fresh snow, fresh starts.

Friends. Hello. It's been roughly a year and a half. And after spending the past 3 months debating on whether to continue with this blog or start anew, here I am on good ol' efforts to love anyways. 

I had thoughts of dedicating an entirely new and wonderful blog to my "new" life- a master's student, married, a pastor's wife. But as I glanced at this little guy, I realized that though a year and a half has gone and I have gone through some changes, my main goal is still the same. I looked at the title, efforts to love anyways, and thought, "yep." That's still me. Sentiments of a girl walking with her father- "Mmmm. That's lovely. I need to do that more." So though I do not want to understate the fact that I am now in graduate school, married, and currently living in a snow globe- I'm going to have to. Just for now. I've got other things that need processing.

Holy smokes. 

 First thing on the radar? Are you ready? This is truly unique. I'm trying to process the snow. Like everyone else in Seattle. We get 1 and 1/2 inches and we're all leaving work early and wondering if school will be cancelled. In public I play it cool. Living in a mountain town now I especially try to play my cards right. "Oh is it snowing? Huh," I say nonchalantly at the church. Little do these innocent church members know, I spent the majority of Saturday night checking the weather channel app and opening up the front door to check outside. Our little home is so small that every time I opened the front door the heater kicked on. Eventually my dear husband explained to me the whole "can't watch a pot boil" thing and told me to take a break from playing weather girl. I didn't. 

Why the panic? Why the joy? Why the lack of snow plows in Seattle? I have come up with an answer: Grace. We all need it, yearn for it even if we don't always recognize the need as such. I pulled over on the side of the road today and found this: 

Grace. 

Isn't it beautiful? Pure, white, lovely grace. This river looks different with every season and I can't help but grieve when it's not as its best. When I see cans of Red Bull and cigarettes and an old t-shirt lining its edges. And then this snow comes, an entity we can't control and its just all covered up. I know it is still there and will need to be dealt with. But what a nice break for the river. To be beautiful again, just as it was created with no rough edges and no flaws. My favorite thing about snow? When it dumps. It dumps right on you and breaks your original plans and stops everything and evens the playing field. And grace dumps. It dumps right on us and should startle us into making changes and living in the light and  seeing things as they were meant to be. Seeing ourselves as hopeful, beautiful, covered beings. Covered by His love and fresh starts. 

nostalgia

My sweet Nostalgia,

I've been wanting to write to you for awhile now, but haven't been able to find the time I need to find the words I want. You have been such a rich part of my life- how do I thank you for bringing me joy simply by being a memory? How to thank you for bringing me comfort just by being a specific scent? How to express my gratitude for the way you remind me of my sweet friends just by being the right song at the right time?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpguzlHIvTQ&feature=related . The way a certain type of sunlight and scent in the air outside can transport me to my very own sanctuary is a gift that I can receive from none other than you; a place where I can be safe, loved, and comforted without every leaving my present circumstance. I have heard some people say recently that I should let go of you. That you hold me back. That you keep me from progressing towards future goals. But if I were to reach these achievements in life and didn't have you around, I can't help but think I would be lonely. I would be in a place of success, knowing who I am, but never looking back to who I was or who I once wanted to be.

I'll admit sometimes you are a burden. When I pause to think about whatever you're reminding me of , sometimes I do pause too long. I want that very moment back so badly, I spend my time and energy grieving the finished memory rather than creating a new one. Sometimes one of your songs or smells make me miss something, someone, or some time so much that it literally aches. I would pay money to be back at that dinner table with those friends, sitting on that log by that campfire with my God, worshiping at the Inn with those sweet roommates. And yet, you never give it back to me. I pause and beg of you to return those moments to me, and yet they just stay memories. Memories that started out bringing me warmth and comfort, but leave me lonely and sometimes without as much hope. It's at these times that I think maybe they're right. Maybe I should leave you in the past. Ignore the way the sun looks in the evening of a perfect fall day, disregard the smell of the campfire as I drive down a wooded road, pretend that there are no Late Tuesday songs that have ever been given to me by a friend who couldn't find the words herself and so gave lyrics instead. Completely skip over those notes and pictures I carry in my Bible that remind me of the sweet souls placed in my life.. ...

But, Nostalgia, despite all of your downfalls, I want you to know that you're worth keeping around. You remind me that God is very much in my past- living and redeeming His way through my muck and past regrets, and turning what should be dark and painful memories into ones that bring me light and hope. Of course I don't like the way you make me want to go back in the past. But I love the way you remind me of the beautiful life God has given me. You make the ugly of past years something worth remembering. Dark times in my life that were so painful, I wanted them completely erased from memory, you somehow make encouraging. You are an every day reminder that God is writing His own story and I am just one of the characters. A girl who is loud, stubborn, and very, very well loved.

I hope you're in- it- to- win- it Nostalgia. I plan on being your friend for a very long time. There are large gaps in our lives that come between past sacred moments and future anticipated ones. It will be in these gaps that I'll put in a certain CD, re-read a specific card, and breathe in deep thinking to myself that as messy and complex and winding my road has been, the sweet moments that make it worth wandering will not be forgotten.

love

court

bus stops

I had something all started and ready to be elaborated on from last night. Thoughts about my past week and how if I had a camera crew following me around from the 13th of August until the morning of the 23rd, I'm confident I would be retiring early. I had written out four different segments about four different chunks of my life. Work, faith, friendships, and boys. All which have brought me to a very real and clear limit in the last 10 days. In these short stories, I had included some particularly sweet nuggets such as my physics final and the bird that somehow defied physics entirely and managed to poop inside my car after it, being a bridesmaid in my 6th and 7th weddings respectfully, and bringing a grown man close to tears while he watched mine fall on 62nd street in West Seattle. And this is definitely the short list of happenings I had originally written out. I have had ideas brewing for a week about how I would go about writing each circumstance and what themes were being woven between all of them and about sitting in the absurdity that my life has seemed recently. The seedlings of these stories were comedic, genuine, and very honestly simply my life.

But this morning I had a change of heart.

I took 3 pages of thoughts and deleted them with one foul ctrl A, delete swoop.

Though my end goal would have certainly been to glorify God, and I think I would have wandered my way to that point eventually, I decided to skip straight to the glorifying part this time around.

I had a rough week. Who hasn't? I felt lonely at times? Who doesn't? I haven't been so overwhelmed with so many complicated situations in a very long time; I am certain that being 26, much more difficult situations await me. And so do more decisions and choices and overwhelming things. But there is still that ONE choice that is always there waiting to be made every morning, every night and virtually every moment in between. It is the most simply difficult decision I've ever made or will make. It's been so present in my life this past year, I think I'm finally catching on to something. To choose His peace. To choose His joy. To choose to rest in His plan for me. And spewing and vomiting all my past week's mishaps would be comical, sarcastic, personable and in this particular case, absolutely unnecessary.

I am living a wonderfully free spirited life. It's not perfect because I am not. It's not consistently smooth because my path has yet to be completely paved, it's not what other people would want and at times, not even remotely close to what I want for myself. But my life is gloriously, beautifully and wonderfully, not my own. It's on lease to me by my very kind and very funny Dad.

My friend wrote this little tidbit on my facebook wall after one of my wedding appearances on the dance floor; “you.are.out.of.control.and.i.think.i.like.it.”

Tim, you are absolutely right. I am freely and lovingly out of control.
and.i.like.it.too.

Philippians 4:8-9
Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Mona Lisa

Sometimes my mind gets so filled with thoughts, I feel like the only way to calm my spirit is to either go for a quick walk around the block or a long walk up a mountain. It's 12:12 AM, so this will do for now.

A quote sent to me by a friend of mine (and excellent physics tutor might I add), has been intriguing me and my mind's been reeling trying to figure out why ever since. He shared the quote with me and we exchanged thoughts through the personally intimate form of "google chat". Don't pretend you're above it. I've dropped out his name....just in case :) Some of it has been pasted below:


wise boy @ gmail.com: anyway there was this one passage that really stuck out to me. it's from a chapter called "You Need a Commitment Strategy Not an Exit Strategy"
me: ohh cool hmmm. i like it.
wise boy @ gmail.com: "Would you go into a relationship planning the breakup? Would you write the prenup on a first date? Would you meet with a divorce lawyer the morning of your wedding? That would be ridiculous, right?
You need a commitment strategy, not an exit strategy. You should be thinking about how to make your project grow and succeed, not how you’re going to jump ship. If your whole strategy is based on leaving, chances are you won’t get far in the first place.
…Don’t be that guy. If you do manage to get a good thing going, keep it going. Good things don’t come around that often. Don’t let your business be the one that got away."

(side note: of course we both automatically apply the above advice to relationships. this is because we are both in our mid-twenties and thus the topic is incessantly talked about, laughed over, cried for, analyzed too much and has been frequently prayed for to just go away)

me: awwww i love it. you should post it as your status. its a good word
wise boy @ gmail.com: that's a long status
me: i think sometimes boys forget to hold on with both hands. and then girls get insecure and think the boys don't care when they're only holding on with one. so then we let go of the other hand to protect ourselves. and then theres no more hand holding
wise boy @ gmail.com: oh wow, what a nice illustration
me: thanks
wise boy @ gmail.com: I like it
me: you can add that to your status as well ;)
wise boy @ gmail.com: ha ok we'll see
me: or ill blog about it
wise boy @ gmail.com: you should blog about it
me: :)

and we here we are.

This is not to dog men. At all. Or women. Quite the opposite. In fact I think both sexes are quite lovely. And if people have been figuring out how to make relationships work for the past thousands of years, then we here in 2010 will probably be ok. I just realized that the girl who lets go is me. And, yes some of my friends. Maybe all women, but I don't know all of them, so I'm not going to make that generalization.

My bottom line(s) is (are) this (these). Boy meets girl. Girl and said Boy like each other. They hold hands. Boy gets distracted/thinks girl knows how much he cares/takes time to figure himself out/has other crazy things in life going on. Boy lets go just with one hand. Just for a quick second to get things figured out. Girl notices IMMEDIATELY. Girl tries to play it cool- this lasts about 3 seconds. Girl is insecure and automatically assumes boy never has nor ever will care about her. Girl lets go of Boy's hand to protect Girl's heart. Boy comes back and is bewildered (? maybe. I'm not a boy, so I don't know).

Boy and Girl both learn. Boy tells girl he's going to let go, for just a bit, just with the one hand. Girl trusts Boy and also trusts that God made her something worth being held on to.

Mid- twenties relationship dramas find themselves extinct and decide to settle down nicely in the 7th grade with their cohorts "acne drama' and "I hate my (fill in the blank) drama".

The End.

found it

I've had beautiful on the mind lately. I think it started to stick with me as a concept when waiting to wash my hands in the bathroom of a West Seattle bar. I stood "in line" behind the one sink while I watched a woman apply and reapply her lipstick. We were the only two women in the bathroom and to say the silence was awkward would be a severe understatement. Often in these situations, I find myself making small chat just to bring down the level of discomfort in the situation. But not this time. I just watched. Impatiently. Though I found it top priority to sanitize, this lady had puckering up at the top of her list. I stood there for about 3 hours (45 seconds really). Is that sexy?, I thought. Hot, pretty, or attractive, to have lipstick on. Is it beautiful? Would she be embarrassed to go back out there without it on? Who does she have waiting for her that really cares? Does she have multiple shades for different events? Will it matter she has it on once she's taken the first sip of her drink?

She finally stepped out of my way without making eye contact- I was ready to have a stare down. My image was revealed in the mirror. After spending the better part of the afternoon and evening at Alki my hair is up in its usual pony tail, wind whipped and starting to curl from the moisture in the air. I have on a sweat shirt that reeks gloriously of bon fire. The shorts I was wearing were actually jeans last year until a 100+ day requested me to grab a pair of scissors and cut them off. I can't remember if I put on mascara that morning though I'm assuming I did because I have not yet been carded at the bar. Is this at all sexy? Hot, pretty, attractive. It's undoubtedly genuine. But is it beautiful?

I think we throw around this word "beautiful" like Steve Pool throws around the term "sun break". It always sounds nice, but do we ever actually see it? Know what it is? What it feels like? I think

deep down in our souls all these questions are answered with a resounding YES! What about more towards the surface of our souls? Do we see beauty there? Feel it? Know what it is? Do we believe it's as projected on to other people as our friends tell us it is. Do we scoff when people tell us we look nice? That we're attractive? Gorgeous? Worth a Savior?

Not a single answer tonight. Nothing profound is coming to mind ( not to say that profound is my "norm"). And hey not to dog on lipstick here either, if I had the pucker upper's who knows what color tints I'd be sporting. Just thinking things through. Because when I opened up my laptop tonight I saw this picture on my desk top. Ahhhh. There it is.

Certain Beauty.

Just a girl. And her dad.

I had myself "A Week' a few weeks ago. Nothing horrible happened. There was nothing to grieve (except maybe my pride- I tripped down the stairs while an attractive man was coming up them. I told him to not take the stairs lightly. He didn't understand my humor. All I have to show from the incident is a dented ego and a bruise on my left thigh). There have not been any drastic life changes and despite the injured thigh and hurt pride, I have managed to persevere (imagine that!). No, nothing horrible. Just rough. It was chalk full of tough conversations, hurting hearts, overwhelming thoughts, running from one thing to the other, ending a job without having a new one, trying to figure out why my computer only shows 2/3 of the screen, and way too much physics reading. My precious Rav 4 has also not been herself lately. And so, being the single, 26 1/2 year old woman that I am, I did what I would like to think any other peer would do in the same situation. I went home and told my dad.

"How about this," he says, "if you pay for the emissions test, I'll go ahead and take care of your tabs." A relief floods over me. As he tells me to go grab my keys, for a moment I am irritated. I had an afternoon planned of physics and maybe a nap, then car crap. I check myself and my selfishness, find my keys, and meet him out front. It is a dreary day and feels more like early March than late June. As we drive out of our neighborhood I know what question is coming first. "So tell me what's going on in your life," he says with genuine interest. I smile, so glad he has asked. It doesn't get much better than debriefing life with my dad. Except for maybe chatting about it with my mom and best friends. I hesitate for about a second and then tell him everything. My stresses about classes, money, my future. Boys, lack of boys. My insecurities, my confidences. He understands my sarcasm (ie my love language). I tell him about some of my friends. I talk to him about God. All the while he listens and responds with reassuring responses. Encouraging me to share more. As if he, at 65, can absolutely understand and relate to me.

After I dish it all out in between emissions tests, figuring out my fuel injector issues, and filling my car with gas ("Why don't I go ahead and fill up your tank, sweetheart"), he says the words I don't know I am longing to here. "You know Court, I am just so proud of you." I am shocked. After hearing about all my crap and inadequacies, the man who is most caught up on all of it, is proud of me. We chat about who I'm becoming and what that means. We talk about men and time and how sometimes things with men take time. He makes me laugh about my plights and sees my life as something that has so much hope and so much brightness. He reminds me that there is a bigger plan for my life and in his own way, points me back to Christ. I got into the car earlier in the afternoon feeling like $1.50. By the time we are back home, I feel like a million bucks and then some.

He is not perfect, and he is often (though not always- sometimes he needs my help) the first to tell you that. And our Lord knows we butt heads. Where my mom has the sweet, quieter demeanor of letting things work themselves out, I have embodied the other part of the gene pool that involves passionately verbalizing how I feel, when I feel it. Believe it or not friends, this can at times lead to communication breakdown. Despite, and perhaps even because of his imperfections, my dad is my hero. In a world where a girl can feel like she is nothing without a great career, a husband and babies to show for herself, my dad is consistently present. He humbly loves God. He loves his wife well. And he is proud of his family. Of course I strive to look to God first. But my dad is pretty great.

It's late on a Tuesday night. I have no job to wake up for. No career to focus on. Yet. Not a whole lot of money in the bank account. I am not confident of what my future holds- I am more concerned about what it doesn't. Yet, I will sleep well tonight. I am a girl loved by her dad. Beautifully rreminded of how much intimately more her Heavenly Father must love her.

“You parents—if your daughter asks for a loaf of bread, do you give her a stone instead? Or if she asks for a fish, do you give her a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:9-11

window washers

I was trying to go above and beyond my nanny duties yesterday, and decided to take care of some laundry. I noticed clothing sizes. And I got angry. Angry that things like sizes and body shapes and attire matter. I know, I know, these thoughts probably carry no clout because of my 5'2" frame, but trust me I think about things like this. For me it's not so much size or body shape as it is boys or achievements or things in my future. Anything other people may see and judge me by. A close friend of mine will confide in me her uncertainty about her new, post pregnant body- seeing old friends, extended family.....her husband's assumed thoughts on it all. It makes me ill. She got a new outfit for a family reunion this weekend and told me she felt, "Good" in it....what does that even mean? Thin? Confident? Secure? All of the above?

Yesterday Daisy and I were practicing clapping in the living room of her 10th floor condo down town. She wants to clap sooo badly and her success rate is up to like 8%. It's been posted in the elevators the past couple of weeks that there would be window washers around and to pull the shades to ease pet anxiety. God forbid our pets get anxious. Anyways, so there we were and I hear a thud outside. A young man is dangling by a rope and its slowly descending onto the balcony as if he's Peter Parker. Could he not just come to the front door and knock?? I walked over to the window and stared. The only thing separating our world being floor to ceiling double paned windows. I was trying to make eye contact and perhaps throw out there a smile that I was hoping would say, "I'm just the nanny! You and I are really no different- I appreciate your work and don't feel awkward while I just cozy on in here with the baby- we won't even notice you!" Unfortunately eye contact was not achieved and I found myself pulling down each and every shade to calm down Max, the dog, who was obviously dealing with some severe anxiety and chest tightness over our new guest.

The above seems like a tangent you say? Well, it is. Just something funny that doesn't happen to me every Thursday. But this morning as I couldn't get my mind off a XXL red shirt, the connection between the two events came to me. We're all just dangling by a rope really. Hoping to land on some firm balcony and hoping it won't be awkward when we do which it inevitably will. Whether it's other people's thoughts on us, our body size, our boyfriends, our not boyfriends, or anything else.....we're dangling. By a thread most of the time. Or so we think. I get angry all over again writing it down. How controlled we are by this thread. How many cruel comments, thoughts, credit debt issues, failed relationships and etcetera are resulted by this thread? It's disgusting. He is the vine- we are just the branches. Apart from Him we can do nothing. NOTHING. Not. A. Thing. And so this morning, I simply grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the thread. The ratted, helpless thread holding me to so many negative thoughts, wants, expectations. And lo and behold I landed on a balcony. And instead of a surprised nanny found my Father offering me a warm drink and lots of time to chat. What took me so long? These past few weeks holding on to this thin line as if it were my safety. I'm glad I just gave it a clean snip. I find two very different approaches to this. One is assuming He'll catch you when you fall, and even telling people you firmly believe He will. And then there's the other approach. Cutting that sick rope and letting Him prove His faithfulness to you. Allowing you to speak from experience.

Daisy is still napping. Snuggled in her fleece Nemo blanket on her parents bed. A perfect life. And as of this morning, it was determined that in His eyes, so is mine. And, thus, is yours. Know that.