Amy Grace, friendship, adulthood, and hard things.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent three days in San Diego with Ames. We went for walks and ate out at restaurants and spent too much at upscale California thrift stores. We cuddled her sweet baby nephew who she nannies for and stayed up late in sweatpants watching Friends and How I Met Your Mother.

We talked about her dad some, but not a lot. More we talked about her husband of seven months, and what a blessing he is, and how much she loves becoming his wife. About what a gift it is right now to spend her days with her sister and her family and to come home to James at night. We talked about my settling into life in Oregon, how well the rhythm suits me and how in love I am with my studies and community.

It would be easy to try to draw a million poignant points from being with this freshman-roommate of mine, two weeks after her dad died. About walking together in this season, after seasons we shared where our tears were over 18-year-old boys and overwhelming term papers.

Honestly, though? That fact doesn't feel glamorous in any way that made me excited to write a blog post. It just feels sad. I'm so sad her good dad had cancer, and I'm so sad he died, and I am so sad Amy and her mom and her sisters and their husbands and babies have to miss him these years until heaven. I'm proud of them and the faith and praise they choose. I'm grateful for that sassy and beautiful girl and our friendship, and for all she teaches me, and for what I hope I can give to her.

As we walked and laughed and shopped and vegged and were basically just together, I thought a lot about how my understanding of adult life has evolved in the last couple of years. I think I used to think that hard things ended at some point; that we'd "arrive", and at that point pain would be the anomaly, the strange and sucky event to get through before returning to the baseline of Normal: Easy and Great. That seems less and less true. Life is so beautiful and joyful and good, but it is really hard. It doesn't make me love adult life less, but it makes me engage in it differently; it makes me re-think what my hopes and goals are of how to live this life and walk out faith and love well.

I've been re-writing this for a couple of hours now, and I don't really have any great conclusions.

I am grateful for our crazy God, who doesn't take the pain away, for reasons I still don't understand and still rail against... but who in His upside-down-kingdom way, abides with us and never lets us do it alone.

I'm grateful for reminders that this beautiful and good world, still, is not our home. I pray those gaps of felt home-less-ness, will lead us to long for Him and His fullness.

I'm grateful for the friends we're given to walk with.

In San Diego last month. Some hott grown-up girl with a pixie hair cut.

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Fall 2011