oh, that we might know the Lord.

I vividly remember one night sitting  in the Voss reading room the spring of my junior year reading 1 Thessalonians and being struck dumb by this verse.

"Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words."

I read it and I thought about what was promised to us, what was clearly laid out as our greatest encouragement: that we will be with the Lord. Would I be content to be with the Lord? Was that what I longed for- just Him? Just His presence? Did I get comfort and joy from the idea of being with Him forever? The answer was no. It didn´t sound satisfying. It didn´t sound bad, but I wasn´t longing for His presence. I was living to try to honor Him, show His love to others, obey His voice... but I wasn´t just seeking to know Him. To just be with Him was not my greatest joy.

The next week in HNGR class they asked us to write down one prayer request- something the office would pray over us, something we would pray over each other and ask our communities to pray for us. I knew immediately what mine needed to be. "Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord... ´For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings´" (Hosea 6), ¨That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.¨(Phil 3:10). That was my prayer over HNGR and it´s been my main prayer ever since. I return to Hosea 6 over and over and over again, convicted over and over for my greatest joy and my greatest comfort to be just my God, His face and His presence.


I am in Bolivia. And I am praying. All the time, this past week, I am praying... over the girls, and over the house, and the staff, and Lauren, and a good amount of time for me... even here for two weeks, I can get lonely (honestly, as much fun as I am having, i keep wondering how on earth I did this for six months??! Current interns, yall are amazing).

And as I´ve prayed, God has been very clear with me about where He is, here. He is here. My God speaks Spanish. My God speaks Quechua. My Jesus is the Jesus of my girls scared in their beds, or without beds, He was with them as they lay under bridges. He is the Jesus of my sweet host mom as she bakes bread and hums her Quechua hymns and can not read and has never left the country. He is the counselor of these staff in all their meetings as they pray over how to lead and reach these girls, as  they structure this organization and lay their own hearts and burdens before Him.

I keep having the feeling I get sometimes when I see someone I love in a new element. Whenever I stop by my parents´ offices and see them dressed up at work and hear them interact with their coworkers in their "professional" voices. When I have gotten to spend time with a good friend and their family for the first time and I see them as a sister and daughter, not just as cool fun coffee-dater heart-sharer. Like, "Oh... I thought I knew you, but all this time you had these other sides I´d never gotten to see". Isn´t it weird sometimes, to think that our parents aren´t just our parents but were teenagers, spouses, friends? That our friends are workers, lovers, their parents´children? Even my closest closest friends have places they´ve gone where I have not been with them, where they were opened in a way I haven´t seen and showed sides of themselves I may never know.

And that´s how I´ve been feeling about God this week- clearer than I remember it even from when I was here on HNGR. "God, You speak Quechua??". "Yup." "And... You were with my host mom as she grew up in the campo." "Yes." "God, You are someone to these girls I have never had to know." "Yes."

Sometimes I am overwhelmed, when I casually ask God what His spirit is praying over these loved ones of mine... and I hear answers I am unfamiliar with, that I don´t understand. Part of me wants to run away because sometimes I don´t like the answers; and sometimes part of me just doesn´t want to bother to press in to hear a new thing He is saying, to see a new side of Him. I know God in Wheaton, in my psych classes, in my closest friendships and in coffee shops. That is comfortable. I am lazy and it is easy to stay there; I am scared to find the parts of my Lord I don´t know.

But do I want to know Him? Then I need to press in to see who He is here.
To know that He has been here long before me.
My God has so many different sides to Him.
Thanking Him for letting me see even a glimpse of more of who He is.

"all i once held dear, built my life upon

all this world reveres, and wars to own

all i once thought gain, i now count as loss

spent and worthless now compared to this

knowing You, Jesus,

knowing You,

there is no greater thing."

thank you all so much for your prayers for me and these girls.

"...transfigure my small resources and make them sacred..."

     "...One image has been with me ever since I saw Pamplona Alta in Lima. It is the image of living as a hermit in the midst of the poor. That image must have been vague and subconscious, since I never wrote or spoke about it. But when a visiting priest from the St. Louis, Missouri, diocese said to me: "I am living in a poor sector of La Paz as a hermit among the people," I immediately understood him. Yes- indeed, just to pray for, with, and among the poor spoke to me as a true missionary vocation. Wouldn't that be an authentic way of entering into solidarity with those who have nothing to lose?

     "True prayer always includes becoming poor. When we pray we stand naked and vulnerable in front of Our Lord and show Him our true condition. If one were to do this not just for oneself, but in the name of the thousands of surrounding poor people, wouldn't that be 'mission' in the true sense of being sent into the world as Jesus Himself was sent into the world? To lift up your hands to the Lord and show Him the hungry children who play on the dusty streets, the tired women who carry their babies on their backs to the marketplace, the men who try to forget their misery by drinking too much beer on the weekends, the jobless teenagers and the homeless squatters, together with their laughter, friendly gestures, and gentle words- wouldn't that be true service?"

-Henri Nouwen, October 24, 1981, Cochabamba, Bolivia.
From ¡Gracias!: A Latin American Journal.

So thankful.

I am so thankful to be here.

So thankful that the second I stepped off the plane in La Paz (still one flight away from my beloved Coch), I almost started crying because it smelled like Bolivia.

So thankful the staff brought this girl to the airport with them when they picked me up- she's graduated from the program but they'd told her I was coming.

When we got back to the house, she and I sat down at the dining room table and talked, deep talked, for over an hour- about what she's been learning, about her baptism last year (she beamed as she told me about it), about what she misses about the house since she graduated and how it changed her life, about our memories from my time here.

In my opinion if I had had that conversation and turned and headed back to the States, it would have been worth the trip.

So thankful for how insanely easy it has felt to step back into relationships here. For the inside jokes we all started tossing around instantly, for the affection and laughter and mutual gratitude exchanged.

So thankful for the conversations I've already gotten to have with the staff.

So thankful to get to hug and know a new group of girls.

So thankful for how much more fun it is to be here with Spanish and self-confidence.

So thankful and genuinely surprised by how completely natural it feels to be here. A year and a half is a decently long time, but the most surreal part so far has been how not surreal it feels. The streets, the cafés, the fresh fruit sold on the corners, the people's mannerisms, the house, the Albergue schedule, all feel so familiar. I remember more than I thought I did.

So thankful the waitress at my favorite café RECOGNIZED ME IMMEDIATELY!! I left here 19 months ago!! That rocked.

And thankful to have sat in that café once again at the quiet table in the corner on the second floor, where I found my sanity so many mornings those six months.

So thankful to get to see my mountains in every direction.

So thankful and THRILLED (and not surprised at all) to see how amazing Lauren is doing here, how much the girls and staff love her and that I can see her falling in love with Mosoj Yan and its work and its girls. So thankful I get to see her HNGR journey up close.

So thankful to have stayed up two late nights talking with Lindsay. So thankful for how natural living Cochabamba life with her, even briefly, feels. So thankful to get to mutually externally process with her; so grateful to see her belly and squeal over kicks and celebrate upcoming parenthood.

Praying so hard to be an encouragement to the people I'm interacting with here. The staff, the girls, Lauren, Lindsay, my host parents.

There have been hard things, too.

I don't want to trivialize them by throwing them into a quickly-written list.

The joy is richer than I remembered,

but the darkness is just as dark.

But I am deeply, deeply thankful to be here.

To be a part of this work again, even if only briefly.

 To be praying over this work, these girls, this suffering, from here.

Every night when I've gone to bed and tried to start praying, all I can do is thank Him over and over for letting me come back.

More to come...

.off to bolivia.

oh. my. goodness.

Small group brought Panera bagels over for breakfast, prayer, and love before I leave :-). I love my girls! (And Josh, Luke, and Daws)

Leaving for the airport right now!!!!!

.quote of the day.

"I WILL answer these [questions]...but it'll have to be in a different email, because this one's already long, and I have to go learn how to cook frogs (that's not a joke at all)."

-.kym.

.who i love and miss.

.and am so proud of.

.do first things first and second things not at all.

Well, I had great intentions of finishing my blog series this week. But blogging about my life here over actually living it doesn't seem to make much sense. So the last ten will have to be done more sporadically in order to give them their proper due of meditation as I write (totally serious).

In other news of my failure to keep my commitments,

I had concluded that it would be logical and responsible to not buy any more books before I move, based on the facts that I:

a) need to devote time to organizing and packing everything I own (aka the more things I own, the more time needed for said organizing and packing)
b) need to have everything I own fit in my car to be driven across the country
and
c) am about to move to a city which holds the largest independent used bookstore in the world,

Right? So logical.

Buuuuut...
I was just browsing at a yard sale on a walk on a Saturday morning...

3/4 of the Time Quartet, Madeleine L'Engle
Meet the Austins, Madeleine L'Engle (possibly my favorite children's book ever... ok, that's a lie, like I could pick just one- but, so important and formative for me)
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis
I Asked for Wonder, Abraham Joshua Herschel
Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard
Collected Lyrics, Edna St. Vincent Millay (started and l.o.v.i.n.g.)
Seasons of Celebration, Thomas Merton
Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, Ronald Sider

(I know, right? Wheaton yard sales are so ridiculous. I saw someone leaving right as I got there with a stack of C.S. Lewis.)

And then I dropped a bunch of stuff off at Goodwill and just happened to walk by the book shelves...


The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (have been totally wanting to re-read!! It was so wasted on me in 7th grade)
Knowing God, J.I. Packer
Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
Sarah, Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Contentment, Lydia Brownback (like, on how to be content without buying every cheap book you see, maybe?)

Total for ALL of the above: $12, and that includes three picture frames and a nice mirror (the yard sale people ROCKED! They basically handed me everything I looked at.)

So... Oops.
(they're all going to look so nice organized by color on my bookshelf... *happy sigh*)

And now:

Two days left at work, eleven children's files to close, one bridesmaid dress to order, one bridesmaid dress to get fitted, several people to say goodbye to, one house-sitting job to complete, one prescription to fill, I-still-need-to-count-how-many packages to mail, one new computer battery to buy, thousands of dollars in loans to officially accept, a suitcase to pack, a rent check to write, one last small group breakfast to cherish, a year behind me to process, a passport to not lose, an international flight to take,
and a bit of peace to find on the topic of whether or not I'm going to be okay in adult life.

      

A gift in this year: Beth.

That cute girl front and center there, that one in the green shirt posing? That'd be her.

Oh Bethany Joy Hiltibran.

Beth with Miss Katie. I heart the Hiltibran girls.

Beth and I this year...

spent a lot of time together at Starbucks.
And Target.

And Denny's.

...and the Starbucks in Target (how convenient!!).

I love her a lot, and I am so grateful for her presence in my life this year.

Beth is the younger sister of my dear friend Matt, who is virtual family. So naturally when Beth showed up for her freshman year at Wheaton, I assumed that meant she would want to hang out with me all of the time.

I'm still not completely sure how she felt about that plan (particularly the first week when she was moving in and I basically kept introducing myself to her new friends?! Sorry babe)... but I'm very grateful she went along with it.

I'm grateful for her sass and sense of humor. This girl makes me laugh. One intentionally raised eyebrow and she can make a point get across quite clearly.

I'm grateful for the maturity so evident in her as I got to hear her process some of her thoughts about life, faith, friends, leaving home and starting college.
I'm grateful for her servant's heart- she's babysitting a family in her mission's kids all summer as they work at a missions conference.

I'm grateful for the unique perspective growing up as an MK in Europe has given her and how she's used it to engage in life deeply.

Actually, as I think on that sentence- I'm grateful just for her unique perspective in general. Beth is unique. She is a strong person, has a deep love for the people in her life, gets nuance and subtext in life, and has a deep and real faith. Often talking to her I learned things or got a perspective on a situation I couldn't have gotten from anyone else.

I am so grateful I got to be a part of her freshman year. The first year of college is such an exciting time. I loved getting to see that with her and be a part of it.
It was so much fun to watch her friendships and life at Wheaton develop.
And I am SO proud of how she engaged here. (So, so, so. Seriously. She did awesome.)

I'm thankful for how much she encouraged me.

(I'm really sick of putting that I'm grateful for people listening to me patiently while I freak out about things, but) I am grateful for this girl and how she did that. She was patient and thoughtful and non-judgmental and it rocked.

She became a real friend to listen to and talk through things with and I loved it. I'm grateful for any chance I got to hear her thoughts.

(I love frequent friendships. You think you're just running to Target to pick up shampoo and a cute shirt, and all of a sudden you're spilling your guts.)

I'm grateful for all our many coffee dates and shopping dates. They were my favorite.

I'm so, so grateful we went to church together every week. Seriously. I loved going with her, Tim, and our buddy Jeremy. It was consistent and safe and joyful and meaningful and I missed it terribly the weeks they were on breaks!! I loved driving them (...I'm sorry I was always late, guys... really... I am.) I loved sitting together and taking Communion together. I love that we had that routine and those memories.

The Hiltibran clan on my deck last summer.

I'm also thankful for what my friendship with Beth represents. I really love friends that become family. (I may not give people a choice on the matter, but still). My friendship with Matt has been one of the deepest and most impactful I've had ever, and one of the things I love about it is the way it has spilled into other relationships. It felt like the most natural thing in the world that I would spend a lot of time with Beth this year; and, it was. It was obvious. I love that I worshiped on Sundays with Beth and Tim. I love that we celebrated birthdays and Easter together. I love that I got to hear them process stuff and that Beth stayed with me when her flight got delayed (that poor girl... it's a long story) and that Matt lived in the Ramsings' basement last fall and that their parents take me out to dinner when they come to visit whether Matt's there or not (Story- we go to Egglectic for Easter lunch- Beth: "Oh, I've been here before. We came on family weekend." Me: "We did? When? I don't remember that." Beth: "Not with my family- my roommate's parents took us out." Me: "Oh, okay... um, because obviously I would have been there and all...") I love the extra people we get to pray for and be prayed for by and love. True friendship like that is such a gift.

At brunch on Easter Sunday.

And this fun girl, specifically, was a gift to me in this year.

And I am going to miss her a ton this fall.

 Thanking God for giving me Beth this year.

.10.

this blog series briefly interrupted...

...because I am having a Staycation with my small group for the next three days. AKA a retreat but at one of our houses... but we treat it as if we're away: all about Jesus and each other, and I'm unpluggin'. (And I didn't get my act together to pre-write the entries).

I'm sure everyone is concerned enough with my blog that this explanation was sooo necessary.

In other news:

-I leave for Bolivia ONE WEEK FROM TOMORROW!!! This. Is. Insane. I am so excited. SO excited.

Sweet Lindsay went to a travel agent in town and bought my domestic flight (I fly into an international airport in La Paz, which is about 12 hours by bus from Coch), so now theoretically I'm all set. I say theoretically because, "it is Bolivia", which means travel plans are not travel plans until you are on the plane. Oh how I do not exaggerate (right, Lauren?!). But I will get there. Even if I have to hitchhike. (Parentals: Don't worry, I'm totes joking!!) (Everyone else: Haha, yeah, well actually...).

And I got the one shot I still needed yesterday. Ouch.

And I know where my passpot is!! That's right. Be impressed. Functional adult: me (I definitely didn't lock myself barefoot out of my office on Wednesday and have to call our landlord to let me in or anything. No way, that'd have been so embarrassing.)

And I'm so excited and can't believe I'm actually going to be there so soon.

-WE WERE ACCEPTED FOR A TOWNHOUSE IN OREGON!! A mile from GFU's campus, it's a TOWNHOUSE which is way bigger than what we thought we we'd be able to find, the pics look cute, and it's in a residential neighborhod with lots of families (<3) which sounds way more fun to me than a commuter apartment complex.

I am significantly relieved to know I will not be studying for my graduate classes on the street somewhere, which at the rate our applications were going, was starting to somewhat be a concern.

And "we" is me and my cool new roommate Bethany, who is entering the same program with me. She's my age and went to Taylor and we haven't met yet, but we're now on phone-basis of "Hey it's me again" since we've been calling each other so often about the apartment search. She seems super sweet and I am excited to live with her.

-I love my mother so much. I am trying really hard to be a functional adult... really... but she is being super helpful and lovely with all the details. No idea what I would do without her.

-Whenever I get nervous about moving to Oregon, I google "coffee shops in Newberg, OR" and feel better just looking over the long list that immediately pops up...

Umm, I mean, I pray?? (I do! I swear.)

-My psycho best friend is flying to meet me in Colorado and then driving the three more days to Oregon with me. Because she is ridiculous. You should all be so jealous. I'm totally serious. Best. Road. Trip. Ever. Best best friend ever. Why is my life so insanely charmed?!!

-I Am Leaving Wheaton In One Week. After my two weeks in Bolivia I will be back here for three days to pack and then I drive to Denver for Tam's wedding. And then I am gone. This is weird. And I feel really excited and good about everything... but also, really sad. In a healthy way. I'm having like, "last hang outs" with people. It's bizarre and hasn't sunk in yet and is... sad.

-I added a freakin' awesome playlist to the bottom of my blog, so you should all click over and listen.

Love love.

A gift in this year: Elise.

I just really love this girl a lot.

And I am so grateful for her friendship the last five years (yeah for friends from the first semester of freshman year!!).

I'm so grateful for her compassion. There are a million obvious and really important examples of her compassion- her work with immigrants. Her relationships with her women in India. How incredible she is with kids (seriously, babies like, flock to her).

 Buuut, the second I started writing that sentence I just pictured her compassion to me (sorry, I'm selfish like that). I'm grateful for her gentleness and sensitivity and patience. Which she has shown me always, but I've especially appreciated it at times when I've needed to vent or been freaked or broken. Or just late and stressed out.

I'm grateful for the amazing external processing conversations we had about everything. (Seriously. Like everything.)

I'm grateful for her sweet voice. It's just really soft and cute, and I miss it.

Random, but- I'm grateful we have so many mutual friends!! Seriously- that is actually kind of weird for me. I am much more of a one-on-one person so I tend to have lots of best friends more than a clique... so usually, my friends don't all know each other. But Elise and I are just connected to tons of the same people, even through totally different contexts. She went to church with Amy and was in Ryan and Kendra's small group. She knows the Tuesday boys because they were on her brother floor. She was in Christine and Jana's Wheaton Passage group freshman year. Obviously, we share Sarah. (<3). She knows a lot of Rez people through World Relief. It's just fun... the people I love loving each other is MY FAVORITE... and plus it means she gets the context for lots of my stories :-P.

I love that she had her own friendship with my roommates, and that we all got to interact and see different sides of each other. I loved nights she was over for them and I got to see her :-).

I LOVE how much she loves her brand-new nephew. Omigoodness it is adorable. This. Girl. Loves. Her. Nephew. I have seen many a cute uploaded family video :-)

And  love how she is as a rising adult in her family, and the thought she gives to it.

I'm amazed by her work ethic.

I love how she pushes herself, tries new things, does things she loves which bring her joy- cooking, pursuing her extended family, exercising, reading Twilight. For real.

I'm grateful for her work with immigrants. I'm so grateful for her deep love and respect for them. For their sake, and for the living example she is for me of the importance of welcoming the stranger and caring for the least of these. I'm grateful and in awe of the ways she has truly changed and impacted their lives.

I'm so grateful that when I was encouraging my families to seek out legal help or assistance, I could say, "And don't be afraid to call World Relief, the people are so nice- actually, if you call, you might get to talk to one of my best friends!!".

And I'm grateful that during work I could call her and have a mom get on the phone and ask her a question. So kind.

I'm grateful for the ways she has thought hard about hard things. I'm grateful for her opinions and that she is not afraid to have them. She is gentle and respectful, but she has taught me much about standing up for what you believe in and not apologizing for believing it. She is an example to me.

I'm grateful for her gift of perception. Elise gets people. She is exceptionally insightful- and she mixes that discernment with compassion. Her words of encouragement and challenge are virtually always true, meaningful, and convicting- and often reveal things to me which I had never seen before.

I'm so grateful for how she pursued me this year. She was so intentional with me and our friendship. It made me feel so special and I am so thankful for the time we got to spend together.
And I love her creativity in planning things. Even if sometimes they fell through (we never did go to an amusement park, did we... bummer!).

I'm grateful for the comfortability and affirmation that comes from such a long friendship, which has seen each of us through many different phases and loved each other through all of them.


I'm grateful for her deep intelligence which she never uses to put others down.
(And I'm so proud of her for how she's using it in her new adventure now).



I'm grateful for her sense of humor which is kind but sharp and witty and astute and wonderful.

I'm grateful for her uniqueness. Elise is Elise. She is strong, thoughtful, passionate,  gentle, creative, curious, capable, engaged, and loyal.


I'm really, really, really grateful for the way we were able to process HNGR together. Elise went to India the year before I went to Bolivia. Our experiences were different but there were some definite similarities... and definite similarities in things we have been working through since. She has been SUCH a gift for me in this. Such, such, such a gift. There are things I have been able to work through and name and process and be healthier in, specifically because I had her to talk to and listen to.
And there are things which have no solution, but in which it was just... such a gift to have someone who "gets" it.
I'm grateful for how much it felt like we spoke a language together, that I needed someone else to speak.

I am so grateful and humbled by how she took such good care of me this year. That is what I think, when I think about Elise and our times together this year: "Wow, she took good care of me."
Seriously. I would go over to her apartment and she would cook me something creative and delicious from her Cooking Light subscription. As she chopped and stirred and I pretended to help, she would ask me helpful and encouraging questions about my job and give wise and thought-out insights from her own work with immigrants. And then we would snuggle on her big comfortable couch and watch an episode of something brilliant, witty, and profound. Like the Pride & Prejudice miniseries or Gilmore Girls.

And often it was deep and sometimes it was happy together vegging. I am so grateful for those memories... and I'm grateful for how she really did take care of me. Being with Elise was a very safe, accepted, refreshing space for me this year. And I'm so grateful for that.

I'm grateful for the long walk around a lake we went on right before she moved.

I'm grateful she moved to DC, where I'm for sure going to see her.

I'm grateful she moved, because it makes leaving Wheaton easier for me.

Oh I love her.

She had just gotten back from HNGR. We were about to go...

Thanking God for giving me Elise this year.

.11.

A gift in this year: Spiritual Direction.

 
 I told her to look "spiritual director-ish".

This is Lisa. She is my spiritual director. She has red hair and a nose piercing and wears long dangly earrings and laughs a lot and prays all the time. So clearly she is epically wonderful to rock star proportions.

What, you may ask, is a 'spiritual director'?

I'm sure it varies from person to person, but I just googled around and liked these two quotes:

"The spiritual director is one who, by virtue of personal holiness and spiritual maturity, helps the directee to pay attention to the presence and work of God in her or his life." 

and

"Spiritual direction is a time-honored term for a conversation, ordinarily between two persons, in which one person consults another, more spiritually experienced person about the ways in which God may be touching her or his life, directly or indirectly. In our postmodern age, many people dislike the term "spiritual direction" because it sounds like one person giving directions, or orders, to another. They prefer "spiritual companionship," "tending the holy," or some other nomenclature. What we call it doesn't make any real difference. The reality remains conversations about life in the light of faith."

(Interesting context is that apparently a typical demographic seeking spiritual directors these days are middle-aged women wondering what to do when their kids have left home. ...And she got me post-HNGR. Sorry, friend.)

It's different from mentorship in that we didn't "do life" together. We hug and we chat when we see each other at church and I know a decent amount about her life. But when we met it was focused on my spiritual life, not a mutual relationship- similar to a counselor in that way. And she rarely gave straight up advice (although I generally have to beat that out of my mentors anyway. Unlesss it comes to what state they think I should live in... hmm who might I be speaking to??...).

 Generally to start, she'd just ask me what I'd been praying or thinking about this month.
I'd pull out my journal for reference  and vent about whatever'd been on my heart, while she nodded and looked empathetic (or laughed, depending on the source of my venting).

 Then I would pause for breath and look at her...
and we'd have a conversation that typically went like this:

Me: Sooo... what do you think?
Lisa: What do I think?
Me: Right. I mean... so, that's what's up! So... spiritually direct me! Ready set go!
Lisa: (laughs)

So annoying.

And then. She'd shrug, and smile... and ask me what I sensed God telling me.

And I don't know what was so magic about her asking me that. Because, it's not like I couldn't ask myself the same question. But for some reason every time she did ask me, I'd stop and actually... you know... think about it.

Honestly, sometimes, I told her that I had absolutely no idea, and that was fine.
But a good amount of the time, when I sat and was quiet and listened... Usually, I would start noticing things in my heart. Whispers I'd heard. Just... themes, of things. I don't know how to explain it?

Deep down- not always, but sometimes- I do know His voice.
The funny thing is, the things He says are usually way smaller and less exciting and directive than what I want Him to be saying. So I half-notice them... and push on in my anxiety, or impatience for a Big Revelation, or dissatisfaction with His words.

Spiritual direction didn't let me do that.

It gave me a space and accountability, to notice the whispers.

 I'm so grateful for that.

I'm grateful for who Lisa is. She exudes wisdom, compassion, and humor- not just haha humor, but humor as defined by Anne of Green Gables... "just another word for a sense of the fitness of things".

I'm grateful for the fact that she has the kind of wisdom and prayerful spirit that only comes from living through suffering. When I was looking for a spiritual director, a few months after I returned from Bolivia, I knew I needed someone who would not try to give easy answers to my girls' stories. I needed to rebuild my world and my theology in a way that had room for a good and sovereign God, and for what had happened to them without silver-lining it. Lisa can do that. She lives with open hands, to joy and to pain. She is hopeful and believes in redemption; but she acknowledges that this world is fallen and not our home. She has asked and lived incredibly hard questions and built her faith through years of hard work. Knowing and working with her coming from that perspective, was such an incredible gift to me. (Side note- on the one hand it is awesome that so many women I admire and pray to be like tend to have this quality... and the other hand, um, well that's terrifying... :-P)

I'm grateful for the space spiritual direction was- a chance to explore the hard and scary places with God, without having to worry about putting extra burdens on my close friends (who did such a fantastic job of loving me that HNGR-and-cancer year).

 I'm grateful, as I am with Rez in general, for the example I saw of someone who believes in a good God while engaging in lament. Oh how that taught me and gave me hope.

 I'm grateful for what I learned from her about prayer. She prays. All the time. And the way she prays is weird, and contemplative, and wordless, and in connection with Jesus, and clearly where she draws her strength from. And it makes sense to me in some deep-down way and I pray often that God will develop that kind of a heart in me.

 I'm grateful that usually if I cried, she would too. "What, why are YOU crying?". "I don't know. I'm just praying. You can keep talking." (That sounds super emo. Usually we would both be laughing in that exchange).

I'm grateful for her prayers for me- part of spiritual direction is committing to the pray for the directee. She prayed for me like crazy. It was nuts.

I'm grateful that I felt completely comfortable in that setting. She was SUCH a good fit for me in that role and that was so crucial in a really vulnerable spiritual season for me. I don't say this lightly- I could really see God's hand in us being matched up.

I'm grateful for the ways that she affirmed me to connect with God as He made me to be. A lot of times she would point out patterns in how I was drawn to pray and where she saw me sounding like I felt the most peaceful and connected to God. That was super helpful for me in giving myself permission to "pray as I can" and try more to serve Him with the gifts He's given me.

I'm grateful for her insights. I know she tried to balance keeping her own life out of it and pointing me towards the Spirit, but whenever she would share from her own relationship with God and how she had processed similar places I learned so much.

I'm grateful for where I feel like I am with God now- which these conversations had a big part in.

A few examples which show why I loved spiritual direction so much (I went through my journal from the last few months and found some quotes):

...Once after I SUPER vented-
Lisa: Oookay. Well... why don't we pause to pray...
Me: Am I overwhelming you?
Lisa: Umm... nooo... but... I feel like you could use a spiritual deep breath for a minute.

...Once while interacting with Lisa and her husband, I was kind of hyper-
"See, this is what your wife had to put up with all the time. This is what spiritual direction sessions with me looked like... Well, that and crying and cursing."
John laughed. Lisa just chuckled, and said, under her breath but not quietly,
"Oh-ho, and not necessarily in that order either...".

..."What is the Lord calling you to be faithful in today? Just today."

..."I don't expect life to be anything other than a mixture of fallen and redeemed."

..."Lord, show me Your perspective."

 ..."Lord, we pray that in this season You would increase Emily's capacity for joy." I had forgotten she'd prayed that until I found it written down several months later. I believe it has been answered and it's a prayer I'm continuing to pray, and so grateful for.

...Lisa: Okay, Emily, I have a question- do you feel connected with the word 'centered'?
Me: Mm... what do you mean by connected?
Lisa: Like... does that, hit anything deep for you?
Me: I mean... I like being centered...
Lisa: What about... 'rest'?
Me: (blank stare)
Lisa: Just, what word, if you hear it, makes you feel that you are good with God. That you and He are where you want. How about 'peace'...
Me: Open communication.
She laughed so hard she started tearing up.
Lisa: Of course. Oooffff course.

...Once after hearing me freak one more time about the whole good-God-horrible-things paradox, she (incredibly tentatively and compassionately) asked if I knew anything about physics.
"No...?"
She then explained string theory to me... the idea that two ideas can seem to contradict each other yet are mutually true. Because there are is a gap law no scientist has discovered yet.
She acted like she felt so silly using that as an example, but for some reason it was one of the first ways I'd heard that put that I felt like I could sort of hold it.


...

Recently, in the car on the way to meet with her, I was thinking about what I would talk about. I had been turning a certain situation in my head over and over for days and was super stressed about it. And I was feeling like I was definitely dishonoring God in this. I was not being trusting. I was stressed and distracted and it was bad, and so I was going to talk with her about how to turn my focus onto other things.

"Mmm. So... what do you sense the Holy Spirit telling you?"

Um. I mean. The trust thing, right? And the selfish thing?

She waited. And I thought about it. I thought about on my lunch break that day, when I had gone to the armchair by the big picture window in the West Chicago library and stared out at the trees before God. What had I sensed, really, if I thought about it?

"I guess... well, this doesn't seem to really have much to do with the situation."

"That's okay."

"Well...  I guess when I was praying today... the only sense I really had from God,

was that He was glad I was telling Him that I was sad."

She grinned. "That sounds good."

Um? "...What sounds good?"

"What you just said. That God's calling you to be sad with Him."

"...It does?"

"It doesn't do any good to not be who you are in front of Him."

...And that was what she said. I had fully expected for her to give me some verses to look up on trusting God in the face of anxiety, or something. And we talked about trust, but it was never in a condemning or shaming voice. It was always to guide me to the Voice I already knew, was already hearing, needing to listen to. She wasn't trying to guide me to a particular conclusion; she just wanted to tune me in to Him.

So grateful for that.

 Thanking God for giving me spiritual direction this year.

.12.

A gift in this year: Serving Eucharist.

"Take this in remembrance that Christ died for you,

and feed on Him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving."

"The body of Christ, the bread of heaven."

"Amen."

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

"Amen."

I pick up my tray, check on the sheet which aisle I am assigned to, walk over and take my place.

There I stand as they file down. Parents with their children, a baby on one hip and a toddler or two in tow. Young adults, and elderly couples who hold each other's shaking hands as they walk down the aisle. Little girls in twirly dresses with matching headbands, skipping more than they walk. Fellow Wheaton grads sitting together in groups. Faces I recognize, faces I don't. They file down. They pause at the deacon, take the bread. They stop and take the wine from the chalice, or they come to me.

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

"Amen."

I don't always make eye contact- I wait. I remember what Nancy, the Eucharist ministry coordinator and one of my favorite people, says about how she serves it- she takes a step back, leaving them room to meet with God, but she prays for them as they drink. I pray for each one of them- specifics if I know them. I pray "Lord, bless her today", "Bless him", as they tip it, drink and walk on. I affirm His love for them as best I can for that moment they are in front of me, meeting Him.

Meeting Him.

I get to watch them as they meet Him.

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

"Amen."

"What we... must realize, is that all our intellectual articulations about this sacrament are but feeble human attempts to comprehend the basic mystery of God's unconditional loving acceptance of us, His children."

 The mystery is unfolding in front of me.

Every week, as I stand there, it is not just balancing the tray and timing the saying and checking to make sure I have enough cups for the people in line. It is those things, but I am seeing the mystery. I am standing in front of the mystery.

"On the night He was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread; and when He had given thanks to You, He broke it, and gave it to His disciples, and said, “Take, eat: This is My Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of Me."

It is acceptance by Him. It is intimacy with Him, unconditional on how we feel or what we say.

It is His body, given to us.

Sometimes they're crying as they take it. Not infrequently. Oh, do I long and pray for the ones who cry; and my heart swells with wanting to offer them comfort- but more it swells with hope that they are receiving it... and with gratitude and awe that the meaning of this cup, can bring them to tears.

I love when they do look into my eyes, and I get to smile into theirs as they drink.

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

I always try to pick up the tray instead of the chalice because it holds the non-alcoholic wine and I love serving the children. They come, too. The babies, even, and I love watching their parents hold the cup to their lips and minister this living grace to them. I love praying for those babies and their sweet lives the Lord is at work in, as they drink it, too.

I love the toddlers who pick it up all by themselves, so proudly. I squat down to serve it to them, and I say the words to them, too, just the same.

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

"Say 'Amen', buddy!"

"Aaa-mennnn!"

I'm not sure I'm supposed to, but usually I whisper, "Good job!" as they carefully put the empty cup back.

I love when it's someone I know. We don't act differently, because we are all there as one family. But oh, how special it is to get to participate in that moment, that mystery, with someone I love deeply, whose life I get to share.

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation..."- I'm so grateful to get to say it to them.

"Amen."

 "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

"The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

Over and over and over I say it, as they file down, as they take it, as they receive and as they meet Him. Over and over I get to see the mystery. Over and over I get to affirm His love and His work in them. Over and over I get to speak words that enter and comfort my heart, that are truth.

I am so grateful God gave me the great gift of serving Eucharist at Rez this year.

"Eternal God, Heavenly Father, You have graciously accepted us as living members of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ;

and You have fed us with spiritual food through the Sacrament of His body and blood."

Thanking God for giving me the chance to serve communion this year.

.13.

A gift in this year: Iglesia.

When I first started attending Iglesia, towards the end of my senior year at Wheaton, I thought of it (/it was), the "Spanish service" of Rez. It has since grown and evolved from a small group of about three families which met in one family's basement, to a full-on church meeting in the ministry center, which is separate from Rez (although a part of the same family of churches as I understand it...).

My role in Iglesia has evolved and been re-defined as well. The original plan was for me to lead a group of the youth. Over last summer I started getting called in to occasionally lead the kids. And then occasionally was turning into every other week... then every week. And the youth were hard to get together...

Then we moved to the ministry center and combined with another smaller group to be a bigger group, and there were more kids, and, well, new plan... Steven and I were officially leading the kids!

Honestly, my first reaction to this development was great hesitation. I am not a teacher. Not. A. Teacher. I love mentoring. I love snuggling babies. And I absolutely love kids... but managing a room full of them, not just for fun, but for spiritual development? Um...

And, well, this is the part where I'd love to jump in and say, "BUT THEN IT ALL WENT SWIMMINGLY AND NOW I LOVE TEACHING AND THEY HUNG ON MY EVERY WORD AND GREW SPIRITUALLY LEAPS AND BOUNDS AND I CREATED AN ENGAGING, CREATIVE, BIBLICAL SUNDAY SCHOOL CURRICULUM THAT'S BEING USED IN CHURCHES THROUGHOUT THE STATE."

But, nope.

It was really, really hard. And I don't feel like I was that good at it... ever. And honestly, it was frustrating and tiring, a lot, and there are things I'd do differently now... and I have some strong feelings I still really need to think through, about the ways the kids were affected by my limitations.

It was, however, very much a ton of fun and a huge source of joy for me this year...

I'm so grateful for each and every one of those kids. I love them.

I'm grateful for their hugs and sweet smiles and funny, quirky personalities, and crazy antics (...most of the crazy antics :-P).
I'm so grateful for the privilege it is to teach kids about God's love for them, and to meet with them in His Word.

I'm grateful for the chance to try to reach out to the more difficult kids. I'm grateful for the times we felt like we were getting through. I'm grateful for the chance to pray for God's heart for them and to show God's love to them.

I'm grateful for the exhausting creative challenge of trying to come up with ways to get Bible stories and messages across in an engaging and relevant way... I'm grateful for the awesome feeling when it seemed like it WORKED!

I.am.grateful. for the times when it didn't seem that it worked... and what that taught me about "doing your best, praying it will be blessed, and letting God take care of the rest" (thank you my dear sweet freshman roommate).

I'm grateful for their laughter. And for our amazing fun times together... soccer on the grass out front, for the record, is absolutely a spiritual exercise... And tickling is apparently incredibly helpful to their ability to study the Bible, they assure me.

I'm grateful for times when I came back from a few weeks away and kids immediately ran up and said they'd missed me.

I'm grateful for getting to know some of their needs and personalities and trying to tailor lessons to them.

I'm soooo grateful for the many times God taught me through their insights and questions.

I'm so grateful for the time spent in prayer over them... and with them.

I'm so grateful for how God is at work in their hearts and lives... and that we are "coming late to a party".

I'm so grateful God let me be a part of their stories.

These are our kids in the room one day we were playing around with trying to create a more peaceful atmosphere...

we liked avoiding gross flourescent overhead light, but this particular lamp did not quite cut the whole need-for-people-to-be-able-to-see-each-other thing.

 

Making Christmas scenes out of popsicle sticks (does that scream desperation for ideas to you? Well...), and lovin' on the leaders.

I'm grateful for memories together. One specific family's kids Steven and/or I ended up taking out after the service frequently. This was one of my favorite, favorite things. I loved that the kids were excited about it. I loved getting the chance to enjoy them and get to know them better. I hope and pray they are bright moments and memories for them. Some of my most cherished memories in my whole life are of times when I got to go out with leaders from my youth group throughout high school. (...and by throughout high school, I mean, every time I'm home now... I probably just take it for granted a bit more after a decade :-)). But seriously. Quality time is my love language to an insane degree and at least for one of these boys I see that a lot too. Getting to spend fun time with special adults is such an exciting thing to a kid and can be such an amazing way to love on them. And I look back on every one of those Starbucks and IHOP dates as just as spiritually formative (trusting spiritual leaders and feeling safe and accepted in a fellowship environment!!!) as any Bible study I ever did. True story.

....annnnd, that was a novel. In conclusion, I am so grateful we went out with them after class so often. I pray it had fruit beyond what we can see. And I'm grateful for the memories of my leaders doing it for me, which moved me to do it more on the nights when I was beat and just wanted to go home.

...Honestly, I have been reflecting a lot in the last couple of weeks,

on the ways that involvement in Iglesia was a hard area for me this year, too.

Not because of any lack of love or joy in my relationships with the members of this church.

But because of how much my own failings were present.

And that is something else I have been gradually starting to thank God for.

It is a gift to get more clarity on my weaknesses, and my sinful patterns. And to see more clearly and startlingly, how they affect me, and other people. And if you are someone who prays for me, please feel free to include in your prayers that my continued reflection on these areas turns into the strength to make actual changes.

I'm grateful for realizing more of just how often I fail to follow through on things I say I will do- or things I just straight up should do.

I'm grateful for recognizing more excuses I give for this laziness, to my own heart and to others.

I'm grateful to be seeing more of how often I care more about how I come across to others than how much I am quietly and honestly just doing what I am accountable for before God.

I'm grateful to be realizing in more dramatic ways, just how much I can shirk work, prioritize my own comfort, and complain in my heart (or out loud), when I am tired, drained, lonely, or feel like I can blame a bad result on someone else.

These were also very real gifts from God through Iglesia to me this year.

But not the only ones.

(I love these little girls so much I almost can't handle it. They are the ones who are usually in my arms when I take Communion... oh they make me so happy. And I love love love their sweet and amazing mom. Which is why I feel really bad about how sad she'll be when I steal her children.)

Girls at my house making Christmas cookies! 

I'm so grateful for the girls I got to mentor. Griselda and Frances became real friends. I adore them, and I look up to them. And I have regret in those relationships, too, about not having as much time or energy as I wanted to; but thanks be to God because I have been seeing some sweet fruit in our times and friendships anyway. I'm crossing my fingers that hopefully it was a situation of God multiplying the loaves and fish I could offer. I love those girls... they brought me so much joy this year!

I'm grateful for the moms at church who became friends. (I wish I was staying. I feel more and more comfortable with them every week.) (I mean I don't wish I was staying, really, but... you know what I mean.)

I'm grateful for the warmth and care they extend to me.

I'm grateful for the times I felt comfortable and at home in that community.

I'm so grateful for the chance to get to know more about what it is like as an immigrant here; to know and enter into their stories in any way.

I'm grateful to have gotten to know the teens, even though I didn't spend as much time with them as I wish I could have. I so enjoyed the time I did spend, and the chance to get to see them on Saturdays.

And obviously I'm so grateful for the close friendships I gained through it!!

I'm grateful for some clarity I got about how to pursure church community and service in the future.
I'm grateful to be wrestling with the balance between "do few things, but do them well" and pouring out where there are needs. Still confused, but grateful to be thinking about it.

I'm grateful for the Kirmes nights where we all eat together to enjoy each other and raise money for the church.

I'm grateful for the baptisms and the first Communions we rejoiced over together.

I'm grateful for celebrating Mexican Christmas traditions!

I'm so grateful to have gotten to worship and pray and take the Eucharist in Spanish.

I'm grateful to have seen and stood in awe, of what can come of people getting to know their neighbors (seriously. That's how this whole church started. Jonathan was intentional with his neighbors.)

I am grateful for this (from the website):

"As a church we exist for the sake of the community and advocate for justice for those whose voice is often not heard..." 

 -to have gotten to be a part of it, to have gotten to see it and be formed by it and learn from it.

This was tonight :-).

 

...This might seem random but it was one of my favorite things. We did a lesson about Jesus healing the blind man. I wanted them to appreciate how grateful that man must have been, so I blindfolded them all and then told them to find the candy that was hidden around the room. Finding candy blind is frustrating; therefore being blind is frustrating; WOW it's great that Jesus heals! Unfortunately for the point of my lesson, they thought the blindfolds were great fun and turned it into a big crashing into each other game. But we went over how lonely and desperate that man must have been in those times, etc... wrote things he couldn't do on the board so that they could imagine how kind of Jesus it was to heal him... anyway, after the service when I went back into the room I found this on the board. They got the point. Love.

Thanking God for giving me Iglesia this year.

.14.

A gift in this year: Meredith.

 

"We cannot tell the precise moment a friendship is formed.

As in filling a vessel drop by drop there is at last one which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over."

-James Boswell

Girlfriends are basically my favorite thing. And I have a lot of them. I have a lot of awesome ones.

But there have only been a very few of this particular type. Where someone is completely not in my life one week... and then somehow we end up sitting down and having a real conversation. And maybe it takes one more coffee date.. but by the next week, I just know they are going to be in my life, in a deep way, for a long, long time.

And there are all of a sudden text messages, and secrets, and needing-to-tell-each-other-things, and if I stop to actually count length-of-time-of-friendship it's bizarre to me how short it is. Because they are in my heart in a way where it just feels silly and completely ridiculous to even imagine what it would be like without them.

That happened with Mere this year. And it has been such a gift.

This is just some boy she found lying around in the park...

A little bit of the context for our friendship... most of the fall, though I was soaking in beautiful friendships and community in many ways, I was Very Very Dedicated to not having "a person". It's a long story (and will be another post soon). But I basically was very sure that I had heard from God that I needed to be in a season of more intentional solitude- not just in terms of physical space but emotional, too. And the way the fall unrolled, this was not particularly difficult to achieve.

But around Christmas, I started, well, pretty much yearning for some closer, more daily friendships.

("But I'm supposed to be lonely right now!! I'm supposed to only have Jesus be my Best Friend!!!!")

Around the same time, I was assigned to a Rez prayer group- the same one as Meredith. We had mutual friends so I knew she was great. But I decided I didn't have time to do it since I was already meeting with two small groups. It was a good decision, but Steve moaned when he heard she'd been assigned to mine.

"But you have to be friends with MEREDITH MALONY!!!! That would have been PERFECT!!!! Do you KNOW her?? She's AMAZING!!!! And you guys would have been SO WONDERFUL for each other!!!"

But... I couldn't do the group! But bummer, because she did seem cool.

Long story (notthat)short, when I was in Maryland over Christmas break I had some helpful and insightful conversations with wise friends. They spoke into my life in a lot of ways, including the areas of community, and solitude, and the decision I'd made to intentionally not pursue closer friendships for a few months. And they encouraged me that maybe I had learned what God had wanted to teach me in that season, and it was okay if I felt ready to move out of it.

And that happened to coincide with when Mere happened. We ran into each other at the Rez volunteer breakfast, and sat down with our paper plates to chat. We looked up an hour later and everyone else had left- we were sitting on the only two folding chairs still out in the middle of the almost-completely-empty auditorium.

She put it recently as "God answering prayers we didn't know we were praying". I'd agree with that statement.

I am so grateful for the gifts of this girl and this friendship.

I'm grateful for how it happened... the existence of our friendship and its formation taught me much about His character this year. My friendship with Meredith, and its timing, is a sign to me of God's intentionality, of His knowledge of what we need, of His "delighting in doing good" to us. Those were lessons I needed- need- to learn. (And really, could you think of a lovelier way for Him to show them to me?!). I'm grateful for what I've learned through this friendship about the role of community and doing life together in faith.

I am so grateful for the depth of our friendship.

I'm grateful for a kindred spirit. I'm grateful for our conversations about desiring to be settled, about "hanging up curtains" where we live, about Rez, and relationships, and how (...and where, and with whom) to live after college.

I love our long walks through Wheaton and Glen Ellyn, meandering through the neighborhoods with our arms linked, pointing out the cute houses we like, rejoicing at coming signs of spring and now delighting in summer sunshine and green.

 I love that we lay on the grass by the playgrounds and at the lake behind Rez spilling our hearts. (...Or talking about what foods we craved when we studied abroad. Which is also important.)

I'm grateful for cuddling under a blanket on her couch, staying up late talking.

I'm grateful she came over to help me pack and brought packing tape and plastic bags and was absolutely firm in making me get rid of stuff I needed to get rid of.

I'm grateful she'll call me when she has extra soup in her fridge she wants help finishing off.

I'm grateful that when I sent out on email jokingly asking for chocolate, she immediately arranged to take me on a date to a chocolate freakin' restaurant.

Sheee's just adorable. Ooh- and look at our chocolate-covered strawberries!!

I love hearing her heart. I am so grateful and privileged by her intentionality in sharing it with me. I'm so appreciative of how she receives mine.
I love the role we play for each other, I think, in being consistent prayer-and-processing friends.

I am so grateful for a friendship in which we can talk for hours and still have plenty to say.

I'm grateful that it is perfectly normal for a date to include both laughter and tears- and usually plenty of random tangents, even in the midst of something intense.

This was taken tonight! What is a movie-and-pizza-night without a Photobooth session?

I'm so grateful for who this beautiful girl is.

I'm grateful for her silliness. (Friends who make funny faces and weird noises are my favorite.)

I'm grateful for her empathy.
And her great kindness.

I'm grateful for her deep desire and striving for honesty with herself and others.

 I'm grateful for her deeply committed faith.

I'm grateful for her loyal heart.
I'm grateful for her intentional vulnerability.

I'm grateful for what I learn from her maturity, wisdom, and nuance.
I love how she loves her family and the way she talks about her mom.
I love her sense of humor.
I love her up-for-adventures! spirit.

I'm grateful for and learn soooo much from her attention to and faithfulness in small things.

I just love her so much.

 

Look- it's that same guy from the park! We found him in her apartment, too! What a coincidence!

"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."

-Charlotte, Charlotte's Web

E. B. White

(for some reason that quote just made me think of her as soon as I read it. Charlotte is a wise spider.)

Thanking God for giving me Mere this year.

.15.