Who is He to Whom they bring

all the sick and sorrowing?

'Tis the Lord,

O wondrous story!

'Tis the Lord,

the King of glory

At His feet we humbly fall

Crown Him, crown Him, Lord of all...

grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart.

1.
I know a lot of fancy words.
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray.

2.
Lord God, mercy is in your hands, pour
me a little. And tenderness too. My
need is great. Beauty walks so freely
and with such gentleness. Impatience puts
a halter on my face and I run away over
the green fields wanting your voice, your
tenderness, but having to do with only
the sweet grasses of the fields against
my body...

...5.
Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with
the fragrance of the fields and the
freshness of the oceans which you have
made, and help me to hear and to hold
in all dearness those exacting and wonderful
words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying:
Follow me.

-Mary Oliver, from "Six Recognitions of the Lord"

She's mine and I'm not sharing (except with Allie).

I tore this clip from a magazine and keep it in my desk drawer at work:

"Science recently proved what most young women know instinctively: calling Mom can be the best solution to a bad day. Researchers studying girls at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that a mother's voice is as comforting as a hug, lowering levels of stress-inducing cortisol and triggering the production of oxytocin, also known as the 'love hormone'."

This morning, here's how using that info went:

I speed-dial my mom at about 9 AM.

Mom: Hi sweetie, good morning!

Me (no preemptive greetings such as, Hi, how are you, good morning, how was your flight to California last night, etc.): Can you please tell me I'm going to be okay in Oregon??

I am NOT exaggerating any of the following.

Mom: Oh Em, you're going to be SO okay! You're going to do GREAT!

Me: (Sniff, sniff) 'K.

Mom: You're SO capable. You're going to make SO many friends. You're going to have the BEST time, you're just going to love it. This is a GREAT program. And you're going to do SO well, you're SO smart and ready for this. You're going to have so much fun, and you'll just LOVE Portland. And you're just so beautiful and wonderful and intelligent and fantastic, I just KNOW you'll do great. It's absolutely the right decision. Great decision.

Me: (Sniff, sniff) 'K.

Mom: And you LOVE psychology. You're just going to LOVE having a grad degree. And you're going to find GREAT community, absolutely, because you're SO good at making friends and everyone you meet is going to love you. Absolutely. It's going to be wonderful. I'm SO proud of you.

Me: (Sniff, sniff) 'K.

Mom: And if not, you can always move back to Wheaton!

Me: (Sniff, sniff) 'K.

Mom: OK, sweetie?

Me: (Sniff, sniff) Uh-huh.

Mom: Aww... Em, you're just so wonderful.

Seriously?

All mine.

I Love My Sister.

Happy 20th birthday to my most favoritest person...
I couldn't be more thankful for you.
xoxoxoxo

Daybook: May 2

Outside My Window

It is cold! For May. Which means warmer than it has been. And dark.

I am Listening to

Ryan in the dining room typing and whatever folky music he's playing- "Ryan, what's that music?" "Vavavoom." Ok, Vavavoom.

I am Wearing

Black yoga pants, red tank top.

I am So Grateful for

SO MUCH. It's been a very grateful few weeks.

Among other things,
-Seeing in retrospect just how much this year was exactly what I needed
-Being in such close and connected relationships
-My mother's loving voice on the other end of the telephone every time I call
-My sassy, sweet, TWENTY-YEAR-OLD sister
-Connecting so well with my families at work
-My small group
-My church
-OK stopping.

I'm Pondering

The fact that joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Which means it not only isn't be wrong to desire it and seek it, but it is in fact important that I do so. Sometimes I confuse being willing to see God in suffering with joy being wrong. True joy is not wrong. It is a fruit of the Spirit. It is something God wants to give us.

I am Reading

1,000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I'm really liking it so far- more even than I expected to. (I'm totally breaking my rule. Making Room is so good, but so dense. I'm not giving up on it, though, but I have caved in not starting other things, too.)

I am Thinking

About the many people I care about who will be leaving Wheaton in the next week or two, and how much I'll miss them this summer. About wrapping my Illinois life up... three months and counting. See pondering, on the practical side- how can I seek joy where He would have me find it?

I am Creating
I made a simple potato and herb soup for dinner. It felt good to use my hands to chop and stir and to touch and smell fresh vegetables. Trying to be slow, right now. Lots of unplanned chunks in my afternoons and evenings... time to read, time to walk, time to look at the outside. Not sure how that counts as creating, but it does, for me.

I am Missing
Bolivia, actually. I talked to the Albergue staff (Tino and Gladys, specifically) on Skype this weekend :-). I love those people.

(And for real... too many other people to mention. A lot of people I love live far away from me. If you are reading this, odds are good are that I miss you.)

On my iPod

Natalie Merchant's "Wonder", on repeat. Lots of Rosie Thomas. Lots of Indelible Grace.

Towards Being Faithful In This Time

*Lots and lots of prayer for other people. Man, I am lazy/selfish about this. I love praying for other people, but it is work. And right now there are a lot of ways I want to see God working in MY life. Well, one of the ways He is is that when I sit down to talk with Him He gently reminds me He has given me things to do, and one of them is to pray for those He's put in my life. And in some cases that includes praying for people when I have no idea what the results are.

*The slow-ness thing.

*"Being faithful in little things". Taking small steps of love and service when I see them.

*Writing, right now, is helping me to love Him and love others. I am tearing up my journal- I bought a new, large-ish one about five weeks ago and it's 3/4 done.

One Thing I Love About My Job Right Now

My relationships with the families. So, so much. Some of them I have been meeting weekly with now for going on a year. The moms are friends. The moms my age and I just connect so well, and some of the ones who are older than me sort of mother me . I love it.

One Thing I Love About My Living Situation Right Now

*Just the general vibe of our house. It's such a good balance of together-ness but independence. Easy interactions, a good rhythm of eating together, knowing what's up in each other's lives.

*How great they are when I'm sad.

One Thing I Love About Wheaton Life Right Now

SPRING, everywhere.

The connectedness of my life. I'm in multiple-times-a-week contact with multiple friends here. I love that. I love that I feel like their joys are my joys and their burdens are my burdens, that my joys are theirs and my burdens are theirs. I can't think of anything big I'm doing alone right now (thank You, Jesus). I hope they can't, either.

One Thing I Love About My Church Right Now

*Giving Communion three different times last week over Easter weekend, I got to see so many faces I love. Oh how I love serving Communion. I love giving it to the toddlers, their parents helping them hold the cup. I love giving it to people I love, stepping back so they can meet Jesus but praying silently and smiling into their beautiful eyes. I love thinking about what it means. I love participating in the mystery.

*Nancy, the wonderful lady who coordinates the Eucharist ministry. I get emails from her frequently about details and she's just lovely. We had coffee once and it was fantastic, I need to make her do it again.

*The fact that at Easter Vigil (and Easter morning), the kids all grabbed hands and tore up and down the aisles, dancing and spinning and jumping and grinning and rejoicing together to the music. And that everyone loves that. And that it was the kids... and some adults. (Liiiike me. Obvs.)

I am Hoping and Praying

*To honor God more at work- working harder than I "have to", to love on these families He has given me.

*For my family as a whole and for individual members.

*Gratitude, for the many things He gives me joy through.

*For Luke and Christine.

*For Steve and Tamara.

*For the people leaving Wheaton, either for graduation or HNGR.

*For love that is more like His- "...pray each day for the ability to love without anger, without possessiveness, without jealousy, and without fear. Pray to love with open hands." -Laura Smit

*...And, to be honest, that Oregon was the right decision.

From the Kitchen

Tonight, St. Patrick Irish Cheddar soup from my much-beloved Monastery Soups cookbook. Last week, the best pasta ever from the Pioneer Woman.

One of my Favorite Things

Friendship.

Spring.

Holding children.

A Few Plans for the Rest of the Week

My last HNGR small group :-(, taking a lovely friend to get her wisdom teeth out (poor girl!), HNGR graduation ceremony, going with Meg and Christine to look for C's wedding dress!!!

Things that make me smile:

My bio on Steve and Tamara's wedding website:

"Em is one of Tamara's best friends from Wheaton. Emily pursued Tamara freshman year after noticing her in two of her classes then seeing her in the Stupe reading 2 Chronicles. They bonded over weekly coffee dates, prayer, and boys."

Annnd just their whole website, which is a pretty good representation of what happens when two of the funniest people I know fall in love with each other. Please check out the "Our Story" section. I think it's hilarious even if you DON'T know them. Excerpt: "Spring Semester of Senior year, Tamara returned to campus after living in Chicago student teaching the previous semester. Steve was coaching the freshmen improv troupe, Kids these Days, and Tamara was taking Ping Pong class. In order to help bring the freshmen into the improv community, Steve and Tamara felt they should challenge Ben and Clark to play doubles. Every day. Everytime they had any time. Even though they were graduating and should have been writing papers or looking for jobs. It was for the Kids! We swear."

Me with two of my favorite people at their engagement partay.

I love you guys and am so excited!