Really, without any sentimentality: This is just such a good place for me.

"It’s hard to overstate the benefits to living in a walkable area,

especially for someone who is outside the workforce.

You save a ton of money on gas, and even more if you can get by with one car.

You save money on groceries since walking to the store means you buy only what you need on a daily basis,

rather than making huge once-a-week trips that are more likely to lead to waste.

You get exercise and exposure to sunlight as a natural part of your daily routine.

But, most importantly, it fosters a sense of community.

You run into your neighbors multiple times per day."

 

How I found Wellington, my "best buddy", today when I ran into him and his parents (who are almost as cute). They stopped by the house last week so his mom, Leah, could borrow a dress of mine for a party they were going to that night.

Heidi's in my Tuesday night small group. She and her husband live approximately one mile from me. We've been texting each other to go for walks through the fields in the evenings.

 

In Sunday school a couple weeks back the high schoolers were handed blank encouragement cards, stamped envelopes, and the church directory. A couple days later Romans 8:38-39 landed in my mailbox.

Small town life and I were sooo MFEO.

 (article quoted)

.good man.

Please pray with me for my beautiful freshman roommate Amy's family,

 as they gather with her dad as he valiantly completes his nine-year battle with cancer.

She and her three sisters have all flown in, and they and their husbands are surrounding her parents with love, laughter, and the joy of her two oldest sisters' babies.

Such a happy and proud dad, as she married James this September.

(No idea who that awkward laughing

bridesmaid in the back is.)

Few men have loved their girls so much or raised such good ones,

and in great sadness there is so much gratitude for a sweet legacy of faith, love, and commitment to family.

I'm head-shaking amazed, as I have been for the last six years, by this girl and her family's ability to laugh and find silliness and joy and happiness in being together (something about him not really being able to talk, but laughing when he overheard them making fart jokes?).

 

The Ames face has not changed in the last 23 years.

Freshman orientation at Wheaton. He was a very patient chauffeur on our thrice-daily Target runs that week.

So them.

Please pray for no pain for Michael,

and for comfort and peace that passes understanding for Amy's sweet mom and the sisters.

 October 2006, roommate date... Just because I love this picture.

Love you my Amy Grace.

New running shoes.

I ditched my running buddy today. Sometimes I need to run alone.

New shoes. New season. Longer light. Lessons. Community. Seven months.

Full mind.

I ran...

Old longings. Old worries. An awareness of a deepening gratitude (please, God). 

Oh hey Spring.

I'm excited to run with you.

(PS: I did not buy them for the pink laces.

But I'm super happy about them.)

grateful quick.

Filled up and smiling tonight.

Grateful for

-the growing amount and depth of my girlfriendships here. long talks. on a walk, a run, laying on my bed, out for coffee.

-lots and lots and lots of laughter in my life (see above).

-sunshine and coming spring and more light and more green and brand new running shoes (oh they're so beautiful!!) promising a more moving body soon.

-a rearranged bedroom with more space.

-current sermon series on Mark.

-patient friends who love me over text and gchat when i'm overreacting.

-picking girls up from the high school youth group and making an attempted ice cream run, which turned into making our own root beer floats in the parking lot?!

-women from church investing in me. so grateful for their friendship, their wisdom, inclusion in their families, the lots and lots and lots of laughter there too.

-spring and summer visits solidifying. plane tickets bought, coming and going. christine + heather: 2 weeks (TWO WEEKS!!!). dad + julie + the kids: 3 weeks. josh + steve + mere: june. ME TO WHEATON (this is new!): may. COLLEGE FRIENDS CAMPING TRIP: july. how did all this happen?! i'm still pinching myself. and there's even MORE, but I'll save it for a separate post. but just those- did you see it?! christine + heath. dad + fam. josh + steve + mere. me to wheaton. college friends camping. what how?!! soooo happy.


Kid quote of the week:

"Why do you have a backpack?"
"Because I gotta do my homework."
"You have homework?"
"Mmhmm. I get to study about how people work. Isn't that cool?"
"I already know how people work!"
"You do?"
"Yup. They have to love God. And they have to love everybody."
"Wow!! You're right! You know a lot!"
"I know! And I didn't even read a book!"

Julian.

"Because He wills that we believe that we experience Him

constantly (although we imagine it is but little)

 and by this belief He causes us evermore to gain grace, because

He wishes to be seen and He wishes to be sought,

He wishes to be awaited and He wishes to be trusted."

He wills that we believe that we experience Him constantly.

He wishes to be seen, to be sought, to be awaited,

He wishes to be trusted.

Love her and her understanding of God.

So much.

.in every station.

Praying:

"...Soul, then know thy full salvation

rise o'er sin and fear and care

Joy to find in every station,

something still to do or bear.

Think what Spirit dwells within thee

think what Father's smiles are thine

think that Jesus died to win thee,

child of heaven, canst thou repine?"

.prayer chapel windows.

  

 

Newberg.

3:20 PM me: i just chatted for like an hour with a woman from church  

  (i'm at chapters)

  (my coffee shop)

  who i hadn't met before

  but i babysat for her best friend's kids this week

  and her other best friend and HER kids came to my valentine's party last weekend

  and she mentors a girl i'm having coffee with tomorrow

  annnnd

  that's my lifeit's like...

3:21 PM Steve: Emily Heaven

*****

Welcome to Newberg.

Need I say more?

*****

"Oh, Emily. The kids sent valentines in with me to give to you!"

*****

I see a friend from church walking down the hallway of my building, where he teaches as an adjunct professor. We high-five and he tells me about his skiing trip. I saw his wife and daughter doing their weekly Bible study together yesterday afternoon at the coffee shop. Every other Tuesday night I can be found wrapped in blankets on a corner of their couch for small group. This week it was on Valentine's day and I made a pink cake.

 *****

Her eight-year-old made the earrings I'm wearing. I ran into her in town- "Oh! You're wearing them!! She's going to be so excited!!!". We took a picture to prove it.

 *****

Weekend walk with this lady. She's my faaavorite... so much. Her family is absolutely lovely and hilarious. (Also, she reads this. Hi Nance!! Thanks for being my friend!!)

What, don't you see alpacas on your walks?

*****

This man has taught our church's babies for 30 years.

They like hiding in the cubbies.

*****

Prayer labyrinth in the valley, open to the public. With this view:

It helps me concentrate. And by concentrate I mean not have to think, as I walk with God.

*****

I stop by Chapters for an hour between classes. I run into the leader of the above-mentioned small group, a bearded, kind grandfather of three. "Ah, I was going to email you!", and he pulls out a chair at my table. "I've been thinking about what you said the other day, about what you've been learning about praying for wisdom in making decisions...". He shares some of what he's learned through his years of faith, about how we pray for wisdom, to make the best decisions we can, but "even if it seems the results are bad, God will walk with you, and He will redeem it all." He stands up.
"Well! See you later!".

*****

Co-teaching Sunday school to the kindergartners. Too fun, even on way too little sleep, especially because the main teacher is my weekly coffee date and one of my favorite people. And because five-year-olds have so much personality.

One energetic boy wants to show us how he can count.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11..." to 20 and we are oh-my so impressed.

He keeps going. And going.

"51, 52, 53, 54..." Wow! And we are helping other kids with the craft...

"86, 87, 88..." "Malachi, I think it's time to stop now," Miss Pam suggests.

"93, 94, 95..." "Really, Malachi, it's time to do your craft, OK?"

"106, 107, 108, 109-" "Malachi!"

He stops.

"Malachi, thank you for stopping."
He gives us a blank stare. "Well, I only know how to count to 109."

Oh.

*****

7 am, view from my bed.

*****

Home from a long day and I knock on my roommate's door. She's sitting up in bed and raises her eyebrows when I peek in with an overwhelmed expression. I collapse next to her. We roll over and pull our knees up to our chests and spill everything Jane-and-Elizabeth style. We affirm we are totally awesome and beautiful and capable of passing grad school, and also that we can always drop out and join the circus if we decide we don't like homework anymore. So grateful to live with this girl.

*****

Around midnight on this night. This picture is 100% candid and un-posed.

But we finished. And we downed pumpkin pie lattes the next day. And we slept ten hours the next three nights in a row.

And even just in the past few weeks, these two girls have suddenly become I-have-to-tell-you-something! friends, not friends-in-Oregon.

*****

Church.
We sing Gungor to a bell choir (seriously).

Taco Bell with one wonderful family after church.

Homework at Chapters all afternoon.

Baking cookies and watching Downton Abbey with another wonderful family all evening (see alpaca walk family, above).
That's my whole day.

*****

"Joy abounds and life is abundant. But the world is also tainted by sin, so joy is marred by struggle and pain... we cling by faith to the belief that God works redemptively in this broken world. God works everywhere, even in pain and silence, and certainly in therapy offices."

-from one of my textbooks, written by one of my professors
(who goes to my church and lives in my town and whose wife has a regular coffee date with one of the wise prayerful women in my small group... did you get that?)

*****

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.
Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
Let me hold you while I may…"

-Mary Jean Iron

Kindness.

Four of us sprawled around my bedroom til 3:30 AM writing a paper,

and we finished still feeling like we had no idea what we were doing.

I'm clearly going to fail out of the program. Probably tomorrow.

And I have a long list running in my head of all the horrible people whose fault this night totally is.

(Like you, who told me you thought grad school was a great idea? You suck.)

 

 8:40 AM and my mood has unfortunately not improved,

the Oregon sky is gray just to spite me and the inventor of Spellcheck threw his head back and laughed when he pictured me typo-ing 'won' when I meant 'own'.

A sweet friend walks into class just as the professor starts to collect our papers. She takes her seat and pulls hers out of her backpack...

after, to my surprise, she sets this down in front of me.

A large pumpkin pie latte and biscotti. My favorite. As she knows.

Which she thought of and paid for and picked up for me on her way to class,

even though she is just as sleep-deprived and just as frustrated as I am.

Better mood.

And for the first time in at least sixteen hours,

truly convicted that I didn't have one sooner.

"His kindness
leads us to repentance."
Romans 2:4

(I've been told by several dear friends my blog may come off as if I'm always happy...

Anonymous (cough cough): "Whatever, your version of a sad post is like posting a sad prayer."

Are we satisfied now? Have yall read this post??!)

Be Mine.

 Valentine-making party at our house!!

LOVE my life.

 

Me and my sweet roommate,

who is so patient with my need for seasonal activities.
(...I don't think she's gonna let me keep the banner up, though.)

.prayer.

"Oh, 'twere not

in joy to charm me,
were that joy
unmixed with Thee."

-Henry Lyte (full lyrics)

And my personality was set.

My mother is a clinical social worker and my dad is a psychiatrist. They spent years and years of their lives studying psychology (insert apple-doesn't-fall-far comments here, yeah, I've heard them).

My mother, when describing how they fell in love and decided to get married, has on more than one occasion explained that they had something crucial in common: they both loved (LOVED) the psychological theory of Object Relations Theory.

Suffice it to say, she has compared how she and my dad feel about object relations theory to how I feel about Christianity. As in, "You know how it's really important to you that you marry a guy who's a Christian? Well, that's how Daddy and I felt about object relations." (That is verbatim.)

Getting into exactly what object relations means is long and not really the point. But in class today, our professor explained it with this sentence written on the Powerpoint:

"Object relations theorists propose that the need for relationship is a basic human need."

Object relations: the need for relationship is a basic human need.

I was raised by two people who believed so strongly in this theory that they married based on it.

Do we all understand how I work now?

.theme of my song.

"Thy mercy, my God

is the theme of my song,

the joy of my heart,

and the boast of my tongue.

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,

which wonders to feels its own hardness depart;

dissolved by Thy goodness,

i fall to the ground,

and weep to the praise of the mercy i've found."

-John Stocker, 1776

(full lyrics)

Goodnight, Moon.

 

  

 

Goodnight fields, goodnight vineyards, goodnight orchards.

Goodnight farms, goodnight barn, goodnight cows.

Goodnight pine trees, goodnight mountains, goodnight clouds.

I love my town.

.Intimately Connected.

"If we are silent,

who will take control?

God will take control,

but we will never let Him take control

until we trust Him.

Silence is intimately connected to trust."

-Richard Foster,

Celebration of Discipline

According to an author I trust

two things which are both difficult for me,

are intimately connected.

Worth thinking about.