Natalie.

We were roomies. Now we're neighbors. And for the last few years, we've both gotten to share some significant life stages with each other. I love this woman, and we thought that her soon-coming graduation made for a good excuse to go to take some pictures (and to hang out!).

She exudes a life of love and has a smile to die for, and i'm certain those are evident in the pictures you're about to see:

Good Things Come in Small Packages.

Things that are small/petite: coffee cups, Cuban pastries,and sweet Jenny.:)

Coffee and chats with friends never gets old. It will always be high up on my list of favorites. Coffee with Jenny was no exception.

I had the opportunity to go to Uganda with this lovely young lady two Decembers ago, and I've loved getting to spend time with her here and there ever since. We were long overdue for a catch up sesh, so on  this lovely occasion, Jenny graced me with not just her presence but also some lovely Cuban pastries as well as a few stories to share.

She's vibrant, loving, talented, compassionate, intelligent, and is a beautiful vessel for His love. It was such a joy being in a conversation with someone who is very much in progress (and excited to be in progress). I pray that you continue to discover greater levels of freedom and love in the life He's set before you. The nursing world is lucky that they're going to have a woman like you, Jenny.

Lovely webs.

I got up this morning--cheery and bright. The airy, somewhat fog-infused light of morning was dancing through the blinds, and I found myself ready for today. 6:30 AM. A little unheard of for me? A bit. I don't mind being up that early, but I don't know if i'd use the word cheery to describe my innermost feelings.

Whatever the case may be, the cheer and delight continued throughout my day: there was a consistent feeling of peace, of steady-pacedness (yes, it's made up), and the sense of being in a relaxed but intentional dance. It felt very natural to rest, to breathe, and to enjoy being present. A very common thread for all of the days activities and encounters could be summed up in one word: connectedness.

This word is loaded, and I experienced multiple of its facets today. Where I found it most was in the lovely webs that I have found and continue to find myself in--the web of individuals and community. The webs that He's so carefully weaves as He continues to leave me dumbfounded.

I visited my old occupational stomping grounds today at the Learning Assistance Center at CSULB. It feels like home there; I loved/love the people I worked with, and the environment is one of encouragement and warmth. There's a project I have coming up for one of my classes and it required some information from second language learners. What better place to go, right?

Even before I got inside, I caught the eye of one of my old bosses and flashed the biggest smile ever. Immediately, I was flooded with hugs and "How are you's" and was incredibly blessed by the love. My former boss, Erik, then proceeded to clear his desk as he offered it to me while I worked on some of my research. Every five minutes or so, an old co-worker would come by and say hi. In some special instances, we'd catch up on life. Each story was like a hug to my heart, and each interaction reminded me of what amazing relationships i've been given in the last few years of my life. I hadn't seen any of these friends since graduating in June, but the joy in reuniting was incredibly sweet.

Opportunities came up for me to share of God's faithfulness in how he trained me at the LAC, through very specific people and situations for what I was going to experience in grad school/life.  I realized that He has shown me great favor in my relationships with others--bosses, co-workers, friends, those I tutored, etc... This is completely His doing, and it is altogether humbling. It's  undeserved, and I know that it is out of His love and mercy that He's allowing me to go through life seeing this gift from Him so clearly. I left the LAC with more research than I came with, a heart full of love and with a refreshed spirit.

(Sidenote: As I'm writing this, my Melatonin is kicking in big time; what you read in this post may be interesting =p)

Becks picked me up, and we closed the night with some more connectedness: to each other, to our home, to my schooling, to God, etc...

This post doesn't do what I experienced of connectedness justice; it's but a mere glimpse of His always masterful orchestration of our lives.

I'll leave you with these (pictures from 1st dinner w/ Becks back as a roomie!):

Goodnight!

A Jaunt Down Memory Lane

Gosh, let's see. We've been through various haircuts, hair colors, relationships: giddiness/ heartaches/ learning experiences, encounters with strange people that have made for good stories, tears, countless cups of coffee, confrontation, kitchen-counter conversations, clothes-borrowing, strange-habit experiencing, prayer, laughter, meals, jokes only roommates can be open with, and memories that will continue to pop up and surprise us for the rest of our lives (and we'll remember them at the strangest, most wonderful times :D). The most humbling part of roomie-hood for me is experiencing growth with each other. Each of my roommates has been nothing short of a gift--teaching me more of myself, more of them, more of God, ultimately more of what it means to be in community as His Body. Girls (women, really) , you have refined me, and I'm so grateful that you are a part of the genius orchestration of His that allowed/allows us to live life with each other. 

Here's but a glimpse of what sharing living spaces/life has looked like in the past year plus some:

The pictures will do most of the talking; I'll just be the provider of needed context.

August 2008 (First Roomie Picture-Train trip to LA)

December 2008: Kelly @ the Dresden

December 2009: Walk in Long Beach

(Amber, we already know what you're thinking!!!)

December 2008: DT Long Beach Roomie Day

New Year's 2009:Orange, CA

Wes' Birthday

January 2009: Bike Riding Downtown Long Beach

(quite literally picking me up while I was down)

March 2009: My birthday

(An attempt at a totem pole--sort of successful)

July 2009: Ray LaMontagne in LA

October 2009: Amber's Birthday

November 2009: Roomie Dinner

I can't believe how time flies. Those were only some of the pictures we've taken over the time we've known each other. There will be more taken :). Thanks for marking a really special season of my life, girls. It seriously would have been utterly different without the specific combination of both of you. I'm proud and blessed to know women of your caliber. You are full of love and grace, and your hearts are bigger than what you know to do with. I'm not trying to toot your horns, I'm just sayin' it like it is. 

Transitions are bittersweet, but they are exciting. I look forward to seeing what this next season holds for us. 

It's a long one, but it's been a long time in coming.

I had been carrying a backpack of bricks around for a year. You'd think I would know by the strains, the tiredness, and this unyielding sense of, "Seriously? C'mon...this has gotta end..." that I would have figured out I was carrying some kind of superfluous weight on my back.

Call it maternal, call it the "developer," the carer, or the controller in me. It's a mixed bag of all of those things. There is much room for those things to be sifted out with hopes of removing more of the control while strengthening the other traits.

I know that I didn't need to wear the backpack this long to learn what I learned, but God gently helped me carry that as he knew the scales would fall off of my eyes. Impeccable. That's what His timing is. Much came to my attention yesterday and the past few weeks that solidified some revelation that had been given, and more revelation was given that finally released me of the weight of the backpack--it just slipped off of my proverbial shoulders.

I wasn't able to go to every session of The Torrey Conference (an event that takes place every year at Biola University), but I was able to go to the closing session. I appreciated the fact that there was a recap of the overarching themes/messages of the week :

* Trust the process of suffering & move into it.

(rehearsing the whole of your faith/Psalm 60/77)

*Trust God for treasures in darkness.

*Trust the power of incarnational love. 

*Trust the bigger pictures.

*Trust His care for us.

All that I've shared is the bare minimum backdrop to a very complex, multi-layered, bittersweet friendship of mine. I don't know how you deal with things, but I have an incredibly hard time watching and being present with friends who I know are walking straight into a hole--a hole of heartache, a hole of destructive behavior, of whatever--you name it! Whatever the case, there's much self-inflicted pain; all of which, in my mind's eye are events that are completely avoidable. I want to love, but I don't want to condone certain things. I want to be there for, but I don't know If I can hold the hand of someone who is hurting themselves. I wanted to love her, but in trying on my own, I more so realized that I wanted to fix her.

There is the problem. "I" want to love, "I" don't want to condone, "I" want to be there, "I" don't know if... "I, I, I!" All of the I's in my thought process slanted my heart towards what I thought as wise (doesn't even matter whether or not I was right). My heart was bent, and trusting God became even more difficult--the focus was off of Jesus and placed onto myself. Wisdom is crap without a deep rooted trust in Love.

Well, there in the raw, has been one of the biggest struggles in my life in this past year. I wanted so badly for a friend to be well that a posture of love quickly turned into a posture of control masked as   love. Trusting God with that friendship was lip service. Well, no--more like a tug-of-war between trust and myself; there was much back and forth with me foolishly thinking that I was actually winning at certain points.


Let me revert you back to these previous statements: I want to love, but I don't want to condone certain things. I want to be there for, but I don't know If I can hold the hand of someone who is hurting themselves. Like a ton of bricks, it came down on me one day; God loves me when I'm a complete idiot, and He also is present with me when I am self-destructive. In God's love, He shows His wisdom. He's doesn't love me if, He loves me even if. 

In places where I know nothing else but to be with someone, I was reminded that I need to trust in the incarnate love of Jesus. Just be, and He's got the rest. I am helpless, but He isn't.  

While I was hanging out with some friends, a friend shared a vision God gave him for me. He saw me writing with an ink pen in this journal with a huge smile on my face, splattering ink everywhere, but loving every moment. Things shifted, I was still writing, but now I was writing frantically and there were no words showing up. I started writing my own story.

I'm writing your story. Let me show you how amazing your story is going to be because it's a part of My story.

So, I don't know if it's appropriate to call it this, but there was a sequel to that vision. He also saw me trying to hold someone else's pen as I attempted to write her story (mind you, this is what the Spirit's telling him; this friend wasn't completely unaware of the situation with my friend). This is when the backpack just seemed to fall off of my shoulders, and as I just cried, the tears seemed to cleanse my soul. The very thing that "did it" though was the verbal declaration of, "God, I give my sister to you." The verbal act happened in community, and that's what I had needed all this time. I don't know how many times I had said that in my head or in my heart, and it still wasn't enough to bring that darkness into light. There was a release of that to the Lord in the Body. Healing!


God is with us. Emmanuel. El Emet. God of Truth. Thank You for being with us and being Light for us and in us. I don't know and will never know how it is that You love us so much.