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get back up, paddle back out

How I learned forgiveness through surfing.

The ocean does not discriminate. It does not care what color you are, how old or young you are, how much money you make or don’t make, where you live, if you own a house or a van or a grocery cart. The ocean does not care if you are big or small, if you’ve been promoted or fired, if you started a non-profit or if you steal for a living, accomplish much or accomplish little. The ocean does care if you recycle or waste, eat healthy or McDonald’s, been divorced or hate divorce, are gay or straight, religious or spiritual, are trying to co-exist with everyone or if you hate God and people and kittens and puppies. The ocean does not care. The best and worst human in the world stand before the ocean and they are on the same playing field. They have no advantages over the other. They are equal. The power of the ocean wipes away all social status. The power of the ocean wipes away all differences and similarities between people. The power of the ocean wipes away all identity, which is to say, the ocean is incapable of being bias.

I find this to be both a beautiful and terrifying fact about the ocean. I want the ocean to favor me because I quite fancy it, but the ocean doesn’t seem to care how much I love it, I am given no favors, neither are the lifeguards, the coastguards or even the Navy. Build your ships as big as you want, the ocean can still sink you. Ocean beats rock, paper and scissors.

One of the mysteries behind the ocean is how it can so easily make you feel alive and yet so quickly terrify you with its might that you find yourself standing on the shore, watching its power, both admiring and hating it because you feel so weak before it. I don’t mean wading in the pools that form at the ocean’s edge, or even boogie boarding in the “safety zone” of the shallow white water, if there were to be a “safety zone” in the ocean; never assume to fully understand the ocean (just when you think you can read it, it switches up on you). When I speak of the terrifying power of the ocean, I speak of the place past the white wash, where the people on shore look smaller than your finger nail, and getting past the break is more than half the battle, at least for me. If you can get past the break there is a whole different sort of ocean than the one that washes up on shore; there is a whole different sort of world. Past the break people play on top of the ocean, and people playing on top of the ocean is practical magic at its finest.

Surfing takes faith, and I’m sure some surfers wouldn’t say so, they’d maybe boast about their skill, but the best surfers I know are the ones who boast about the power of the ocean and how humbled they are before it. The best surfers I know have faith, and it shows in the risks they take riding on top of the waves and the humility they have to get back up after getting knocked down. (The best surfers I know also have fun and are nice to kooks).

I’m still trying to figure out how to work with the waves instead of thinking they are working against me. With surfing, I’m finding out what I am made of, and the sum of my parts are not as pretty or confident as I often charade them to be. It’s scary to not only face the ocean but to face your true self, to find out what you are made of. “It’s like squeezing a sponge,” my friend said to me, “that’s how you find out its contents.” Learning to surf is like being squeezed and finding out what you are made of. And so it is with how we handle the tough stuff in life, things not going our way, being beat down, rejected, or simply forgotten; how we act or react to the tough stuff in life will reveal what we are made of… being squeezed will reveal our contents.

I will be the first to say that I haven’t always acted or reacted well to the tough stuff. Accuse me of being the first to wave my angry fist at God and reject Him for not giving me what I want, or more specifically who I want. When someone breaks your heart, your contents get revealed real quick. Really sane people turn out to be psycho when their hearts get broken. Really brave people turn out to be cowards and really happy people turn out to be depressives. True stories, one of them being mine. But with surfing I’m learning that my past doesn’t have to define my present, and my response doesn’t have to be the same that it has always been. I don’t have to give up on me just because someone else did.

“You’re not good enough, JJ” I hear in the white wash as I tumble under water. I get back up, I paddle back out. “He didn’t want you, JJ” I hear again as I’m held under. I get back up, I paddle back out. “You’re not worth it, JJ.” I get back up, I paddle back out. “Get serious, JJ, give up.” I get back up, I paddle back out.

“Not giving up” hasn’t ever really been my pattern, I’ve given up on many things, all too easily, but surfing is giving me the chance to not repeat my patterns and to develop a character that isn’t just confined to the ocean but lived out on land.

Sometimes I wonder if the ocean is trying to reject me. Sometimes I wonder if God is trying to give me a tutorial about not being lukewarm and allowing me to see what it would feel like to be spit out of His mouth (Revelation 3:16, trust me, you don’t want to be spit out of God’s mouth). And sometimes, when I can remember that God is good and He is in fact in control, I wonder if God is allowing me to grow, to be shaped and molded into the woman He has created me to be, no matter how much the growing pains hurt. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get it, and sometimes I do, sometimes I catch a wave and for about four seconds I’m convinced I could go pro. And while they don’t last long, those four seconds feel like forever, and those four seconds are sometimes all I need to keep trying no matter how many times I get knocked down. For as harsh as the ocean can be, it can be three times as much magnificent. The power of the ocean is not just something to fear, it’s something to marvel at.

When things start to click I gain a little confidence and just as I am about to say “I think I got this,” a new day comes with new waves, and the ones I learned to ride yesterday aren’t the same waves today. Apparently God’s mercies aren’t the only things that are new every morning, so are His waves. On these awkward new waves (of course I blame the waves), I feel stupid for ever thinking four seconds of bliss was going to earn me a sponsorship of some sort. I feel as though I am back to square one: I suck and I’ll never get any better… at anything. Maybe he was right, maybe I’m not good enough… for anything.

I get back up, I paddle back out.

God tells me not to fear, but I take one look at the ocean and I find myself bathing in fear, loofah and all. The book of Matthew tells a story about Jesus in which He rebukes the wind and the waves and they listen. The wind and the waves were raging, people were freaking out, Jesus tells everyone to chill, including the wind and the waves, and everyone does… including the wind and the waves. The storm took a chill pill because Jesus said so. “Who is this man that even the wind and the waves obey him?” is also what I would have said should I have seen Jesus calm a storm (Matthew 8:27). While as humans we’ve got nothing on the power of the ocean, the power of the ocean has got nothing on the power of Jesus. Dang. That’s a lot of power. Do I live like I believe Jesus has that much power currently in this day and age? Honestly, not really… and I’m tired of talking about a Jesus I sometimes don’t believe.

There’s this other part of scripture where Jesus says “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father” (John 14:12). I’m gonna level with you, in my mind, if I have faith, be it the size of a mustard seed, I too can rebuke the wind and the waves and make them chill out, in the name of Jesus, right? Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe. Is it for the good of others or myself? Truth be told, myself. And yes, I tried it. I tried to do what Jesus did and I told the wind and the waves to calm down in the midst of being terrified while paddling out. I wasn’t even nice about it, I simply commanded the waves to chill out in the name of Jesus. And then I got knocked out. Not literally, I was still conscious, but the ocean must have found my attempt at being like Jesus so cute that it mustered up a big hug for me and wrestled me to the ocean floor until I screamed “UNCLE!” Uncle being Jesus. I ended up screaming for the guy I was trying to imitate. Funny how life works like that. We’re called to be like Jesus and we’re told to call upon His name. When your attempts to be like Jesus are out of selfish ambition, you’ll end up calling upon His name real quick.

And the same goes with healings and raising people from the dead. Jesus did it, I can too, right? I think I think so, but is it for my good or the good of others? If I’m honest, some people I’d like to heal (for my own good, because I love them), and some people I’d like to curse (for my own good, because they hurt me, and my flesh still wants revenge when my spirit says no). And if I were to selectively heal people due to my own personal bias, that’s abusing Jesus’ name, right? And hasn’t Jesus’ name been abused enough, misused and misrepresented enough? People hate other people in Jesus’ name and it’s heartbreaking.

And so what is this verse about doing greater things than Jesus? Maybe it is about healing and raising people from the dead and rebuking the ocean, but maybe it’s about something even greater than those things. Maybe it’s about really loving people, showing kindness and grace and mercy, even when it’s hard and we don’t want to. Maybe it’s about forgiving the people who have hurt us instead of cursing them. Truth be told, I’d rather have the power to rebuke the ocean than forgive someone who has hurt me. I was betrayed. But so was Jesus. Jesus knew He was going to be betrayed and He still sat at the same table with the guy who betrayed Him.

Many of us want to be like Jesus when it comes to miraculous signs and wonders, but not so much when it comes to the miracle of forgiving someone who has done wrong. Maybe I should just speak for myself. Jesus Himself posed the question, “For which is easier to say, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘get up and walk’?” I’d rather heal all sorts of people than forgive that one person. But that one person matters. True forgiveness is hard. But Jesus did it and He said that we would do the same works and even greater ones than He. He forgave people and then He healed them. I don’t know the theology behind it all, all I know is two issues came up when people needed to be healed… having faith and forgiveness. I think Jesus was quicker to forgive than He was to heal, and as a result of having encountered such forgiveness, people were healed. I think Jesus touched people’s hearts more than just their physical bodies.

Forgiving someone means you are loving them, even when you don’t really like them, and loving them might do just as much for you as it does for them. Giving and receiving love changes people. I think that is why forgiveness is powerful. It heals. It changes people.

Saltwater heals too, which is initially what got me out into the ocean, wanting to surf, wanting to take my mind off of things, wanting to heal from past hurts. I started to surf to face some fears and live my life and learn some lessons along the way. My faith has increased, as has my awareness of my need for Jesus… I scream for help a lot, in fact I scream “JESUS, TAKE THE BOARD!” the way Carrie Underwood screams “JESUS, TAKE THE WHEEL!” It just doesn’t sound as pretty. “Help” is one of the most powerful words I know; it solicits a response, sometimes in the form of a friend and sometimes in the form of a lifeguard. Yes, I have a story about that.

The ocean is dangerous and beautiful. It’s not at all safe and at the same time hosts children of all ages with great care. It’s powerful and capable of anything. It welcomes everyone without discrimination and will just as quickly humble anyone who thinks they stand above another. The ocean is a mystery to me and I have a reverent fear of it. I love the ocean, mostly because I think the ocean was created in the image of the One who created it. Scripture comes to life when I am in the ocean and in that sense I feel like I get to know God more and more each time I come out of hiding and face my fear, face my true self and the contents of which I am made.

It’s funny, what I have learned the most in surfing is not yet how to pop up faster or duck dive accurately (my last attempt gave me a slap in the face and shot me back about ten feet), and I still haven’t learned how to muster enough faith to rebuke the wind and the waves. What I have learned the most in surfing is that trying to be like Jesus doesn’t mean trying to produce visible miracles; trying to be like Jesus means loving the very people who hurt and reject you, which might not mean doing life with them, but certainly forgiving them. That to me, is a miracle. In the same way we stand before the power of the ocean on equal grounds, we stand before God, no matter what we’ve done, on equal grounds. All have fallen short. All of us are called to forgive just as we have been forgiven.

I simply wanted to learn how to surf, but I learned that no amount of saltwater will wash away the pain if you don’t forgive the one who has hurt you.

And much like learning to surf, or even life for that matter, forgiveness is a process. If you find you can’t do it right away, that’s okay, start there by saying you can’t. You gotta start somewhere and I think honesty is the best starting point. You can only change that which you are honest about. So start with “I can’t,” ask Jesus to meet you there, and never, ever, ever give up.

Get back up, paddle back out.

It’ll change you and you’ll change the world if you love like Jesus (or at least somebody’s world, and that somebody matters, even if that somebody is you).

failing forward

I’m trying new things… or at least trying to try new things.

Often times I let the fear of not being good at a new thing keep me from doing that new thing, but I’m realizing more and more that the fear is less about my capability and more about what other people think. Like with anything in life, when you start something, you probably won’t be excellent at it right off the bat, but it you keep at it, little by little, over time you find that you can do it, and then one day you find you can do it well, and then one day… most excellent.

I’m tired of living my life in fear of what other people think… “is so and so proud of me?” (probably not, they hate tattoos), “am I working the right job?” (probably not, I should make more money), “will I be made fun of?” (most definitely)… but living in the what-ifs of other people’s thoughts is no place to live… it’s not living at all, it’s functioning at best.

At thirty-one years old I’m facing some fears. One of my fears is also one of the things I love the most in life… the ocean. Moving to California and living a block from the ocean, I’ve realized very quickly that you can’t have surfed on your dad’s longboard on the east coast 12 years ago and then come out here and call yourself a surfer. The first day I took a board out to “refresh” my “skills,” I had my ass handed to me by the ocean. It’s intimidating being out there with people who’ve been at it their whole lives. But I’m tired of living in the wake of other people’s intimidation. And so I go out, as often as possible, and I get my ass kicked, sometimes I even get made fun of, but I know the only way to get better at it is to start being not so good at it, and then keep doing it.

I both love and am terrified of surfing. I get out in the water and I sing, I sing and I pray and I find myself having to trust God in a whole new way. I find myself having to choose to believe that He is in fact in control of the ocean and He’s got me. Sometimes I have to wonder if He does got me… west coast waves are different, they’re bigger to say the least, and my noodle arms are not in the habit of pushing and pulling against the ocean. I’ve been tossed and turned and held under for much longer than I am comfortable with. I’ve come up gasping for air only to have the next wave topple over me. My prayers go from “help me!” to “come on, man! give me a break… although not literally!” Ever heard the song Oceans? It’s a good one, look it up. I sing “as your love wave after wave crashes over me, crashes over me,” and it puts a whole new meaning to the song. “Thank you for loving me, God,” I say as I see a wave of love heading my way to crash over me, “could you please love me in a different way right now?” And then I get toppled.

Swirling around in the power of the wave I can only begin to imagine the power of God’s love for us. I’m rendered helpless by the ocean as it overtakes me. I think God’s love is like that. People talk about God’s love as if it’s fluffy and safe, I think it’s powerful and scary and totally unsafe… like a wave. But when you learn how to ride with the wave, you experience the goodness of lining up with something so powerful and scary and unsafe. I think when we truly experience God’s love it does render us helpless, it leaves us shocked that we could ever be loved the way that we are. I think God wants to jolt us into being rendered helpless every now and again, if for no other reason than for us to realize or to remember that there is nothing we can do to earn that love. Even the best surfers in the world get their asses handed to them by the ocean; they could never be could enough to master the ocean because it’s not their ocean, it’s God ocean. And likewise, we could never be good enough to earn God’s love because it’s not our love to earn, it’s His love to give. So we can’t master the ocean, but we can continually keep showing up, get in the water and learn how to line up with the ocean’s power for our good. Unsafe becomes a place of trust and awe and wonder.

I’m still a beginner, so I’m not the best, but I’m trying. I have good days and I have off days and they all matter because they all make up the process of getting to where I want to be. Some days are hard and I’m embarrassed, but much like with life or even my relationship with God, it’s not a reason to throw my hands up and say “I quit!” just because things didn’t go my way. And when I’m most honest, I feel like I don’t even deserve praise for trying as I’m currently experiencing a minor set back. Fear has crept in the last week after getting stuck in a large set and having my board slam down on my head (lesson learned: always cover your head). I’ve slowly crept back to the comfort zone of the shore, and I think that happens in life when things start to get uncomfortable, naturally we want to find what’s comfortable. I’ve spent the last week beating myself up about being in the comfort zone, but that does me no good. What might help is catching my breath in the comfort zone, taking the pressure off to think I even have to master something or do it well enough in a certain amount of time, and find the enjoyment for it again, which ultimately is what will draw me back into the water, the fact that I love it. But if I see it as another task to perform or master, constantly feeling not good enough, I will stay right on the shore lines where I don’t even want to be.

My enjoyment for Jesus is what draws me to Him, not the tasks I think I have to do for Him. And so it is with surfing, and the new things I am trying in life, the approaches I am taking to not live in fear.

Alongside surfing I’ve picked up the ukulele, given to me by the high schoolers I used to work with. I’m not the best at it, but I love it, and that is reason enough to keep doing it. I see videos of other people playing perfectly and it is almost enough to make me wonder “why bother” as I’m just not as good as them. But I do bother because I love it, no matter how good someone else is, and if I spend my time comparing, I become so self-focused that I lose enjoyment for what I love and the ability to appreciate someone else’s talent. Someone else’s success is not my failure, and so I can praise them for how great they are instead of trying to compete with them. When competition is removed you find camaraderie, and where there is camaraderie there is community.

This video was made right where I am at in life… trying. I haven’t mastered anything, but there are enough videos of people who’ve mastered things. I figured maybe just maybe, if the process really is that important, I should be more willing to let people into the process instead of showcasing my gifts once I’ve mastered them. I’m inviting you into the process, not just of my life, but of yours, and encouraging you to share your process with other people, if for no other reason than connecting, relating, and not being so alone. You don’t have to be onstage to be good enough… you are good enough right where you are at, in the process of becoming you were meant to be, which in some weird way is who you are now, but also who you are becoming (I don’t get how it all works, I just know you’re good enough now and God ain’t done with you yet). Don’t give up. And don’t be afraid to fail, I guarantee you it is part of the process.

“Fail forward,” a friend said to me this week and I liked that… and I did.

And I survived.

i kept the coats

“And when your witness Stephen was killed, I was standing there agreeing. I kept the coats they laid aside as they stoned him.” (Acts 22:20 NLT)

Paul spoke to the crowds who were ready to kill him. He gave his defense, which is to say he defended Jesus instead of going along with the crowd. His defense was good. “I learned to follow our Jewish laws and customs very carefully. I became very zealous to honor God in everything I did, just as all of you are today.” (Acts 22:3 NLT)

Paul was a Pharisee who obeyed the law and took it to the “necessary” extreme, killing and persecuting Christians in his effort to follow God. Somewhere in all of his intense training, he missed some of the key ingredients in honoring and following God.

The crowds were pleased with him when he was doing as he was trained to do, killing and persecuting Christians. The crowds weren’t so pleased with him when he had a change of heart and started letting the outsiders in. The outsiders were anyone who wasn’t Jewish, or in Bible terms, the outsiders were Gentiles. The crowds had missed some of the key ingredients as well, which only makes sense seeing as how they had been under the church leadership that Paul was a part of, the one that wanted to erase the name of Jesus and anyone that spoke it.

On Paul’s way to kill and capture more Christians, he encountered a bright light that stopped him dead in his tracks and blinded him. Unlike most lights, this light had a voice and a name. It was Jesus, revealing himself to Paul. Leave it to Jesus to reveal himself to someone only to blind them. But Jesus didn’t blind Paul as a defense mechanism. While Christians were spared by Jesus interrupting Paul’s mission, it was not a defensive move to stop Paul because Jesus felt threatened. It was an active move. Blinding Paul wasn’t an attempt just to stop him, Paul was blinded as a direct result of a sinful life encountering Jesus, a life that Jesus wanted to be His. Jesus wanted Paul; a blinding truth for such a sinful man.

We see Jesus addressing the importance of a single life to Him earlier in the gospels, “suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4 NIV)

I think the road to Damascus, the road on which Paul found himself when he encountered Jesus, we see what it looks like for the shepherd to go after his one lost sheep, no matter how far gone that sheep has wandered off. Paul mattered to Jesus, and so Jesus went after him, not just to stop him from doing something, but to make him His.

It seems obvious to us today, “don’t kill people,” but to Paul in that time and culture and way in which he was trained, he was doing the right thing. Without a real Jesus encounter of course Jesus would seem like a dude with a bunch of dos and don’ts and too much grace for those who do or don’t. Jesus was the worst in the eyes of Paul. And while it might be an extreme example, the heart and the mindset of Paul is not too far off from how people feel about Jesus today, even people in the church.

If Jesus were solely about doing and don’t-ing, he would have stopped Paul from persecuting and killing Christians and left it at that. He would have saved the masses and lost the one. I think a lot of people (without the context or the whole picture) would say that Paul’s one life would have been worth losing for the sake of saving the masses. But Jesus wasn’t just trying to save people from Paul, Jesus was trying to save Paul from Paul. Jesus was trying to give Paul life because for whatever reason, the one life of Paul mattered to Jesus.

I truly believe that when a life encounters Jesus, like really encounters Jesus, they cannot walk away the same. Encountering Jesus might not mean they choose to follow Him, but I certainly think the encounter would haunt them, and like anything that haunts us, paranoia and anger set in over time. I think people who have a hatred for Jesus have either been terribly scarred by the church, or they’ve encountered Jesus in a way they refuse to accept.

Paul encountered Jesus and it changed his life, not just because it blinded him for three days, but because of what it did to the nature of his heart. I think for a law-abiding, rule promoting guy like Paul, what he felt in his encounter with Jesus was love, and upon realizing that he was loved, his cold heart broke, warm blood pumped through his body, and in his blind state he saw his own humanity and his need for a Savior. I think Paul was driven to surrender the life he had been living as a devout Pharisee not because Jesus offered an easier set of rules to follow. I think Paul surrendered his life to Jesus because he felt something he hadn’t learned in all of his Bible training… love.

I don’t think Paul would have been the same man if Jesus met up with him and merely said “stop killing my people.” Even if Paul would have stopped, that would have been great for those people, I don’t want to discredit that, but Paul would have still been a rule-abiding guy without a change of heart or conviction to live from. He wouldn’t have been Paul, he would have been a shell of man with great potential who didn’t make much of a difference. Paul’s encounter with Jesus didn’t just keep Paul from killing people, it thrust him forward to save the lives of countless people, not just in the physical but in the spiritual.

Jesus doesn’t just want to encounter us to stop us from our sin, I mean, sure, that’s a part of it and I think it happens by default more than anything else. Jesus wants to encounter us so that we can finally start living. Jesus wants us to know Him because of what knowing Him does for us.

And so back to the crowds and Paul’s defense. Paul had a heart change, one that involved following Jesus, and the Jews who didn’t believe in Jesus, the very group Paul was once a part of, did not like this… so much so that they, once like Paul, wanted to kill this follower of Jesus. Paul is now the man he once tried to kill.

Paul is being threatened with death and so he gives his defense, his testimony. We all have a testimony of some sort. Paul’s was one of those “I once was lost but now am found” sort. Paul talked about who he used to be before meeting Jesus and who he is now as a result of meeting Jesus. This is the testimony of all of us who have met Jesus, in one way or another. Even having been raised in the church, it is my testimony… I once was lost but now am found. Much like Paul, I understood the rules, but I didn’t know Jesus. I knew about Him, and while I didn’t actively hate Him the way Paul did, my actions might as well have told the story of hate in my heart… hate for myself and hate for other people, which I think is just a mask for hating God.

It only occurred to me this morning just how similar I am to Paul. I always thought he was at a different level than me and just a good example of an extreme situation. I don’t kill Christians, or anyone for that matter, and so in that sense Paul and I are not the same. Fair enough. But this morning I read one sentence that changed the way I saw myself.

“I kept the coats they laid aside as they stoned him.”

Paul was recounting the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian Martyr. In this instance, Paul was not actively killing Stephen, he didn’t pick up a stone and throw it at him. All he did was hold the coats of the men who were stoning Stephen. By all appearances you could have been there and said Paul had nothing to do with Stephen’s death, other than standing there agreeing, keeping the coats.

I thought about this in a recent situation in which I felt someone was misrepresented. Instead of defending that person’s character, I said nothing. It was easier to say nothing. I didn’t want to get involved and I was already in an uncomfortable situation that I just wanted to be over, so I let someone stone this person’s character as I stood by. I kept the coats. I didn’t say anything against this person, I didn’t throw any stones, I didn’t slander or gossip, but I also didn’t do anything. I didn’t do the right thing. And you could say I didn’t encourage it either, but not discouraging is encouraging it. Holding the coats of the person who is actively killing someone else is assisting in the death of that person, even if passively and silently. I don’t know if Paul was yelling or not when he stood by and watched Stephen get killed, all I know is there is enough evidence there to suggest that he contributed to the death of Stephen… he kept the coats. The blood of Stephen was on Paul’s hands in the form of the killers’ coats he held.

And again, while my situation might not involve a physical death, it’s the condition of the heart that is the issue. Just because the times and the culture are different doesn’t mean I’m not capable of the same type of hatred as Paul and the same ability to stand by and watch someone die, be it physical or spiritual, all because I did nothing.

To stand by and let someone’s character be attacked because it’s more comfortable than getting involved is to support the attack. To stand by and watch is to persecute that person. And to persecute that person is to persecute Jesus. Never would I have thought of myself as someone who persecutes Jesus, mostly because that seems so large scale. But for someone who speaks so highly of the little things mattering, it’s in the little things that I find myself persecuting Jesus, which make them really big things. And math will always be right, little things add up to be a really big thing. I have to address the little things, the condition of my heart is at stake, and if left unattended to long enough, my heart is capable of becoming as cold as Paul’s pre-Jesus.

Yesterday, I kept the coats.

I don’t want to keep the coats anymore, but it has to start with admitting the fact that I am holding them. I don’t know where to go from here. Holding the coats was kind of comfortable, I felt like I belonged. Going along with the crowd always feels like you belong, but the feeling of belonging is not worth the life of another person being cast out.

Father, forgive me. May I have wisdom and discernment to know my part in this messy world and the courage to live it out.

van realities

Me again with a riveting new video update!

As most of you know, my home base has been a VW van for the last four-ish months. Good grief. It is neither as creepy nor as adventurous as it sounds. I mean, it’s both of those things, but they are not mutually exclusive… nor are the pictures on Facebook or Instagram the full story (which I’m sure is true for most people).

As I’ve already shared with the people who have supported my book campaign, I’d like to also share with you a few of the real thoughts that come along with van life. I’m in a transitional season of life, not just because I live in a transit system, but because Aslan is on the move, as they would say in Narnia, and a change is gonna come, as Sam Cooke so perfectly sang back in his day.

With van life weighing on me while trying to do ministry and work another job to help supplement, and now having my book funded without much time or energy or goodnight-sleeps to be able to work on it, my season of van life is soon coming to an end, at least as a home base (Reggie June will still very much be a part of my life). I’m in the process of figuring out what my next steps are, as my time working at church is also coming to an end this month.

While I am excited, it took a lot of processing and admitting of my own struggles to be able to start moving into this next season of life, one of more stability… and one that gives momma a lot more reassurance about where her daughter is sleeping at night 🙂

I do not know exactly what is next, aside from lots of writing and coffee, and I do not know exactly where that writing and coffee will take place, my compass seems to be a bit broken. BUT, I do know that though much of my time and attention will be devoted to writing, my life has to include they very thing I sometimes forget I need, which isn’t a thing at all, but in fact, people… relationships built on human interaction. For as much as I love venturing off on some grand adventure, I think that doing life with people is perhaps the greatest adventure… even if it means staying put long enough to see their ugly, and long enough for them to see yours. Being loved through your ugly is quite an adventure.

To those who have been with me on this journey, and those who have shown their support in countless ways… Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help.

Merry Christmas

After a rough last few years, I stand by the claim that God is good… and that you don’t need a lot of money to have a good Christmas.
The family unit can be a hard and beautiful thing. I’ve spent the last few years avoiding the hard, which has left me missing out on the beautiful.
Thank you, God, for the gift of coming home this Christmas… it’s been beautiful.
I love you, family.
Merry Christmas from the middle child.

thank you

reggie june

A few days ago I sat on the opposite side of the street and watched my van rebel against its parking spot, as if to yell “FREEDOM!” and roll backwards onto Pacific Coast Highway. My van has a name, which we’ll get to, but my van’s name is not William Wallace, and so while I can appreciate Wallace’s fight for freedom, freedom is not something I’d like my van to take part in, especially from its parking spot, and even more especially from its parking spot when I’m not inside of it.

I had taken a couple of high schools girls to Encinitas, my favorite beachside town, to get smoothies and talk about whatever might come our way. It’s a longer than necessary drive to get smoothies, but the drive is a sight unlike any other along the California coastline, and I look for any excuse to take a road trip; an affection for the road is something I’d like to pass on to my high school girls.

We parked on an incline and I noticed my emergency break giving a little, but I assumed once we removed our extra weight from the van it would be fine. That is to say, I noticed a problem… my van was moving when it shouldn’t have been… and I ignored it.

The girls and I sat outside of a cafe across the street, and in between snacking and laughing I looked up and noticed a van that looked just like mine, pulling out of the same parking lot I parked in. It took me the length of time it takes to read “God Bless Johnny Cash” on the back of the similar looking green and tan Volkswagen Vanagon before I felt my heart drop into my stomach, realizing that it was my van pulling out of the parking lot… and I was not in it. I barely had enough time to ask myself who was driving my van when it dawned on me… no one was driving my van. My van had gone rogue.

I jumped up as if a fire had been lit underneath me and screamed, “OH MY GOD, that’s MY CAR, I’M NOT IN IT, IT’S ROLLING! MY VAN IS ROLLING!” Thank the Lord above my van rolled onto the highway at a time when there were no cars present, and those that approached shortly after her right lane arrival had time to get over and drive around her (yes, my van is a girl). She stopped with her back end sitting in the far right lane of the highway… which is to say, my bedroom was sitting on the far right lane of Pacific Coast Highway in Encinitas, California.

“My house! Oh God, my house! Please don’t hit my house!” I said to myself, as well as passing cars, as well as Jesus, “Dear God, please,” I prayed and panicked, realizing I might have sounded crazy to anyone walking past or watching as I yelled about my house being hit by traffic. There was a florist outside with a bouquet in her hands and I could hear her yelling, “there’s no one in that car! Who’s driving that thing?” I made it across to the other side of the highway and as fast as I could, unlocked my house, jumped inside and cranked it up. I pulled back into the parking lot, on a very flat surface, put her in park and turned to look at the cafe where the girls sat on the other side of the street, laughing in disbelief, along with anyone else who was sitting outside, including the cook standing in the doorway of the restaurant next door.

The girls ran across the highway to join me and we all laughed as they climbed in, but my heart was racing, almost pounding out of my chest. “I need a second, I need a second to catch my breath and thank Jesus that my house did not get run over.” I took a deep breath and grabbed the steering wheel, “Oh thank you, Jesus,” I said, “thank you, thank you, thank you… that could have been so bad… not just for me, but for other people. Oh, my, God, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Jesus nodded, as Jesus always does, as if to say, “you’re welcome, kiddo”…

After catching my breath and saying my prayers, the finger-pointing began… “Reggie June!” I scolded my van quietly, “you could have killed somebody!” Yes, my van is appropriately named Reggie June. She’s named after one of my favorite football players of all time, Reggie White, and one of my favorite ladies of all time, June Carter Cash. Reggie June is a tomboy with a sweet and sassy personality who isn’t afraid to get down in the trenches… and apparently play in traffic. And even though she’s painted green and named after a former Green Bay Packer, she’s a straight up Chicago Bears fan…

I scolded Reggie quietly because even though it was she who rolled out onto the right lane of Pacific Coast Highway, I knew that it was mostly (if not all) my fault.

It was mostly (if not all) my fault because I noticed a potential problem and I ignored it. I even commented “that makes me a little nervous” when I first set the emergency brake and it started to give way. But instead of addressing what made me nervous, I walked away from it, as if it was going to fix itself. I said “oh well,” instead of taking a little bit longer to park somewhere else a little more stable, a little more flat. To save time, I settled for the possibly of disaster instead of taking longer to find a safe place and a little more stability.

I still can’t shake the sight of sitting on the other side of the street, watching Reggie roll out of her designated parking spot; and if she wasn’t yelling “FREEDOM!,” she was definitely yelling, “I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU!!!” I was horrified, as I’m sure Reggie was, having her rear-end exposed to oncoming traffic. Reggie was in a vulnerable spot, and yet I got mad at her for backing out of the parking spot I tried to force her to park in, even though she gave me a fair warning that she wasn’t safe there.

As I watched bobble-head Jesus have a dance party on my dashboard for saving the day, as well as the lives of many (in more than ways than one), I couldn’t help but think about how often I have played that scenario out in other areas of life. How many times have I noticed a problem, or even just a potential problem, and instead of expending the time and energy it takes to fix it, or the very least address it, I’ve either said “oh well,” and ignored it as if I didn’t care, or said “ahhhh, it’ll be fine,” in complete denial that a problem even exists. How many times have I seen a problem, walked the other way and then blamed the problem for becoming a bigger problem?

What’s worse, how many times have I done that with people?

How many times have I either avoided conflict or given up trying to resolve the conflict because it took up too much time or energy? How many times have I ignored someone’s cry for help because it was inconvenient? How many times have I seen the warning signs of potential disaster, especially with men (in my case), and avoided them (the warning signs, not the men)? I don’t want to bore you with statistics so I’ll just sum it up and and round up… A-WHOLE-FREAKING-LOT!

As I scolded Reggie June under my breath, I knew I was scolding her quietly because she didn’t actually deserve to be scolded at all. As long as I could scold her, I didn’t have to own my stupidity in the situation. Scolding her was a form of blame shifting, and since I felt stupid for ignoring the problem, blaming anything other than myself made me feel a little bit better about not being smarter. But let’s face it, feeling better about myself for a moment wasn’t going to fix the problem in the long run. And in the same way ignorance and denial will never solve a problem, conflict will never get resolved if you are attempting to save face by not owning your stuff (in my case, stupidity… or carelessness, if we’re avoiding the S-word) in the situation.

You cannot seek to feel better about yourself as an end result of conflict and expect to find resolve, especially if you care about the person you are in conflict with and you want them to feel cared for.

Feeling less stupid isn’t going to prevent what happened with Reggie from happening again. Not even blaming Reggie for having a defective emergency brake is going to prevent a potential bumper to bedroom disaster from happening again. Addressing the defective emergency brake is what is going to prevent it from happening again, that is to say, addressing the problem. And if I’m honest, nothing within me wants to address the problem. I just want it to work… without the effort. So much time and energy and prayer and money has already gone into Reggie that I don’t want there to be any more work to be done. And even though I wrote about the importance of maintenance in previous posts, I want to erase them all and ignore the problem, because it’s easier, and cheaper… now. But not later.

While it might be frustrating to have to keep working at keeping Reggie in good health, it’s a lot less frustrating than Reggie’s health giving out completely as she spirals backwards into oncoming traffic and my mode of transportation/house/office space is no more. I’d rather it be frustrating now than devastating later… I’d rather buy a new emergency brake than buy a new Reggie.

And so it is with people, with relationships, with communication, with conflict. It’s so much easier to not work at it, to not try harder, to not fight (if need be), to say “never mind,” “oh well,” “it’ll be fine.” But avoiding conflict is not resolving conflict, and not fighting for the sake of not fighting is still fighting, just with less words, which is what you’re going to need if you want to find resolve, not just the state of not fighting.

I don’t want to pick or start fights with people I care about, but I do want to be able to fight well with them when a fight is called for. Avoiding a fight isn’t just avoiding a fight, it’s avoiding the person involved in the fight. And so while I don’t want to fight, I also don’t want to be afraid to fight… especially when that person, place, thing or relationship is worth fighting for.

I’m learning a lot about life from Reggie, and a lot about myself in my efforts to take care of Reggie. I’m being exposed to parts of my character I didn’t know were there, and parts of my character I knew were there, but tried to avoid simply because I didn’t like them. Reggie is showing me that the parts of my character I don’t like will never change if I keep ignoring them, or pretend like they aren’t an issue… in fact, they’ll probably get worse.

I think that might be why I am where I am right now… not just in San Diego, but in life. I think I have a few defects of character that the Lord has tried to work on before, but I’ve avoided the work that needed to be done because it seemed too hard, too messy, too time consuming; but avoiding all the work has only gotten me further away from being who the Lord has called me to be, and gotten me further away from being comfortable with who the Lord has called me to be.

It’s funny, I now live in a mode of transportation, and yet I’ve never been more aware of my need to slow down, my need to be still, my need to stop running. It’s in my moving house that I’ve even begun to realize that I not only have a need to be still, but a desire to be still.

Reggie’s a big girl, and she’s thirty years old, which is young in human years but pretty up there in car years, so she’s pretty slow. Perhaps this is another reason God has paired Reggie June and I up, He’s gifted me with the opportunity to do all the moving I want, while slowing down enough to realize that I need, I want, to be still.

That might sound like a contradiction seeing as how I also just stated that I wanted to be able to fight… and I do, well, I don’t really want to fight, but sort of I do. I want to not be afraid of fighting so that I won’t run out on the people I’m avoiding a fight with. For as much as I want relationships to be easy, I want to be even more to be willing to work at them.

Relationships require work. People require work. Cars require work.

And love, love definitely requires work… and that’s okay.

May we all know when it’s time to get down in the trenches and work hard…

and when it’s time to sing and dance and play harder…

I think life is a good mix of both… kind of like Reggie June…

the simple life

In less than twenty-fours, after finally getting my van back, I have been… cheered for by street corners full of people (it was as if they knew how long I had been waiting to drive my own home), asked if I sell pot on more than one occasion, extended a marriage proposal, offered a a car-swap, rear-ended at the DMV, nearly T-boned by an old man who blew a stop sign, stalled out on a hill, watched “Cool Runnings” in the street, and fallen asleep to the sound of rain… all while managing to avoid the cops… until last night.

I was parked on top of Rocky Butte when a cop tapped on my window with a flashlight. “You guys smoking pot in here?” He asked. A hippie in a Volkswagen van, I get it, I must be smoking pot. I couldn’t help but laugh as I told him he was more than welcome to search the van. I now have a more accurate understanding of what it is like to be profiled.

I love the simple life… and the not-so simple things that come with it, like the stereotypes and the opinions of other people. It’s not that I love the stereotypes, I don’t, I don’t love that some people think I’m down-grading in life because I’m going to go “live in a van down by the river.” I love that I am learning to be so comfortable in my skin that even if someone makes a judgement call on me, it doesn’t have to wreck me, sending me into a wave of fear that has me driving back to my comfort zone… my comfort zone of being well-liked by everyone.

As I look back and think about some of the loneliest times of my life, they were the times that I was well-liked by everyone. They were lonely times because when everybody likes you, it means no one really knows you, and if no one really knows you, then no one can really love you for who you are… only who you show yourself to be. And when you don’t feel loved for who you really are, you end up feeling really, really alone… even in the largest of crowds of people who love you… or least the you they see.

At thirty-one, not everyone likes me, and not everyone loves what I am doing with my life… but finally, after years of pleasing people more so than God… I am uncomfortably okay with that. And I am okay with being uncomfortable about people not liking me, because it means while I care about people and what they have to say, I can’t let or make their opinions be my God.

I know living in a van is going to have it’s challenges, it already has and I’ve barely just begun, but it’s in those challenges that I am becoming more aware of my character and the importance of maintenance for the long haul. It’s not enough for me to put all the money I’ve received into the van and expect it to be good from here on out. I have to maintain it’s health… oil changes, tire rotations, check-ups to keep it running. I have to take care of this community-given gift by continuing to take care of it. And I have to do the same for myself. A one-time visit to treatment is helpful to the sick, I know, I’ve been there, but you… I… have to keep taking care of ourselves after walking out of those treatment doors, or that therapist’s office, or memorizing that Scripture. We have to go live out what we talked or read about it, and we have to do it more than once… we have to do it on the daily.

Even though I am incredibly excited about van life, I know this is just the beginning, and the excitement won’t last forever. The van won’t make it to California on one tank of gas, I have to keep filling it, and so it goes with me. I can’t expect the initial excitement of this journey to be enough fuel to keep me going for the rest of the journey. I have to keep getting filled by my Power Source and take care of the mind and body He’s given me, and take care of the me He’s given to the world. We’re all gifts to the world, most of us just don’t know it yet because it takes a lot of work to realize it, and even more so to live it out.

This van is helping me understand the importance of maintenance… the tiring but rewarding work it takes to maintain the abundance of that which you’ve been given… life.

It is also helping me understand the importance of curtains.

I love the simple life, but it can get complicated if you don’t have curtains… blogging is enough exposure for me.

cabin fever

Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. SO LET IT GROW, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and READY FOR ANYTHING. (James 1:2)

Right on, James, right on. Easier said than done, but right on.

I can’t believe it’s past the middle of September and I’m still in Portland. Good grief, what am I doing!? I’m still waiting on the van to fixed, praying it gets done soon, but at the same time, I’m so tired of waiting that I almost don’t care. That’s not totally true, but it’s hard not to get apathetic in the waiting process. When it comes to trials, I used to think you had to choose to not give up when when things got hard, and I guess since I always gave up when things got hard, I never got to the next phase of having to choose not to give up… the apathetic phase. Having persevered through the tough stuff, I’m now realizing you have to choose not to give up when you don’t feel like waiting anymore, when you feel like you almost don’t care anymore. I feel like that’s what I’m battling… not caring. That and feeling like a burden to a lot of people, and because I don’t want to feel like a burden, I just want to go hide.

But… I’m not going to hide. I may feel like hiding, but I won’t. I won’t pull a Jonah who ran off to hide when the Lord called him to something hard, I’m trying to pull a Noah who kept on building a massive ark to survive a flood, claiming the rains would come even when there was nothing in sight to imply they would. People laughed and mockingly asked when the rains would come, and not even knowing the answer to the question, Noah wavered not in his claim. I feel like Noah in a sense, everyone has the “when will the van be ready?” question and I got nothing except, “I don’t know, but it will be.” The longer it takes, the harder it is to stand firm in that claim, but I stand firm not in that claim but in my Lord.

And I may not know when the van will be ready, but I know the Lord will follow through on His word. Even though the mechanic told me my van would be ready by yesterday, the Lord seems to have had something else to say about it.

My former pessimistic, apathetic self would have been tempted to say “never mind” to whole thing, but my new self knows that I will never learn to endure if each time I am given the chance to say “never mind,” I take it. The beauty of other people having stepped into this story is that it holds me accountable to not give up. I would like to think I would have persevered all on my own effort, but knowing myself, I don’t think I would have. While I am a firm believer in embracing the tough stuff by way of feeling your feelings, I need people in my life who are not only not afraid to let me be sad or disappointed, but who also aren’t afraid to challenge my sadness and disappointment and point me to a God who has got me, even when I feel like He doesn’t.

And so, while I still have no van in my possession, I fully believe the Lord is still busy at work, asking me to trust Him as I wait.

The story continues, it’s just a plot twist. In fact, every time my plans get switched up, instead of yelling “why, God, why!?” I just yell “PLOT TWIST!” For as crazy as it sounds, it’s kind of cool to be in the middle of what feels like a test of faith and not pull the plug. I think most Christians love to talk about those opportunities for our faith to grow, but no one wants to talk about them while smack dab in the middle of them. Perhaps because while we are still in the middle of faith-growing opportunities, there is still the chance we might jump ship. Most of us want to wait until we have safely reached the shore to share a victory story instead of being out at sea sharing a “I can’t see past the storm, we might be stuck, but I think God is good” story.

My storm has calmed, but I’m still on the sea with no sight of land. I think it’s safe for me to say I believe God is good, He’s gotten me through many storms in life, so it’s not the storms that tempt me to doubt God’s goodness… it’s the damn cabin fever, feeling stuck with no way out.

Even with cabin fever, I believe my God is good and I believe there is a reason why I am still here… even if I can’t see it, I believe it, and so I’m not giving up. I’ve been praying for the people who have asked for prayer during my time of waiting. Praying for others helps me to not stay so focused on me and mine, so thank you to those who have asked for prayer… your requests have not been spammed, but brought right before the Lord. Your requests will be carried with me into my van and on my journey WHEN I get my van back.

Until it’s time to “GO VAN GO,” it’s time to…

GROW, ENDURANCE, GROW!

like a boss

Well, today is supposed to be the day I get my Vanagon out of the shop. Perhaps I am writing about it a bit prematurely because I’d like to say “I got my van out of the shop,” as opposed to “I’m supposed to get it out of the shop,” but I’m trying this whole naming and claiming thing. I’m speaking out in faith that even if I don’t get what I hope for in my time frame, my God isn’t neglecting me, but in fact being so, so good to me in His better timing of things.

I tend to be afraid to speak out what I hope for, in fear that if it doesn’t happen, I won’t know how to handle my disappointment, or even how to approach God with disappointment. Maybe I fear God can’t handle my disappointment, and I don’t want Him to be disappointed in me for being disappointed in Him, and so I avoid the whole disappointment fiasco by not expressing any sort of desire, just incase said desire can’t or won’t be met.

I’m tired of living as if God can’t handle my emotions and I’m tired of playing it safe. I’m tired of being fearful to speak out a hope because of what other people might think if it doesn’t happen.

God doesn’t need me or my van getting fixed to prove that He is God and that He is listening to His people and that He is in fact in charge. My plan is to get my van back and head out of Portland tomorrow. I’m learning to hold my plans loosely because He may change them, and to not think He’s brushing me aside if He does.

I’m also learning to speak out in faith without all the answers or the facts, knowing that God can handle my disappointment and plan an adventure and write a story better than I could ever hope to.

This whole process has become one of having to trust the Lord, not just with the van, but with my life. I NEVER would have thought that buying a VW van would so challenge my view of God and reveal so much of my character that needs to be worked on.

For starters, I’m pretty selfish. I want what I want when I want it. God is continuously good to me and many times over He has given me a glimpse of a something or a someone He wants to bless me with, and often times He has said something along the lines of “hold on, don’t reach for it yet, let me make it better.” God wants to not only give me something, but wants to make it better before He gives it to me and I say, “no, I want it now.” I settle for a watered-down version of what God wants for me simply because I want the world and I want it now.

Which leads to my next character defect, I am incredibly impatient. I want the finger-snap answer to prayer as opposed to the long process. Who doesn’t want the finger-snap? It’s much easier and feels much better than a long, tiring and gruesome process of becoming a better version of ourselves. I want to be patient, I want to be selfless, I want to be kind, but I want God to zap me with those things so that it will be easy to be those things. I don’t want to be put in a place of having to practice patience, having to share when I don’t want to, and having to extend kindness when it’s hard. Being kind to someone who is kind to me doesn’t mean I possess kindness and have that to offer people, it just means I am capable of responding to kindness.

And perhaps that is another character defect, I am good at responding to people, but I don’t know how good I am at being good to people. I respond to a hand that asks for help, but I rarely offer my hand first. I respond to someone who shows or tells me they love me, but I rarely offer my love first. I would make a great paramedic, responding to calls all over the place, but I would make a horrible search and rescue, in part because I don’t seek, I just hope to find.

Man, ugly spades are flying all over the place.

I am not very good at seeking the Lord, and yet by some bizarre twist of my makeup, I am just as bad, if not worse, at waiting on the Lord. I find myself in a constant state of Limbo, neither seeking nor waiting, just keeping busy to pass the time and hoping the Lord shows up.

I don’t want to be busy for the sake of not being still, I want to be busy because I’m working hard, which is yet another character defect, I don’t work very hard. I work hard enough to say I worked, but not hard enough to endure when things get hard. I give up easily. When something comes up, I give up and I say I tried. Starting something is not trying, starting something is just that… starting. Trying is continuing what you started, even if you don’t feel as amped about it as you did when you started.

And while maybe I have taken note of these things before, all of these character defects have come to the surface and exposed their ugly roots in my life as a result of going through this whole van process. Yes, I wish it was as simple as being gifted a VW van in perfect condition for crazy cheap and hitting the road as soon as I was ready, but the process has exposed more work that needs to be done, not just in and on the van, but in and on me, that if not worked on could lead to more damage further down the road.

An un-restored me is just as dangerous to the lives of others on the road as an un-restored VW van. We were both born in the eighties, my van and I, we’ve both been through a lot, hold a lot of stories and have a lot of wear and tear as a result of. We both need work. And just as getting the work done on my van couldn’t be done without the helping hands of community, neither could I get through some of life’s obstacles without the helping hands of community.

As much as I hated the list of things the mechanics told me they were working on, I was glad the problems were found. Only in exposing the problems can we get to working on them and function at our best. While the waiting process is long and the work is tough, I know it is for the best. I know that just as those mechanics are getting that van in great shape for me to start a long journey, so the Lord is getting me in great shape to continue on in life’s journey, only making me better with each defect He picks apart and works on.

Lord willing, I get my van back today.

In fact, I’m claiming it now… I get my van back today! I’m writing about it on the unsafe side of the phone call, the side without the answers or the guarantees.

One thing I know for sure, God has been working on my attitude. For someone like me who is easily discouraged, I have found so much hope and joy in the simplest of things, as I have realized that worry really doesn’t add a single hour to my day or a single day to my life.

I have taken hard things, like moving out of my “perfect” home, and instead of avoiding the process or complaining about it, I have learned to enjoy it…

I have let go of hands I didn’t want to let go of with a grateful heart that I ever got to hold those hands in the first place, instead of whining that I couldn’t keep holding on… okay, maybe I whined a little, but I let go with the faith that it was for my good.

Leaps and bounds, my friends, leaps and bounds from where I was.

The road ahead is a long one, I don’t doubt that, but I know I am equipped to take it… it’s just going to be a matter of remembering that I am equipped to take it even when I don’t feel like I am, even when the road gets tougher and possibly longer.

While He may change things up on me from time to time, I know that God Himself does not change, and so I am removing my hope in the external circumstances and placing it in Him who is constantly and consistently Him.

I know He is for me, restoring the damage that has been done and refusing to give on me in the process.

My God handles the restoration business like a boss! In fact, I think I can hear Him now…

“GO VAN GO!”