church – jj barrows

Breaking The Rules

When I was in fifth grade my little sister had her head bashed in by a gold club. I know, it sounds morbid, and it was but bear with me, the story ends well.

It was a Sunday afternoon. We had just finished lunch and prior to that we had just finished church. To this fifth grader, church was definitely something you wanted to finish so you could hurry up and get to lunch. Lunch was something you didn’t want to end because after lunch was nap. I never liked nap time, which strikes me as odd because now I couldn’t live life without one.

My parents told everyone to go to their rooms after lunch, my mom always said the same thing, “you don’t have to go to sleep, but you do have to be quiet.” Nap time was really more for my parents, they were smart to train us young for the Sunday afternoon nap. We always knew it was coming. “Whatever you decide to do for your time is fine so long as it’s quiet and it’s in your room.” The last thing I remember my mother saying before everyone departed the kitchen was “you are not allowed to go outside.”

I remember this because my two younger siblings (Bobby and Betsy) had decided this was exactly what they would do after mom and dad fell asleep. We all went to our rooms and they waited a little while before I heard them quietly sneaking back out. Bobby had a friend over that day and they decided to play with dad’s golf clubs. I find it important to note my dad has never been a golfer, still isn’t, but either because it was another hobby he tried to pick up and didn’t find entertaining (I don’t blame him, boring!) or someone gave them to him because people always randomly give things to their pastor (probably for good measure), we had golf clubs laying around.

Bobby and his friend Jamie each took turns swinging. Betsy was frolicking around the yard. I was peeking out of my window when I decided to go out and tell them I was going to tell mom and dad they were breaking the rules (yes, I made things my business that weren’t my business). Without paying much attention Betsy frolicked her way behind Jamie’s back hand swing when his 9 iron (that’s the big one for those of you who don’t play golf) smacked right into her forehead (which is the only reason I ever learned that was a 9 iron).

I wasn’t there right when it happened, I only heard Betsy screaming. I ran outside, Bobby and Jamie frozen dead in their tracks and Betsy holding her hands over her forehead. Because I didn’t see what happened, nor did I see any blood, I assumed Betsy was being dramatic, like a “Bobby pushed me” kind of cry. With there being four kids in my family we heard those a lot. “Don’t be such a baby,” I said to Betsy, “why are you crying?” I know, in retrospect I am not proud of how I approached the situation, but this was my first memorable lesson in never assuming you know everything.

Betsy couldn’t even speak, she just removed her hands from her forehead. For a split second I was silenced as a I experienced my first shock wave. Once the split second was up I screamed bloody murder for my mom and dad. I stood there, unable to move, looking at the inside of my little sister’s head. The hole was the actual size of the 9 iron. I remember thinking if she leaned forward her brains were going to fall out.

Mom and dad came running out of the house and to be honest, the rest is a blur. I remember them wrapping her in a blanket and rushing her to the hospital, but that’s it. She was in the hospital for a while, in part because the first time she was stitched up they failed to clean it out first so she was rushed to another hospital (with more credentials) to re-open her head, clean it out and sew it back up. She stayed on the children’s ward of the hospital for a long time. I remember all the toys and flowers that flooded her room. Truth be told, I remember being jealous, even almost wishing it had been me.

Maybe that’s a normal feeling for a kid, especially a middle child, when they see one of their siblings get all the attention (even if for unfortunate reasons), or maybe I was just that selfish from the get-go since my first word was “mine.” Either way, I was glad Betsy was okay, but I was tempted to remind everyone that she didn’t listen to mom about nap time.

I don’t know why I’ve always been worried there wasn’t enough love to go around, as if people were going to run dry if they gave it all to Betsy. I don’t know why I’ve always been more concerned about how I was going to be okay more so than other people. I don’t like this quality about myself, but it’s there, and I can’t change it if I don’t address it.

I’ve come a long way from the fifth grade girl who wanted to tattle on her sister who just had her head bashed in, but I still fall short in my efforts to look out for my own self.

I think it’s important to stand up for what’s right and have an opinion and voice an injustice (like say breaking certain rules), but I find it just as important, if not more so, to cater to the person who is hurting, to offer love and support and grace (even if rules were broken). People are really good at getting behind causes and campaigns, especially ones that draw attention, but I think people (myself included) fall short in the day to day individual ways they can offer love and extend grace to the very people in front of them.

To my fifth grade self and any other child or grown up kid out there, I just thought you might like to know there is plenty of love to go around, if only we’d be willing to extend it- no matter what, even if you don’t get it back the way you want it. You become a person of love when you practice love. And believe me, love takes practice.

As for Betsy, I love you sis, I always have, I just never expressed it very well. Little did I know how much more jealous I would be one day when Harry Potter made his debut into the world and the two of you shared the same scar. I don’t know if I ever said it then so I’ll say it now, I’m really glad you’re okay.

back to the basics

I think I think too much. I think this because I think all the time. Think, think, think, it’s always happening no matter what I’m doing, even if I’m doing nothing, I’m thinking.

I’m thinking about everything all the time and maybe I can’t hit on everything at once, but you’d be surprised just how much I can hit on in a short amount of time and space. Even for a woman, I’ve heard our minds be compared to that of a plate of spaghetti, all over the place, I think I think more than that. Even in places where thinking need not apply, I’m thinking…

“Be present,” I tell myself, and for a few sweet moments I am, until the thinks creep back in and I’m too in my head to notice the wave that is about to take me out.

And it’s not always life changing stuff that has me thinking so much, sometimes it’s the mundane, the small and insignificant. What starts out as a small thought in the morning is a full blown attack on the front lines of my mind by lunch. Perhaps this is often why I need a nap after lunch, not so much because of the food baby in my belly but because of the incessant thinking that has me exhausted.

I was recently picked up by a Lyft driver and after a few minutes of what was meant to be small talk he turned around and looked at me and said, “you’re very strange.” I laughed and said thank you in the form of a question. “I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he said, “I just mean that you’re cut from a different cloth and I’m trying to figure out what that cloth is.” I agreed that I myself was trying to figure out what that cloth was. “I can tell you’re a thinker,” he said, “a deep thinker.” I laughed and agreed that in fact I was, sometimes to a fault. “And you think differently than the rest of the world, but that’s a good thing,” he continued. “Until it isn’t,” I said.

“Well, it’s good until it’s dangerous because if you think on everything that gets thrown at you, you’ll end up confusing yourself.” I agreed with him and told him there was a lot I was definitely confused about. I told him I was confused by my own truths on top of people throwing their truths at me. I told him I felt lost. We talked for the next 20 minutes of our ride and by the time we arrived to where he was dropping me off I didn’t want to get out of the car. It felt more like he was taking me to church than a music festival. If there had been an altar call option in the Lyft ride I certainly would have gone to the front. That 20 minutes will certainly be a longer story for another day as it might have changed the course of my life in a way I didn’t see coming. So naturally, I tipped him.

“If you’re confused,” he said, “go back to the basics. The only way you can know the truth is to go back to the basics of knowing there is nothing you can do or learn or be in order to be loved, you already are. Once you know it is the One True God who loves you, you will know the One True God. And in knowing God, you know yourself. People keep trying to find themselves when they already are themselves. You are fully you and you are fully loved, it’s you who has to believe that.”

I shook his hand and told him I thought he was an angel. He said he could say the same about me, but I think I was too confusing to be an angel, plus I didn’t tip that good.

And so I’m trying to go back to the basics, in a lot of areas of life, like riding in the white wash knowing it’s not that impressive but it brings me joy…

But mostly I’m going back to the basics in realizing I can’t earn my worth or value, and no amount of praise is going to fulfill the love that I lack.

I choose joy. I choose freedom. I choose mastering the basics before trying so hard to figure everything out all the time just so I can feel worth something to somebody. I’m already loved. It’s me who has to believe that. And the same is true for you. You are already so very loved, should you have forgotten, just go back to the basics.

Oh, and should you need a ride somewhere, I recommend getting a Lyft.

……

Photos: Gary Linn

Hurricane Ditka

I made a mug cake for breakfast this morning. A mug cake is when you put the ingredients of a cake into a mug and zap it in the microwave until it “bakes” and it gives you the tiniest, laziest cake ever made. It’s delicious, as well as genius. It’s almost too easy, like dangerously easy, like I could make mug cake for breakfast everyday for the rest of my life and be totally content that I never got married or had kids. The combination of peanut butter and chocolate can make up for any great loss in life… except for weight loss.

Speaking of, I used to be a vegan. Technically I was anorexic, but literally I could have also been considered a vegan, it sounds more healthy than anorexic. When I did eat I avoided all meat, dairy, gluten, soy, wheat, and anything else made by man or God. I ate about three nuts a day, sometimes wrapped in lettuce. On particularly crazy days I would squirt a little mustard in the wrap. Best vegan wraps ever. I could have marketed them but I was too tired and cold to do anything. As a vegan I napped a lot, so I might have appeared aloof, and in some ways I was because I’m not sure my brain was getting enough fuel, but I was also very passionate about certain topics and I knew when to adequately express emotions over things like strawberries. Particularly when I planned to add a little variety to my life and have two strawberries for a meal.

I remember one time excitedly going into the fridge for my double portion of strawberries, only to discover that my mother (who had purchased the strawberries) had the audacity to eat the last of them.

“WHO ATE THE MOTHER-FREAKING STRAWBERRIES!?” I yelled (I wanted it to be known I meant business, but for as passionate as I could get about strawberries I could never bring myself to drop the actual F-bomb in my mother’s house). My mother was sitting calmly at the table doing some sort of paperwork and without even looking up she responded, “your freaking mother.” I slammed the refrigerator door and walked at a mildly fast pace up to my bedroom to cry. I would have ran but I was too tired.

I went to rehab in Chicago in February of 2007 and I’ll never forget it because the Chicago Bears were in the Super Bowl that year. First time since 1986. The pilot came over the intercom once we boarded the plane and said something to the effect of “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of whatever-whatever airlines we’d like to thank you for flying with us this evening to the home of this year’s Super Bowl contenders, DA BEARS!” And everyone on the plane, as if it was some sort of flash mob or IMPROV Everywhere skit, in unison all fist pumped the air and yelled “DA BEARS!”

A flight attendant came over the intercom and encouraged it by repeating over and over again, “DA BEARS, DA BEARS, DA BEARS, DA BEARS, DA BEARS!” And everyone responded in unison, “DA BEARS, DA BEARS, DA BEARS, DA BEARS, DA BEARS!” I had flashbacks of early nineties SNL skits and Michael Jordan wearing a hula skirt while Chris Farley was having a sausage-induced heart-attack. It was then I realized I was going somewhere special, I was going to the land of HURRICANE DITKA.

The SNL fangirl in me was excited beyond belief. But the exhausted vegan in me, still unable to fully admit I had an eating disorder, was a little terrified to be going to a place known for their hot dogs, deep-dish pizzas and polish sausages. “Perhaps I can introduce them to my vegan wraps,” I thought to myself. But then I thought about Mike Ditka and the fact that my vegan wraps were roughly the size of his pinky finger (if even), and I didn’t foresee that going over so well as part of a meal plan in Chicago. My meal portions consisted of their condiments used for an appetizer and oddly enough the thought made me laugh.

I will never forget that plane ride. People were singing and cheering and chanting. It felt like we were on the Polar Express on the way to see Santa Claus as played by Mike Ditka. No one started out knowing anybody but bonding over the same excitement made everyone family. I mostly just watched, terrified and amazed. Terrified of what food laid ahead of me, amazed by how passionate everyone seemed about something greater than strawberries.

Truth be told, I boarded that plane not wanting to live much longer, I was tired of living each day terrified of what it held, terrified of what I did or didn’t eat, terrified of my own self and my own actions. I was exhausted, and in my exhaustion, I felt stuck. I didn’t know how to get myself out of the patterns I had set. I was functioning in survival mode and survival didn’t seem like much of a reason to keep going. Hearing old SNL references to DA BEARS triggered memories of a time I had forgotten, a time when I was happy and hopeful and less bogged down by the expectations of the world.

By the time the plane landed, I was curious enough to want to see this game that had bonded such a large group of strangers all hugging and high-fiving by the end of flight. To have something to look forward to other than an extra strawberry or a nut in my wrap was a feeling I had forgotten I liked. It had been years since I had been excited about something other than food. Something as simple as a football game gave me the tiniest inkling of desire, “I desire to see this game,” which in bigger terms could be translated into “I desire to live one more day,” and so it caught me off guard when I stepped off the plane feeling hopeful about going to the land of Hurricane Ditka to recover from Hurricane ED (In rehab most of us learned to name our eating disorder and most of us named it ED. I know it’s not that original, but we were tired).

The Bears lost and I remember being bummed, but when I realized I actually cared about something other than food, I found the slightest bit of excitement over the fact that I wasn’t numb, but in fact bummed. I entered Rehab the day after the Super Bowl and so began my long and slow process of seeking recovery, of discovering that I wasn’t just a tired vegan with misplaced passions, I was sick and I had been for a fairly long time.

I say this to say sometimes it’s not the fire on the mountain, lighting bolt experiences that wake us up or instantly cure us of our “diseases.” Sometimes it’s not the church service or the community service that gets us to step outside of ourselves to see that people need help and that we ourselves are a part of that people group. Sometimes comparing your pain to the pain of others and telling yourself to “suck it up cause it’s not that bad” isn’t going to be enough to keep you wanting to live until the next day. Pain is pain is pain is pain, and it is very real to the person experiencing it no matter how different each experience is.

Sometimes God works in the quietest, simplest and even funniest of ways, like through SNL skits from the nineties, an airplane ride of happy and hopeful strangers and the Chicago Bears getting a chance to reclaim their title since the 1986 Super Bowl Shuffle, to take us on a journey of healing instead of an instant snap of the fingers cure-all. Sometimes it’s the little things, as little as “I want to see that game,” that lead to the next little thing and the next little thing that all add up over time to become a very big thing called LIFE.

I am where I am now because I boarded that plane to Chicago in 2007. The Chicago Bears played a surprising and odd role in my recovery, one I did not see coming. They gave me something to look forward to at a time when I was hopeless, and the thought of Mike Ditka eating one of my “vegan wraps” brought laughter to me at a time when nothing was funny. As I recalled the SNL skits of the nineties, I looked back on a time when I used to enjoy life and I began the journey of searching for that girl who got lost somewhere along the way.

I can’t sit here on this side of the story and say I am cured, but I can say I am better than I was, I am fully enjoying life and I still hope to one day share a burger with Mike Ditka (on a gluten-free bun, we gotta meet in the middle) with a vegan wrap as garnish.

I also still hope for a Chicago Bears Super Bowl victory. After all, a girl who wants to live is a girl who can dream.

fear has a seat

Hi Family! Well, it’s been a while, a LONG while, and I apologize.

The last we spoke about my book (or I wrote) it was Christmas time and I was in South Carolina packing up my childhood home and saying goodbye to my last Christmas in that house. Sorry to get all sappy so soon. The process was long and hard, but good and necessary and ultimately I’m glad I was at home to help my mom, be with my grandmother and get to know my brother better.

I’m back in California and this year looks incredibly different from last year. I’ve embarked on a journey of pursuing art (in all forms) and have rediscovered my love for creating not just with words but with color. I’ve been painting like a mad woman and even went mad for a little bit as I tried to figure out the difference between work and play when you do something you love. I didn’t know I had a little diva in me until I got to the point of thinking my friends weren’t as important as my time painting. I never want to forget the importance of people and that no amount of money will ever replace them.

It’s hard because painting is how I am trying to make a living, which I love AND it also requires a lot of work outside of a 9-5 job. BUT painting non-stop isn’t what will define me as a painter, it’s what will define me as a workaholic and no different from the people who are slaving away at their jobs missing out on life and the people in front of them. I love painting, but it’s not my foundation nor what defines my value and I have to admit over a short span of time I managed to forget that. HOW DOES IT HAPPEN SO QUICKLY!?!

That said, I’m still trying to figure out how to make this all work. People on social media would see me as having a blast… and that’s true… I am having so much fun living out who I was created to be and functioning the way I was wired to function as a creative. AND, I’m also scared. I’m scared because for as fun as this all is, there’s no safety nets or guarantees. It’s like surfing… fun when you catch the wave, scary when it’s not guaranteed you will and the big ones take you under. The ocean is beautiful and its power is scary.

I go from selling high end art pieces and feeling safe to three weeks going by without selling anything and uncertain as to whether or not I will be able to pay rent. It’s scary to be down to the wire with no funds in the bank account. But I gotta say, it’s worth it when you get that message at midnight that someone wants to buy a painting they just saw. A sigh of relief never felt so good.

Fear is a necessary part of the process, of any process. To not have fear is to not be human and to miss out on the exhilarating feeling of the fear being silenced as the LORD comes in with the last minute save. In order to be excited over provision, one must have first experienced the fear of being without.

I have welcomed fear as part of the process, part of my humanity, but (as I learned recently from Elizabeth Gilbert) I tell fear it is not allowed to make any decisions. I’ve recently painted a chair for fear to sit in while I am in the room painting. Fear creeps in and tells me I’ll never sell anything, I’m broke, I’ll never be able to do this. I thank fear for its concern, recognizing that maybe its just trying to keep me in check the same way it did when I was in the water that day and the waves were too big for my strength. “Thank you, fear, I’m just painting, no one is going to die, you can go have a seat.” This is my new practice instead of beating myself up or giving into fear. Maybe fear isn’t such a bad thing, we just have to know how to handle it.

All of this to say, that is what I have been up to and much of it has to do with the process of my book. As some of you know I submitted it in its completion back in December. It has failed the content evaluation three times. Each time I sanitize my voice a little more to meet the high standards of the Christian publishing company. With this last attempt I decided I couldn’t sanitize my voice any further just for the sake of being published. I have no interest in being published just to publish, I have an interest in sharing the cold, hard truth about the goodness and toughness of life. Everyone wants to say Jesus saves but nobody wants to say why or what from.

So, I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what to do. I am past the point of getting a refund and I’ve tried to submit to a few traditional publishers but with my last attempt came the cold, hard truth that nobody really knows who I am to care enough about what I have to say. Ouch. Rejection is a part of the process, I get that, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

So I’m praying, and any of you who are willing, asking you for prayer too… about what to do next. I want to be willing to learn and flexible to change what I need to, but I also want to value my voice and the truth God has set me free to speak.

For now, I paint and I pray and I tell fear to have a seat.

Love, J

puffy yellow jackets

I remember being in the 7th grade and someone pointing out a Roxy model in a Seventeen magazine. There was a group of us eating breakfast at Hardee’s before school… I think it was someone’s attempt to start a “Bible study” before school started, but I don’t remember it lasting past that one early morning. When the Bible study was over and the breakfast sandwiches had been eaten, one of the girls pulled out her Seventeen magazine. “Jennie, this looks like you when you get older,” she said. The girl she pointed at was a short-haired brunette who was clearly a tomboy. She didn’t look like the other models, but she was still a model and she was cute in a tomboy-kind-of-way. It was the first compliment I remember getting as a middle schooler. Like most middle schoolers, I was awkward and underdeveloped, but without the obvious potential that other girls had to be high-school heartthrobs.

For example, I didn’t make the cheerleading team, so I borrowed a cheerleading uniform from a girl who did and I had my mom take cheerleading photos in our front yard, as evidenced by the mud-pit behind me…

cheer

I was approached by boys, but only to talk to my friends for them. Advice to middle school boys, or boys in general who are interested in girls: talk to the girl yourself, it will score you mad points not only with the girl, but also her friends, who you will more than likely have to impress more than the girl.

That being said, in 7th grade I got my first compliment regarding my looks, or my potential looks… one day, just maybe one day, way after high-school, I might look like a 90s tomboy model.

I was excited at the thought and wondered how long I would have to wait. One of the boys who overheard the comment being made about my future self walked over and asked if he could see the picture. “Wow, yea, I could see that,” he said, and my excitement grew… until he kept talking, “if that’s true, call me then, but not before.”

Excitement dwindled and the reality of my present self came crashing down on my two-minute long dream of becoming a 90s tomboy model. Everyone laughed, so naturally I laughed too, because that’s what you do when you’re in middle school and you don’t want to let on that you’ve been hurt. Except that it’s not what you should do. Never on your behalf or the behalf of others should you silence your voice and laugh with the crowd for the sake of fitting in. But in middle school I didn’t know that, and truth be told, sometimes I still forget it… because it feels good to fit in, even when it hurts. While it was clear I wasn’t going to be “asked out” anytime soon, I made peace with it by falling in love with the brothers that are Hanson and swearing my love, life and devotion to them. I think most middle school girls devoted themselves to Hanson in the 90s, and those who didn’t were clearly delusional… or so I thought until much too late in life (ahem, last week).

I MMMBopped my way through ninth grade when my five-year relationship with braces ended. I remember the day I got my braces off. I couldn’t stop licking my teeth, they felt so slimy and perfect. It was the first time something on me ever felt perfect. I went to youth group that night and a boy pointed out that I had gotten my braces off. The sun was setting and there was a chill in the springtime air. Everyone was outside scattered on the field in front of the church for that week’s game of dodgeball. Huffing and puffing while trying to dodge a big red rubber ball, a boy ran up to me, “you… you… you got your braces off!” followed by deep breaths. “Yea,” I smiled, not moving so as not to mess up my smile or get slime on my mouth. “It looks good,” he said, followed by the loud smack of being hit in the head with a big red rubber ball. “YOU’RE OUT!” a kid yelled at the boy who was distracted by my smile, and I wanted to attack the kid for interrupting my first compliment from a boy.

“Thank you,” I said to the boy as he walked off the field. “Are you cold?” he asked as he started to take off his puffy yellow jacket and walk back towards me. “A little bit,” I lied given the slightest possibility that a boy might offer me his jacket. “GET OFF THE FEILD, YOU’RE OUT!” the kid yelled again at the boy with the puffy yellow jacket who liked my slimy smile. “HE IS!” I turned and yelled, “HE’S GIVING ME HIS JACKET! I’M COLD!” I lied with confidence and a death stare seemingly from satan because the kid looked terrified. Don’t mess with an awkward girl on the outskirts of middle school when she is getting her first compliment and clothing offer from a boy. She may not be good at using her voice, but when you try to short her on her first interaction with a boy who might like her, she’ll find her voice real quick and verbally rip your head off.

He handed me his jacket, me still uncertain of why he offered it, but mostly certain it was because of my teeth. I went home that night and wrote a thank you card to my orthodontist. Seriously. I have believed in thank you cards for as long as I can remember. Dr. Ross Orthodontics knows what I’m talking about.

All of this to say, to my present self (because I’m forgetful) and anyone willing to listen, be nice to people. With love as the lenses with which you look through, speak truth over people about who they will become, but also speak truth to them about who they are now. Tell people they don’t have to wait to be great one day, tell them they are great now, growing into someone greater. Life is hard and middle school is harder. Kids need to be told they are smart and funny and beautiful and brilliant and fully capable of thinking for themselves and of voicing their truths.

Kids grow up, all of them, even the awkward ones, and they remember. They remember who picked on them and they remember who was nice to them. They remember the boy who wanted the girl to call him one day if she grew up pretty and they remember the boy who risked getting smacked in the head by a big red rubber ball so he could tell the girl he liked her smile. Nine times out of ten the girl never calls the first boy, but she still smiles and licks her slimy teeth when she sees puffy yellow jackets.

Take risks, not by jumping off cliffs or out of airplanes (though sure, do that too), take risks by being nice to people, even if you get nothing in return. Live a story worth telling by breathing life into other people and be amazed by the life it will breathe back into you. There are plenty of mean words out there to stereotype any sort of person you dislike or feel threatened by, but challenge yourself to look for something good, and say something even better. Where I live I always hear people say “send good vibes,” and yes do that, but don’t just leave it at sending good vibes in thought, speak them out. There is power in the spoken word and I think we would all stand a little more amazed at the end of each day if we spoke kind words to even just one person who might not even know how badly they need it.

Kindness matters. It is the fruit of love and it will nourish not only the recipient of it but also the giver. It’s not always easy… kindness, or love for that matter, but it’s worth it. If you don’t know where to start, start with a thank you card. There is always something for which you can be thankful… always… even if it’s your orthodontist from your entire middle school career, start there, and keep going!

the freedom to be confused

I woke up from my nap and did what I normally do after I wake up from a nap… I went to the bathroom, ate a fig and checked Facebook. As I was finishing off my fig and scrolling through the Facebook feed, my only source of news these days, I noticed an odd looking picture of who I thought was Tina Fey. “Well she looks different,” I thought to myself as I looked at her slung across a couch in a navy blue dress. I looked closer… “is that her?” I squinted and decided someone photoshopped her. “Why are people always photoshopping people!? And why would anyone photoshop Tina Fey!? People are crazy!” And then I asked God to give photo-shoppers something else to photoshop other than people.

But then I read the title above the picture of the photoshopped Tina Fey and I realized it wasn’t an altered Tina Fey but an altered someone named Caitlyn Jenner. “My bad, Tina,” I said, “I didn’t know there was a Caitlyn in the family.” I knew enough news to know the name and assume it was someone related to Bruce Jenner, but clearly not enough news to realize it was not someone related to Bruce Jenner, but Bruce himself. “Wait,” I said as I looked closer, a little confused and unsure if I was seeing things right. I don’t really know what rock I’ve been under but this was the first time I had heard of Bruce Jenner becoming a woman, so I was shocked, because that’s what shock is, a sudden (or violent) disturbance of the mind, emotions or sensibilities (according to the dictionary). And so when I say I was shocked, I don’t mean it in a judgmental or appalled kind of way, I just mean I had no idea all of this was going on, leading to a sudden disturbance of what I thought I knew to be true in my mind… that Bruce was a man, then suddenly (to me), he wasn’t.

And so, if I can be allowed the time and space to be honest about my initial reaction to Caitlyn Jenner, it was neither love nor hate, which seemed to be the only options in regards to a response, it was just shock. I didn’t have words of praise or slurs of hate, I had questions. I want to clarify that they are questions because I’m curious, not judgements because I’m disagreeing or failing to celebrate with everyone else. Call me the party pooper, but it’s hard for me to party when I don’t understand what is going on.

I think people are afraid of asking why. I am. From a young age we are sort of taught not to ask why, even if not directly. When a kid asks why to everything, they simply want to know something, but all too often it is found annoying or to be a silly question, and even if disregarded nicely, a kid can easily pick up on when they are being a nuisance. Asking why is a nuisance. “Why?” you hear a kid ask. “Because I said so,” you hear a parent respond. I don’t have kids and so I don’t want to turn this into a parenting post, I just want to address the fact that it would seem many of us learn at a young age to stop asking why. But if we stop asking why then we stop thinking for ourselves. I think. Even If I don’t get an answer, I would like the freedom to at least attempt to understand why people do what they do, in part to understand humanity, because I’m human and I’m trying to understand my own self. And in part to understand God, for as much as one can, as I’m beginning to think I’ve had Him or Her all wrong for a really long time… at least the part about Him hating the people I hate.

At first I felt bad for having questions. I felt bad that my initial response was to ask why Caitlyn did it, as if asking why implied that I was judging her for doing it. But I took a step back before shaming myself for not jumping on the band wagon of political correctness and social acceptance, and I treated myself as if I was still that little girl who always asked why in response to any and everything. Instead of responding to that little girl in me with “because I said so,” or “because they said so,” I treated that little girl as if her question mattered and I allowed her the time and the space to be confused about something. After all, the whole reason that little girl always asked “why” in the first place was because she wanted to understand, not because she hated.

This is why I think it is dangerous for us to stop asking why, because it means we’ve stopped trying to understand, and trying to understand someone is a way of loving them, or at the very least doing well by them even when it’s hard to love them. I might not have wanted to praise Caitlyn Jenner right off the bat, but it doesn’t make me a bigot or judgmental… it makes me a girl who wants to understand where another girl is coming from.

As I processed all of the information I read, and all of the responses to the information I read, I found layer upon layer of things that I had a hard time with, and none of them had to do with the Bible. In any shocking news event you’ll find three types of people; the loving liberals who love everybody but hate the Christians, the Christians who hate everybody but love God, and the Christians who hate those Christians. Basically, it seems like you need to figure out if you love or hate the person or topic at hand and pick a side. But as I watched people take swings at each other and at God, I realized that regardless of who you are and what you believe, we’re all capable of love and guilty of hate, and I think many of us have lived out of our guilt more than our capabilities.

I allowed myself to sit in the tension of asking why. If given the chance to sit with Caitlyn, instead of telling her what I think of her, I would want to ask her why she did it. Why did she feel the need to change who she was? How could she trust her feelings to make such a decision? What was she so unhappy with before that becoming a woman would solve? Was becoming a woman the ultimate fulfillment to whatever emptiness she felt in being a man? What did it mean to her to be a woman? What did it mean to her to be a man?

It was when I got to these last two questions that I started to feel more uncomfortable with my feelings because I realized I was starting to feel a little angry and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t want to feel angry. We have enough angry Christians and I don’t want to be one of them. I want to love people, not hate them, but feeling angry wasn’t hating, right? And what does it mean to love people, what does that look like? Does it mean to not ask questions? I think if you love someone, you do ask questions, you get to know them. Okay, I assured myself again that asking questions was okay, but what happens when you start to feel angry in response to some of your questions; perhaps this is why people avoid asking questions, they want to “keep the peace” by not stirring any uncomfortable emotions or prolonged uncomfortable conversations. But instead of avoiding my anger, I paid attention to it. Why? Why is it there? Why do I feel angry? It can’t be for no reason, it can’t be personal to Caitlyn, I don’t even know her. She is clearly stirring something that is already there, but it’s not about her, it’s about me. Or is it about her? I couldn’t tell.

I went back to look at the pictures of her and I felt angry. But I didn’t feel angry because she used to be a man. I felt angry because she changed everything about herself in order to be okay with herself. She manipulated every part of her body in order to be “free” and she got a Vanity Fair cover for it and over 2 million followers in about four hours. And why did she get such praise for all the plastic surgery and body manipulation? Because she used to be a man. Not only was it okay for her to change her body, but it was considered brave. It was brave because she used to be a man. I’m just trying to compute all of this.

Growing up as the runt of the litter, insecure and depressed, sometimes still hoping to hit puberty so I can fill out a bra, I tried to change my body so many times it eventually landed me in treatment. I’ve been hospitalized on more than one occasion for the things I did to my body all because I didn’t like it, and never once did the word brave come up. I was put on all sorts of medication and processed every hurt imaginable that could have possibly led me to such a violent eating disorder. Wanting to change everything about me meant something was wrong with me, not that I was brave. I’ve never liked my body. That is so hard for me to admit. I still don’t like my body. That is even harder for me to admit. Millions of women don’t like their bodies, resulting in eating disorders and plastic surgery of all kinds, and yet we rip them apart for being so shallow. So I started to feel angry.

Why is it that a guy who gets plastic surgery is considered brave, but a girl who gets plastic surgery needs to learn how to love herself? I feel like I’m back in high school… the guy who slept around was cool, but the girl who slept around was a slut. There’s a double standard going on that is being missed because everyone is so caught up in either being politically correct or religious. Plastic surgery is brave so long as being male is involved in the equation, be it that you started as a male or are changing into one, but getting plastic surgery makes you the brunt of every joke if you are a female remaining a female. I can’t help but wonder if people realize that they are only enabling gender inequality in their praises of a man becoming the same type of woman that millions of other women try to become but get made fun of for it. If Caitlyn Jenner had already been a woman and just gotten plastic surgery, I don’t think she would have been considered brave and on the cover of Vanity Fair. And I’m not saying that against her, I’m saying that against the media. And as a woman, this bothers me.

I called my best friend, Anna, to talk it through with her because I had so many feelings about Caitlyn. I felt so personally affected and I didn’t understand why. Anna had said when all the hype wears off and the party winds down, Caitlyn is still going to have to face Caitlyn and whatever it was that she was so unhappy with to begin with. “No matter how hard we try,” Anna said, “we can’t get rid of ourselves.” “I know,” I said, “I’ve tried, maybe that’s why I’m so upset, because I’ve tried to change what I’m unhappy about with myself, but it was considered unhealthy instead of brave.”

When I am most honest, the girl in me still wants to lose 15 pounds, at least, which is ridiculous. But there is a lie I believe that if I lost 15 pounds I would feel more like a girl and I think I would be a little more happy with my body. And if I’m stepping out further into the truth, if I could afford plastic surgery, I’d get a boob job, but I can’t, so I opt for weight loss, because desirable girls are either stick thin or incredibly curvy. I am neither. I’m a pear, small up top, bigger on the bottom, stuck in the middle between not too thin and not too thick. I am what I’ve always been afraid of being… average. And as I’ve tried to be the girl who I feel like I am inside, the one I’ve seen pictures of all my life that tell me what it means to be a girl, as I attempt to step out and not be average, I’m not considered brave, I’m considered shallow and in need of a therapist. Why? Because I’m just a girl who wants to be a different girl.

“I have to be honest,” I said to Anna, who knows my struggles and my recovery stories, “I still hate so much of my body,” and before I said anything else I started crying. In my tears, the revelation hit me. “Oh my God, I think that’s why I’m so upset.” What I saw today wasn’t someone being brave for being their true self, what I saw was another depiction of what it means to be a woman and what it is men desire... a busty, full-figured woman, popping out of her corset, posing in her underwear. Brave? That picture and the praise for that picture fed into every lie that I believe about myself as a woman, that I’ll never be desirable because I don’t have a perfect body and I can’t afford one, and clearly that’s what men want… either to have for themselves or become themselves.

“That’s not what it means to be a woman,” Anna said in regards to the Vanity Fair cover. “I feel objectified that that is how she represented her womanhood. If that’s what it means to turn into a woman, I have no place in that,” Anna said as she told me about her love for tools and building furniture, which didn’t make her any less of a woman. Caitlyn is a reflection of Bruce’s view of womanhood, and honestly, I wasn’t okay with portraying womanhood in a corset and underwear, nipped and tucked, primped to perfection and photoshopped… all of this done so that a woman could be true to herself. It’s all so very confusing, which isn’t a judgment call, just a fact.. confusing. And honestly, heart breaking. Even as a female, I looked at the former Bruce Jenner and thought to myself, “I’ll never be able to be a woman, I just don’t have the body for it.” And I cried.

My beef is not with Caitlyn or Bruce or the liberals or the Christians, my beef is with myself and the role I have played in believing the lie that being a woman is about having big boobs and a small waist, posing in my underwear, wearing high heels and red lipstick. My beef is mostly with the media, but also with myself for the ways in which I have treated myself and own body because of what I believed it meant to be a woman. My beef is with myself for thinking changing my body is going to change the condition of my heart. It’s not. I can’t get rid of me, so how do I learn to love me without having to change everything about myself in order to love myself? Perhaps this is why I would want to talk to Caitlyn, I want to ask her why she did it. Did she not love herself? Did she not love her body? And if she didn’t love her body, did changing it fix what she thought it would? And does she think “change your outsides to match your insides” is a good message? Was she given room in a safe place to talk about how she felt inside before thinking she had to change the outside? What would she say to a girl with an eating disorder who hated her body? Why is body mutilation okay if you are transgender but not if you are solely male or solely female? Again, not judgements, just questions, because I’m curious, and yes, I’m upset, but I also want to understand. Attempting to understand Caitlyn, or anyone transgender, would seem to be the most loving response possible, much more loving than disregarding them, right?

I want to understand, like my friend Anna said, “why as a Christian is it not okay to stand up for the sacredness of your body?” And I don’t even think you have to be Christian to consider your body an epic vessel. Our bodies are miracles, but rarely do we treat them as such, we usually find what is wrong with them and adjust accordingly. Which is perhaps what furthered my tears… I get why celebrating the emancipation of Caitlyn is a big deal, but I think it’s also a big deal that Bruce had to be killed off in order for Caitlyn to be set free. If every body matters, then Bruce mattered/matters too. Why was Bruce not okay with himself? In the process of all of this, wasn’t Bruce hating himself? Why do people seem okay with that? Why does it seem like people are quick to either praise another objectification of women or condemn a man for not being himself, but no one is really taking the time to make note of that fact that in that person on the cover of that magazine is a very hurt person trying desperately hard to fix something that a gold medal couldn’t fix and neither will the nip and tuck of a sex change. Becoming Caitlyn won’t fix Bruce’s brokenness anymore than getting a boob job will fix mine. I might feel better for a few days, maybe even take a selfie just to finally give my ex something to look at, but when the hype wears off and I’m left with myself, there I still am. And I feel crazy, I feel crazy because I feel alone in how I feel. I feel like I’m just supposed to accept things so as not to offend anyone. I feel like I’m not allowed to ask questions or express my opinion, unless my opinion agrees with the masses. And for as brave as she may be, I think Caitlyn is still confused as to what it means to be a woman. A woman doesn’t need to reveal her body to be a woman.

And while I’m sure it must have been hard for Caitlyn to feel like she was living a lie her whole live, I can’t imagine it not feeling at least a little hurtful for those closest to her to realize they’d been lied to their whole lives, even if not intentionally. The family seems to be responding very politically correct, and while I’m sure they do love Caitlyn and support her, it would also be okay for them to be hurt too, to be sad. To grieve the loss of Bruce wouldn’t make them unsupportive or unloving of Caitlyn, to grieve the loss of Bruce would make them human. Whether or not anyone wants to say it, the Jenner kids lost their dad. If in fact Caitlyn is solely a woman by association, she is not a father (by gender definition), and it would be okay if any of those kids were sad about losing their dad. And the same goes for Kris Jenner, Bruce’s ex-wife. I hope Kris knows it is okay for her to be sad and confused and angry, just as any wife would be if they found out their husband had been lying to them their whole marriage. Kris’s sadness or confusion or anger wouldn’t make her a bigot, it would make her a human who’s been hurt by another human. I hope for the sake of her own healing, Kris is grieving the loss of Bruce. Bruce is worth grieving. We all are, because we’re all miracles whether we see it or not. Mostly, we don’t.

I don’t have any answers or solutions or advice. Mostly I just have questions. Maybe that is my advice, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Instead of jumping on one side or the other because it’s easy, start asking the really hard questions. Don’t be afraid to wait for the answers. Don’t be afraid of the silence or the awkward tension you might feel when you start asking tough questions. You’ll start to notice that people aren’t comfortable when you ask why and I think it’s because we’ve always settled for “because I said so.” Don’t settle for that anymore.

I know that we are all called to love people, but realistically, what does that look like? It’s cute to say, but what does that mean? Defending Caitlyn Jenner’s womanhood on Facebook while failing to acknowledge a homeless person’s personhood that you won’t make eye contact with doesn’t mean you love people. And likewise, feeding the homeless while condemning the transgender community as if it were your place to do so doesn’t mean you love people either. I don’t think any of us are good at loving all people, and I think that’s okay, we’re human. But our humanness doesn’t excuse us from trying to love them, or at least doing well by them even when we don’t understand them. Perhaps we could do well by people by trying to understand them and learning to love them when it doesn’t come easy.

Sometimes simply stepping outside of all the arguing is what is needed. When Christians say we need to love Caitlyn, I agree, but what does that look like practically since we don’t get to interact with her? I think it looks like interacting with and learning to love who she represents… not just the transgender community, but people in general. People represent the wide gamut of people in this world, and Caitlyn is a person. People of all shapes, all sizes, all backgrounds, all preferences, all religions… you can love Caitlyn by trying to understand someone you might not understand. Instead of trying to argue someone for the sake of being right, ask them questions. You might not only learn things about them, but about yourself, things that might make you uncomfortable, things you wish you had avoided asking because sometimes the truth hurts.

When I saw Caitlyn Jenner’s body it revealed the ugly truth that even after years of therapy and treatment and working with younger girls and teaching them to love themselves, I still hate my own body. Hating the transgender community won’t make me love my body more, and neither will hating women who have better bodies than me. I think when people hate people it is often because they hate something in themselves. It would be easy for me to say something is wrong with Caitlyn, but something is wrong with all of us. We all need to be saved, not from the devil, he’s already been defeated, but from our own selves. Jesus gets a really bad rap, but He offers to do just that, to save us from our own selves, but you have to find out for yourself and not believe me just because I said so. Start asking questions about who He is and why He did what He did. Don’t be afraid to sit in the silence or the awkward tension of feeling human and hearing from the Divine. If you asked Jesus what He thinks of Caitlyn, I bet He’d say He’s quite fond of her, just as He is of you… and me. I still find that hard to believe, that Jesus is fond of me.

For as silly as it sounds, I think this world could be a lot different if we all just started small by being nice to the people around us, including the person we see when we look in the mirror. That person matters, that body matters. Getting rid of that body won’t fix that person. Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, not instead of yourself, and so loving your neighbor has to start with loving yourself. I know what it’s like to not feel at peace in your own body, and I know that changing your body will not bring you peace within. I honestly believe that having a sex change will not bring peace, but having a heart change will, which is not a judgement call, it is the opinion of girl who tried to find peace by manipulating her own body only to come up short and unhappy and not at all considered brave. I might not understand being transgender, but I understand feeling trapped in a body you don’t like or feel like represents you, and yes, it’s miserable. I know what it’s like to be considered a woman but not really feel like a woman, mostly because I don’t look the way I’ve been shown I should look as a woman.

I wear overalls and can barely fill an A-cup. I don’t wear lip stick or shoes most of the time and I think Downtown Abby sucks (sorry, not sorry). I hate shopping and I am banking on there being one man left standing who is more into personality and the size of a girl’s heart than the size of her bra. And even if there isn’t one man left standing who’d be into a funny, small-chested, spit-fire and still-slightly-depressed-but-hopeful-enough-to-have-a-Savior type of girl like me, that’s okay.

I don’t need to be the object of a man’s desire, or the object of society’s desire to be a woman, I need to be me, the me who I was created to be, creative and curious, always looking for beauty in the brokenness.

I realize this post is all over the place and my thoughts are scattered, I wish it were more organized, and I wish my emotions were too, it’s awkward to feel upset and to care at the same time, but such is life, and the honest reaction of a confused girl who’s still trying to learn how to love herself and the people around her.

I’m going to allow myself the freedom to be confused, because you can be confused and nice at the same time. Caitlyn, I wish you the best and I hope you find a peace that passes all understanding, even your understanding of what it means to be a woman.

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).

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.