to my friend on her second wedding anniversary.

dear christine,

the title of this post would imply that it's going to be about your marriage,
but it's actually more about our friendship.

sorry, i know that's kind of narcissistic, but hey- it's my blog and i do what i want.

*******

three springs ago, i had a hard break-up. four days later you got engaged.

i remember you calling me to tell me you were engaged. i was sitting in the sunny back corner of the bagel shop in glen ellyn, journaling and fighting sadness like a weight on my chest, when my phone rang and it was you screaming in excitement.

when i picture that sunny corner and your voice and that day,
all i remember feeling is overwhelming happiness.
when we finally both stopped shrieking and hung up,
i couldn't stop grinning,
and when i looked down at my journal,
for just a second i couldn't remember why there were tear stains on the page.

your joy was my joy.

i remember a week or two later, going wedding dress shopping.
you tried on dresses and posed in those three-way mirrors and all the bridal consultants and i oohed and aahhed over you and you kept smiling and making conversation with everyone there like you do because no matter what you are interested in other people,
and you were so beautiful and so excited to marry luke and so excited to wear that dress and so so happy.

and afterwards we went out to lunch to that place with the good milkshakes,
and you tried to make me talk about how i was feeling about the break-up.
i tried to change the subject BECAUSE WE WERE BUYING YOUR FREAKING WEDDING DRESS and we do not need to talk about this right now!! we're happy!! it's fine!!

and you were PISSED. do you remember?
EMILY.
YOU'RE SAD.
THIS IS A BIG DEAL.

you said i was not.allowed. to say why i was grateful everything had happened how it had, or try to find any lessons in it, or claim there were silver linings, for "at least six months!" (but i talked you down to three); this was a period where it was important to let myself just be sad,
and you grabbed my hand and said
i'm sooo sad you're sad, too.

my pain was your pain.

*******

i count that story as one of my most precious memories.

every once in awhile i'll tell it to someone, and i always feel sort of tentative and vulnerable... like does it even make sense why it matters so much to me?

long after the pain of a break-up has faded,
the gratitude for your friendship in that season remains.

it is no small blessing to have a friend
who will mourn with me
when you had every reason in the world to just be happy.

"rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."

i got relief from the heaviness of that time for me, in your joy;

but what benefit did taking breaks from your delirious happiness to cry with me have for you?

and yet you were all in,
for mourning as well as rejoicing.

*******

two years ago today, you floated- it really seemed like that- down the aisle on the arms of your parents.

i've never seen someone happier.

everyone who loves you and luke watched and cried and praised God for His sweet, sweet goodness.

you and that boy gazed at each other and oh, the joy.

*******

eight months ago, i was in my office finishing paperwork at the end of the day

when my phone rang. i answered and heard your voice.

you were at the hospital. and you were crying.

through those weeks of tests, and through these months of scary appointments and trial medications and an unknown future,

through hard hard questions and aching, angry prayers,

oh, my love, there has been mourning.

big, hard mourning.

young love gets a bad rap sometimes, like it isn't real because it hasn't been tested.

what i wish is that you'd gotten a few more years of not being tested.

i wish people were rolling their eyes at your love for each other because it's young and naive.

i wish you could still be naive in your newlywedness.

but i thought i couldn't hear you sound more in love than when you called screaming that he'd finally proposed,

then i thought i couldn't hear you sound more in love than when you vowed the rest of your life to him.

but now i've heard your voice tell me, as you drive home from picking up prescriptions, "I am so, so lucky to be married to him."

you and that boy gaze at each other and oh, the joy.

and babe, whether you will take this or not:

your community praises God for what we see when we look at you two.

*******

three springs ago it seemed like a cruel joke to have a break-up and an engagement in the same week. i was so frustrated, that it couldn't just be clean and easy: "we're just happy!".

now (with my sage 25-year-old wisdom) life just seems more all mixed up like that.

sometimes stuff is really hard. sometimes it's really really amazing. usually it's something like both at once, especially if you're counting other people's blessings and burdens in your own.

i hope every day for you is happy for the rest of your life. i hope that you have 60 or 70 more years of marriage.

i hope you come with me to try on my wedding dress someday,

and when we go out for milkshakes afterwards,

maybe i'll rub your baby belly and you'll be laughing and still be interested in chatting with the waitress and hearing where she went to school because you're always interested in other people.

but probably it's going to all be some of both.

sometimes we're going to be calling each other screaming in joy and sometimes crying in heartache and confusion.

and when i think about how we'll live those seasons,

i remember what your 22-year-old, glowing, bride-to-be self showed me:

my pain is your pain, even when it's inconvenient for you and you have every reason to choose to enter into it later.

i pray i would be as good a friend to you.

i can't wait to continue shrieking in excitement with you over all of your joys, from good sales at the grocery store to baby kicks.

and when you are mourning,

even if i am in a season where i could choose to turn away and just smile at my own sunshine,

i pray i will get indignant and tell you that you're not allowed to be grateful or find a silver lining for at least six months,

and i will look you in the eye and grab your hand and tell you earnestly,

i know. i am so sad with you.

it is one of the greatest joys of my life to rejoice and mourn with you.

thank you for being an amazing friend.

*******

...umm... also, happy anniversary!!!

i love you both. i have a card for you and hopefully i will even get it in the mail soon.

love forever,
your grateful friend (and bridesmaid!!)

milkshakes and engagement rings,

april 2011

.quilt.

fabrics:

hoffman batiks & watercolors,

mostly from the honeysuckle and elderberry collections

pattern:

more or less a turning-twenty

feb.

april.

july.

september.

october.

.christine is here.

it's the best thing in the world.

i wrote this four years ago,

in bolivia,

after our 10-day vacation together in the middle of our HNGR internships.

"...But honestly, I think that had we been staying in a tiny motel room in an alley somewhere and it had rained the whole week,

I still would have been totally happy.

The best part was just being with Christine.

We got to share our hearts, tell some of the stories we've heard here,

laugh together over the joys and goofs of the last few months.

We got to cry over our own failings that we've come face to face with as we've lived out of our comfort zones,

over how much we miss our friends and family back home,

over the injustices and horrors we have seen and heard and not been able to do anything about.

We were able to affirm, enjoy, and pray for each other,

and speak God's truth to each other's hearts-

that He could not love us more

even if we had been "the perfect HNGR interns".

That He is doing more than we can see or imagine,

in the lives of the people that we have grown to love so much here, and in our own.

That there is fruit in both of our hearts and lives from this time,

and there will be more."

i wrote that in an internet cafe in bolivia,

at 21,

homesick and tired and grateful for that time with my friend.

here we are, 25 years old,

a newlyishwed in illinois and a grad student in oregon...

when we are together,

this is still how it is

and what we do.

these days,

we are not usually homesick

and we spend most of our hours speaking our first language...

but it is still what we need.

i am so grateful for this friend who refreshes, reminds, and strengthens my heart.

wine tasting today... i'm working pretty hard to convince her they need to move here

Reading...

Books of late:

Crossing to Safety, Stegner

I LOVED this book. Like want all my friends to read it, possibly is my new favorite novel after Hannah Coulter. Beautiful prose. Likable, well-developed characters. Joyful and focused on the beauty of life without being overly sentimental; it went into the painful, rubbing nuances of joy and goodness. Reading this book was especially meaningful to me right now... Lots about growing older and what matters as you enter adulthood and "real life". Lots about the unexplainable joy that are deep friendships.

Isaiah 40-66, Brueggemann

I'm doing this in my personal times with God right now. Great to dive deep into my favorite book of the Bible, great to learn interpretation from a scholar and pastor I respect so much, and great to love God more as I learn how His goodness and greatness show in the book of Isaiah.

Celebration of Discipline, Foster

I've been re-reading the chapter on simplicity a lot the last few weeks, reminding and refreshing... "If what we have we receive as a gift, and if what we have is to be cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety... the inward reality of simplicity." "Simplicity knows contentment in both abasement and abounding."

The Hobbit, Tolkien

I love reading out loud with people and being read out loud to. My friend Courtney and I decided that The Hobbit, which I had never read, seemed like the perfect read-aloud book (for grownups).  On random weeknight evenings when we both have time, we take turns reading chapters out loud to each other and knitting. Love the memory with her and loving the book. Also, I think I must have been switched at birth because inside I really am a hobbit.

Bread & Wine, Niequist

Christine gave me a beautiful hardback copy of this new release while I was in Wheaton. So special because it's a gift from her and I know how much she loves (read: is obsessed with) the author. I can't wait to get more into: "...A collection of stories... about the ways God teaches and nourishes us as we nourish the people around us." "This is what I want you to do: tell someone you love them, and that dinner's at six."

The Snow Child, Ivey

I cancelled multiple plans this week so that I could spend hours on my porch swing this week finishing this new favorite. Simple, beautiful writing. Vivid imagery of life on an Alaskan farm in the 1920s, which I really enjoyed- the kind of creation of a setting where I was surprised to look outside and realize it wasn't snowing. Joyful, sad, and beautifully tender.

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Noll

I'm about a third of the way into this and it's kind of rocking my world. Fascinating look at America in the early-mid 1800's if you enjoy history, which I'm discovering more and more I really do. The vastly different conclusions that "Bible-believing" people can defend as holy  and obvious... make it very humbling and thought-provoking for me.

Love Does, Goff

My sweet friend Elaine read this, texted me that I had to read it, and the next time I stopped by her house had bought me a copy. I love the playfulness and energy the author describes and it's inspiring me to live love in fun-for-no-reason ways. I texted Matty two chapters in and said, "You have to read the book Love Does, you would love it", and he texted back, "Already read it and I did love it :-)." I'm excited to keep reading.

Someone Knows My Name, Hill

This narrative of a the life of a woman captured in Africa as a young girl and sold into slavery in the US was fascinating, page-turning, beautiful and horrifying. I couldn't put it down. It added a lot to what I knew about slave life- and reading it simultanously with The Civil War as a Theological Crisis makes the latter much more meaningful and real. The author did an amazing job capturing the protagonist's grief, joy, and strength. One of my biggest take-aways was the picture he painted through her of resilience.

.HNGR girls.

Three years later and we're still rocking the stereotype...

matching long flowy skirts today, without even planning it.

Don't miss her Indian-print scarf...

and you can't see them, but I'm totes wearing my Chacos.

.in wheaton.

With Luke and Christine for the weekend.

"...A bunch of us spent a whole year reading Cicero-

De Senectute, on old age; De Amicitia, on friendship.

De Senectute, with all its resigned wisdom,

I will probably never be capable of living up to or imitating.

But De Amicitia I could make a stab at,

and could have anytime in the last thirty-four years."

-Wallace Stegner,

Crossing to Safety

Quiet.

My Christine.

"Hi, love. I was just calling because I need you to affirm me. Well, actually... I mean, I need your affirmation, but really, I want your honest opinion, ok? Please be totally honest with me about what you really think. Ugh, except actually, I think the decision is already made, so, maybe it would just be better if you just tell me to do what I already decided to do. Ohhh... I don't know."

I just love her so much.

 

 

When we can live next door.

Recently I observed the following interaction between two people's Twitters (yeah, I was on Twitter briefly. It has since been deleted. Too much stimulation for this girl's ADD brain.).

One friend commented on missing the other- something along the lines of "You live too far away!!!".
The other friend wrote back, "I know!! I can't wait til heaven when we can be next door neighbors!!!".

Oh man did that strike a chord.

I sent this card to Tamara for her birthday last fall.

I drew in a little Starbucks between our imaginary houses.

I have been actively, achingly missing my friends lately. I am feeling a deep longing to be doing regular life with them.

My trip to Wheaton last month was wonderful, and the best part was lots of casual time with my close girlfriends. I went shopping and drank coffee and talked for hours with Tamara. I took meandering evening walks through the neighborhood and cuddled on the couch watching Modern Family and talked for (more) hours with Christine. It was just what I needed, the perfect time with them.

And at points I could barely shake my sadness.

I was super surprised- and then I was SUPER irritated with myself! What kind of a jerk is so ungrateful as to feel sad over something like an awesome trip and lots of time with people I love?! When I love my life in Oregon and CHOSE IT and they love their lives there and I am SO SO lucky to have such great friends near AND far?!

Yeah well, unfortunately (as I would tell anyone else who tried it)- lecturing yourself about how you should feel (whether or not you're right), while so much fun and all, really is not all that productive.

I love where I live and I love the life I have chosen. I love my friends and where they are and what they're doing. I am grateful, and I would not change anything.

But I just miss them. Last year was just... life. Christine and I were involved in each other's daily lives, talking about work and relationships and what to buy at Target- as it all happened. I could stop by Josh and Meghan's apartment and go for a run or grab a bite of whatever delicious thing she'd just cooked on any random week night. A Friday night of Thai food and wine and a long conversation with Tamara happened regularly, and did not require a plane ticket.

I did all of those things in my eight days in Wheaton. It felt like being home- like the most normal, natural thing in the world. And somehow, this time, it sunk in that it's not. This past month since coming back, as I've realized it more and more- that those moments are not my daily life, and more than likely never will be again apart from a few occasional days of vacation...

Well... I've been sad.

I don't regret one bit of this decision, of pursuing this degree and definitely not of putting roots down in this community.
And I am so thankful for my friends' lives, for the blessings filling their Illinois worlds. For rhythms which are joyful and healthy, for jobs and church homes and husbands that love them so well.

Mostly, I am just so thankful I have these friends. Near or far, they are so life-giving for me. Every time I get off the phone with one of them after an hour of laughter and chatting that feels like we might as well be in each other's kitchens, the multiple times a week I send or receive a quick text for prayer over anything from a long day and a crabby attitude to paralyzing fear or deep pain- I feel filled up to the brim with thankfulness and joy. How blessed am I, to have such deep relationships with such wonderful women?

I just really hate not living near them anymore.

And I can't wait til heaven when we can live next door.

Talking to Tamara while I drink coffee on my couch... as she drinks coffee 2100 miles away on her couch.

(Actually, I think she was in her car. Pretty sure there was coffee, though).

 Vegging with Christine last month. A best friend and a purple fuzzy blanket... How life should be.

.10,000 reasons for my heart to find.

Will I ever ever ever understand why I get these kinds of friends in my life??

Such a sweet week.

"...for all Your goodness i will keep on singing

10,000 reasons for my heart to find..."

That song's been on repeat for me this month. Looking at these faces I love so much, I gave up keeping count. 10,000 sounds about right.

 *************

 

 *************

 *************

 

 *************

 

 *************

  

  *************

 

  

  *************