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Sean, his dad, and the boys loaded a truck yesterday, and I headed west. This morning, after a marathon signing session, we unloaded and begin the adventure in Wichita. The babbling brook in our front yard houses a fish the boys have named Cheeto. Flowers are blooming. There’s comfy places to sit inside and out. Life hasn’t fully transitioned yet, but today was a good start. Now we are exhausted. Finishing a project and enjoying the amenities of the home we will come to know and love in the months and years ahead. Then it’s off to bed… for tomorrow, real life beckons again.

Thanks so much to Annette and Everett for housing me last night and showing up to help today. Without your faithful friendship my life would be very different.

Two years ago we crossed from winter to spring in a frenzy. Preparing to move from Texas to Missouri, we were scattered and it felt like we were hurrying from one moment to the next. Sean and the boys were finishing school, I was completing my undergrad. Life was pretty full.

I love you, friends!

 COVID hit our house this week. Sean is on the mend, for which I am so thankful. Ean has tested negative, but hasn’t felt the best. He and I will both be testing before the weekend is out to find out where it has spread since I’m now symptomatic, as well.

I don’t miss the days spent hiding from this. I don’t like remembering what the pneumonia felt like and being afraid it will come again this time. I hate COVID as much as I ever have.

But I’m so thankful for all of the things that were learned throughout the pandemic. Crossing barriers, borders, miles, I got to sit in and listen to my amazing Momma present to a group of health and ministry professionals about trauma and trauma informed care in both settings tonight.

I am beyond blessed to have been raised by Beverly Smith Bateman. It’s the primary way I have become who I am. (Like me or not, you have her to thank for a lot of it.) We dive into discomfort together, and I am so thankful to see a long history of growth behind and to be looking forward to much more as we kept learning and leaning in.

I got to meet up with a new old friend recently. We sat and chatted for over an hour. We laughed and dreamed and hoped against hope. It was a desperately needed connection.

I love you, friends.

I have been wrestling this year (and several before it, really) with finding anchors for hope in a world, a life, a reality in which it feels illogical and unwise to continue hoping. Much of the journey of healing and unbecoming who I had to be just to survive has been freeing and has released tensions in my life. But the difficulty of holding onto hope as the bondage releases seems to have only increased. 

As Advent brings it to focus, I see more clearly that the untethering from beliefs that are twisted to fit an earthly narrative is a necessary process. However, it is incomplete without intentionally reconnecting who I am finding myself to be deep within, who I was created to be, to the greater truths that have always existed. 

In an attempt to dive headlong into the longstanding tradition of Advent this year, I woke this morning and began with some reading instead of moving straight into emails and life. The two things I am planning to follow are “Honest Advent” by Scott Erickson and Ben Cremer’s “Arrival.” Just in a day’s worth of this process, these two authors have very much brought a new, and revealing, perspective to the season. 

Arrival finally has shed some light on the diminishment of hope in a practically visible way and has reminded me of the truth that I pass on to others but have not done well to be intentional about in my own life. Ben writes, 

“The hope candle was always the first to be lit during Advent and therefore was the shortest candle by the end of Advent. I always found it to be such a powerful metaphor of our hope. How so often in life, hope is what burns the longest. How so often, it feels like we are burned down to the end of our hope, where we barely have any hope left at all. Yet there is still a flicker of light to be seen.” 

This speaks to the heart of what I’ve been feeling as life and ties are melting away. Whether through active choices or just the passive passing of time, hope that there is something better coming seems in shorter supply. I often remind others to look to the stars on a dark night and remember that hope can be found like those pinpoints of light… but I have forgotten to be as intentional in my own recognition of it. 

Scott’s writing about hope similarly reminded me of what I know while challenging me forward. 

“Our invitation to Advent starts here, now—and thank God, because being here now feels really complicated. And hard. And sad at times. With a lot of loss. Right? It hasn’t been that long since we all lost a normal way of life.  

Some of us are still recovering what we lost. But what gives me hope in this Advent season is the reminder that everything can be taken away except that hidden part of me. Whether I lose my savings, my house, my title, or my very livelihood, what is un-takeable is the part of me that Jesus illuminates.”

Even as the melting has continued in the last week, as relationships, traditions, and connections have shifted and faded… as the hard, sad reality has become clearer, the truth that the flame burns just as bright remains. The fire that burns deep within will not consume who I am. Rather, it is continually revealing what is really me being me and what has been me doing what I was told. 

It is less wax and more light… which may seem like a scary thing, but I think it may not be. Because the world needs more light and warmth, not another doer elevated so far above the crowd that the flickering hope light isn’t even visible. 

Reading these two authors took me back to my childhood. In a tradition that largely disallowed magic out of fear, we read and reread C.S. Lewis. I still am not clear why this was allowable, but I am so thankful it was. Over and over, there were new things to be discovered in the stretching of my young mind that Lewis’ writings allowed. And as I read and considered today, a quote from one of those books came to mind. 

“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I learned tradition. I learned scripture. I learned reason. I learned experience. These were the “Deep Magic” that was acceptable. They were palatable. 

The journey beyond what I learned, beyond what was handed down is in the revealing of myself and the knowing of truth that was before time and will continue after time. It is in the knowing that the table was broken, and now, even when hope seems very low… the flame burns just as brightly, casting its light on the deeper work that is happening, and creating a beacon that was never meant to remain elevated above humanity. 

Hope is accessible. Hope comes down to meet us where we are. Hope is visible. Hope is here. 

Happy advent, friends. I pray that you can see hope today… no matter how dark it may be around you, know you are loved. Know you are not alone.

May you rest in the peace that the darkness can never extinguish the light that has been given you. – S. Erickson

I love you. 

💜💜💜

I didn’t expect this week to be what it has been. Honestly, I’m not even sure how to describe it if you asked… but I feel like today should be Friday because I need a day to recover from the last three days.

Unfortunately, that’s not reality. 

I woke up early this morning. The change in season and lingering darkness in the morning has made it increasingly difficult to rouse, and at 6 a.m., my brain thought it was still the middle of the night. I had a headache (that has still not let up as of the writing of this), and I was not looking forward to any of what was to come. After too many days of heaviness, I just wanted to wake up feeling rested.

 It was not to be. But today started anyway. 

Work… Life… Past… Future… It has all converged today. The clarity with which things are visible is striking, but it is a lot to hold.

It is now 5pm on this Wednesday at the end of September. And as quietly as the completion of my course of study for ordination snuck up on me a few weeks ago, tonight I rest differently, having just submitted the last paper for my final traditional class in my masters program. 

Tomorrow, I’ll begin the capstone project to complete this part of my education. 

For tonight, I’m claiming the reality that life moves on. I’m learning and growing. Just as there were when I was younger, there are pains associated with that process. I survived them then, and I will do the same now. I’ll breathe through them, cry through them, laugh through them, scream through them… 

Above all, though, I’ll love through them. Through the growing pains, I’ll love with hugs and with boundaries, each in their own time. It worked yesterday, it worked today, it will work tomorrow. 

Love will always work. 
And the holy calling to live it out loud is not a simple one… but it works.

Do at least one thing for you tonight. Show yourself that you are loved. Because you are.
I love you all, and I am absolutely exhausted. Both are true. 

I’ve been watching the changing of seasons closely this year. So much so that I think I noticed the very first day there was a red leaf on the tree in our backyard. Since that day, they have been increasing in number and decreasing in altitude as they fall to the ground below. The tree is still mostly green. If I hadn’t felt the crispness in the air, I might believe it was just a fluke. But the season is definitely changing, a fact that is supported by the looming autumnal equinox.

I love you!

I didn’t want to write the paper. 

I don’t want to spend time proving that I have learned to parrot the harmful rhetoric that I am working so hard to undo in my own mind and to overcome in the path forward… and being graded on how well I can do it. The frustration caused by submitting to a problematic process which has repeatedly done damage in my life has brought up some significant anxiety this past week. It made me feel unsafe in current relationships that have proven to be relatively stable. And it brought up old tapes that have been effectively silenced for some time now.

I didn’t want to write the paper. 

It gets exhausting presenting chunks of myself to people who only want me to reflect themselves back to them. My writing means something to me and I hate intentionally setting it in front of people who could not possibly want to read anything less than what I have to say. 

I didn’t want to write the paper. 

Because I keep being told to quote more, or don’t quote at all. To meet a word count, but don’t go beyond it. That the word count is a minimum and I shouldn’t consider my work done unless I’ve clearly surpassed it. 

I didn’t want to write the paper. 

By Sunday morning, I didn’t even want to go to church in order to avoid the potential that I would see church people… which makes me sad because I am finally learning to consistently look beyond my own pain but this week it was blinding me. 

This morning I’m headed back into the “real” world. I’ve been graded and found wanting by the church. I’m not what they want me to be. I still don’t fit in…

And today, I’m working on being thankful for that. Because I do get honest feedback and can make changes from people who know me and care about my well-being. I am held accountable to growth and health beyond compliance. I can live into what I am called to do. 

Community can be safe.

I will be healthy. 

Sometimes, it may be difficult to keep choosing that… but I can do this. 

It’s the Mondayest Tuesday today. I’m starting out tired. Grief from many sides sits heavily. The weekend can’t get here soon enough. 

I’m working on rest this week. I need to sleep. Choose something to do to take care of you today. You’re worth it. 

I love you all! 

💜💜💜

Here’s a glimpse of my week. It started out feeling as fragile as the bubbles that floated into the sky on
the first morning of school. But the more I leaned into the work of continuing my healing journey (in therapy at the building that doesn’t terrify me anymore), lived out the calling to preach the gospel wherever possible (sometimes with words, like in the classroom where this print hung), and shared the process that’s empowered me to find the balance between leaning in and living out… the more I sink into bed exhausted and yet full of hope for what is coming.

I love you, friends.