Laughter Chasing Fear

Im not perfect in the slightest. In fact, if were going to be honest I choose to make the wrong choices a lot. There are a lot of things that in all sincere reality I know are not good for me and I make choices to move towards them. I wrap myself in fear and insecurity. I seek after and strive for this perfection and a benchmark of a job well done or one that will be enough to be called good, or even great. I give reign to a thought life that controls me at every turn, consumes me to the point of starting to forget who I really am. I do think there is this idea of a Christian as someone who has it all together and is inching close to perfection, that they don't really do wrong and if we do then because God loves us then that makes it all okay. Well, that isn't true. It isn't okay. And I am a Christian who doesn't have it all together. I went to a conference and expected to hear all of these amazing things that inspire my heart to faith and goodness, which I di...

When I looked out at the coming semester, with so many assignments and pages to read, busy days and an array of deadlines, amidst new tasks and challenges I had never encountered before, I only felt two things…fear and anxiety.  Nothing felt possible in those moments. I was overwhelmed with a flood of buts and what ifs and realizations that I was not in any way equipped to handle. I stood in the middle of my apartment without an idea how to move forward. As I looked out I began to understand that I truly didn't trust God with everything, and even more so, the struggle to trust Him in many areas of my life became all too real in these gripping seconds… Pretty much all that came were tears. Not the dainty, streaming kind but a rush of these small reminders that I could not get the fear and anxiety to go away. Sure I stopped and literally cried out to God with all that I had and did my best to surrender everything, but what I thought I laid down kept coming back. The more I hav...

I have never really been one for New Year's resolutions. Maybe because the start of the new year did not seem like the best time to be making these heart felt promises swimming with desires to be better. I would much rather make them in my everyday life without a special holiday to commemorate the attempt. That is always what it felt like to me, a mere attempt. As a Christian, I am always told to strive for more and to live a better life because thats what I am called to do. Sometimes that presents a big problem, especially for me, it becomes a list and a striving that never seems to be satisfied. Then there is a constant image that follows you into every mirror and through every set of eyes, the idea that you have to have it altogether and if you mess up, you and this attempt to better yourself becomes an utter failure. Being at seminary surrounded by these thousands of people who all love and follow the same God I do has been the biggest mirror I have looked into. Daily I am ...

Coming to grad school this fall, I never expected how it would go. Being back on a campus really brought one very true thing to my view… There are A LOT of sidewalks here. Anytime I go somewhere, if there is a sidewalk, you can bet some serious cash that I am going to use it. If I don't, my mind always flashes to the scene in Princess Diaries when she walks on the grass and suddenly a host of many languages scream at her to GET OFF!! Thats what always plays in my head. So sidewalks… I like them. Whats the big deal? They were designed for walking, why can't I use them? I came to realize that its a whole heck of a lot more than sidewalks that I like… This new life transition hasn't been a lot of what I expected. New school, new friends, new job, living alone for the first time since ever, and even though the town isn't new, a whole lot has changed… Ahh theres that dirty word, (change). Throughout my life I have not always been too fond of that word, and for many ...

When life hands me transition, change, and anything that hurts… you can bet for sure I am going to want some kind of escape. And if I cannot find that, then I want the process, the ins and outs which must only happen if the other side is to be reached, to be as pleasant and wonderful as possible. But there is quite a profound problem with that logic: Life doesn't always work that way. A few mornings ago, I decided to again make my claim of faith and tell God I trusted him. Life currently looks like a lot of ????? and many of the ones I love are hurting. So instead of filling my prayer to my Father with all of these words asking for an easier path, obviously less filled with pain and difficulty, I simply said I will trust YOU. Well… almost as soon as I was finished and my feet to the floor to embrace the day, one line from a Reliant K song called "Let It All Out" flooded into my head: "And you said I know that this will hurt, but if I don't break your heart tha...

Most of the time, my life is one hot mess… And so when I make any kind of big, solid decision its a bigger deal than I care to admit (remember, still a hot mess over here) About a month ago I decided to take a leap, and go visit a seminary that is in Kentucky. It isn't a hop, skip, and a jump away, so a plan had to be made. As all of the details were coming together, I began to be hopeful, that maybe after that weekend more of life would be figured out and I would get a glimpse of God's plan being worked out. But, life is messy and as the weekend approached, life happened and the trip came to a halt. It could have been half thrown together and happened, but I had to make a hard decision, to let go of my need for answers and control, and release it to God. Well…. the hot mess came to surface in a whole new way. Nothing about me had it together that night. What was simply plans changing, turned into a deep struggle with an insecure future and a heart that needs (wants) to h...

Love has always been one of my greatest passions. Love has always been one of my greatest struggles. Yesterday was such a great day. I am not the biggest fan of the heat, but recently, any opportunity to take my hammock outside and just enjoy the weather has been so good. Yesterday, I had that opportunity and decided it would go nicely with Jesus and some coffee. When I sat down and started reading a message from a friend serving in Africa, she mentioned a song called Through and Through by Will Reagan, and it blew me away. The words were a cry at the heart of how God sees every fiber of who we are, and still loves us the same. I listened and it got my mind spinning for the evening. I later went to my friends apartment to watch a movie and I wasn't expecting what happened. Conversation went on and a slight comment was made, about confidentiality. No one picked up on it, but I did. It wasn't anything apparently huge, but it hit my heart like a ton of bricks. It remained in ...