For those of you who keep up with me in my personal life, you might have been able to put two and two together over the last few weeks when it comes to the lack of entries in my blog. I haven’t had as much free time these days, because as most of you know…

 I’ve started dating someone

             Now this past week, one of my buddies who is blogrolled on my page, Jeremy Zach, linked me on his page – indicating that he admired me for my astounding relational insights. And truth be told – I literally laughed out loud when I read it – I thought it had to be a joke. After realizing that it was indeed NOT a joke, I have decided that I write about relationships simply because I don’t get them; I don’t understand them. They intrigue me and frustrate me. Even this past week, I was at a 50^th Wedding Anniversary party, with the couple and their eight children, and countless grand and great-grandchildren…and it blew my mind. The mere idea that two people fell in love and decided to stay together forever, and because of their decisions, they have made a place in the world for all of this? As I stood in the middle of the living room in a beautiful beach house down by the beach with party festivities glowing all around…it literally left me staggering.

So, for the person who is awe of relationships to begin with, and then you throw a new man in the mix….whoa. Can I tell you how much amazing blog material I most likely have pushed through in the past few weeks? I probably could have published a novel at this point with all of the new, scary, and interesting things come all balled up inside of the “New Relationship” Package.

And in all of these new ideas and things, I have struggled with how to express it. Normally I have a thought, I let it come to be, and then blog about it. But knowing that my new man reads my blogs – makes it either seem all a bit trite…or emo kid…or inappropriate…or that I am simply committed to writing in a way that is real and raw, despite my auidence. I suppose this is just a side conversation that I dont have completely worked out yet.  Either way – whether this blog makes me a classic “Internet Emotional vomiter” or a great writer…the one single thought that I can’t seem to get away from over the past few weeks is this:

Relationships are Messy

            Astounding I know. My revelations are nothing short of groundbreaking.  But really, I am shocked at how soon it seems like an ocean’s flood of questions come pouring into my mind…all asking me “How do we navigate this?” There are mere moments when I simply resign to the fact that I will most likely drown in it all…my lungs filling up with water as my skin migrates to a soft blue color…all the while,  my vision growing dim and my body growing heavy to slowly sink to the bottom.

            And here is the thing that everyone, including my new man, keeps telling me “Jenni, no one expects you to have it all together. No one expects you to be perfect. We know that everyone has skeletons in the closet, and that things get messy. Relationships are just that…they are messy.”

            Ok. Great. In one ear and out the other. If it is so true that everyone has crap, and that relationships are so messy…why is it that I cannot fight the compulsion to grab and emotional broom and start sweeping? Why is it that I simply would love to go to Barnes&Nobel Online, and find a copy of How to Have the World’s Perfectly Healthy Relationship Without Ever Making a Single Mistake (Author Unknown…haha get it?).

            I can’t handle the messy. I look at it all and see a raging sea of boundaries, time, availability, vulnerability, sex, not sex, balance, finances, family, strategy, knowledge, God, careers, emotional walls, mental walls, disappointments, expectations, idealizations, dysfunctions, procrastinations….retardations…masturbations.. ok – kidding about those last few, but you see why I can easily go from being fine to doused and thrashing an ocean of thoughts.

            It’s when I get to this place, when I feel like I’ve given the hamster 20 oz. of caffeine and then put him on the wheel, that realize…

There’s no way. Maybe what I really want out of life is simply to be a cat lady. 65 years old, smelly, crazy, talking to myself and covered in cat hair.

         I went out to dinner last night with Ang, one of my best friends. It is then, sitting across the table from one other, that she reaches across the table and grabs my hands and says “No Jenni, no you don’t. I know you don’t. And I won’t let you become that. You can do this, and we are right here beside you the whole way.” … ok Ang – talk about the world’s fastest way to make me tear up right at the table.

            But there is something in that that does make me stand back in awe just a little bit. The fact that I have good friends to ask the hard questions, that I have friends that can tell when I am skirting the hard answers. Maybe that’s beauty of good community, of people that really know you’re heart – they can be our guides, our compasses. My grandma had a quote that I think means a lot more in Spanish, but it essentially means the same as “Keeping on foot on the ground.” In Spanish she’d told me “Jenni, necessita una pie en la tierra.” And what I love about that is that in Spanish it directly translates to: one foot in the earth.

And maybe what I am learning is that this is what good people are to me – they are my anchors, they are my roots. They hold me down and keep me from floating away or sinking to the bottom. And just like I’d said in some of my previous blogs, they remind me who I am – what is already true of me and what doesn’t change. They are the voice of God, whispering in my ears what is true of me – who He says that I am – and how I am not to forget that.

New Man, or no man, cracked out hamster on the wheel, cats or no cats – I think as people, we need that. I need that. I need to hold onto my identity in the face of things that challenge me. I need to be reminded of my significance in the ocean of disarray.

This week I started reading a new book by one of my favorite authors. Several years ago, Don Miller burst onto the Christian writing scene, most noted for his life-changing book Blue Like Jazz. If any of you had read it, then you understand the depth of my heart-throb for this man’s writing abilities. I am currently reading Searching for God Knows What, which I think might be one of his earlier publications.

Now I don’t know if Don Miller is married, or even has a girlfriend, but he should be made aware that he is my soul mate. Crazy sounding I know, but the man can write the words that I can only grapple with…and as a writer, that means its true love.

 Now, because Miller is a genius, he points out something amazing within the story of Adam and Eve that I have never seen before.  For those if us that grew up in Sunday School, we get the “Felt Board” story: God made man, man ran around with animals and nature. But then something was wrong…man was lonely. Then we all know the part where Adam takes a nap and Eve waltzes on the scene. Poof. Problem solved. Thanks God.

What Miller points out is that the order of things might have been a little bit different if we pay attention to the details in the text. He shows how man was running around being all…manly…and then he suddenly realizes that he’s a third wheel to all of the animal couples.  Adam is waltzing around, and decides to ask God if he too can have a buddy in the world.  And then God says:

“Go and name all of the animals”

Ok, so that hardly sounds like “Sure Adam” Bam, here’s a chic for you. And when you stop to think about, Miller points out, naming the animals is a HUGE job. If you really think to sit down and do the math, you are talking about millions of animals…and this man was charged with the task of naming them all? As an organizational freak, I could easily tell you it would take YEARS to simply categorize them. 

The implications of this mere one sentence in Genesis has enormous connotations. First of all, if the Garden of Eden contained life as it should have been, we should note that 100 years of Adam’s “perfect life” included work and TONS of lonliness. It included years of roaming the globe and searching for relationship and community. I know this is a huge point that should be further unpacked, but I want to get to the main idea, so I’ll let you chew on that idea on your own.

What I love about Miller’s picture of Adam and Eve is when he points out how these 100  years of toil, work and isolation must have made Adam feel when Eve did step onto the scene.  Let’s look at Miller’s thought process:

Moses said that the whole time Adam was naming the animals, that entire hundred years, he couldn’t find a helpmate suitable for him. This means that while he was naming cattle he was lonely because he couldn’t really communicate in the same way with the cattle, and when he was naming the fish he probably wanted to go in in the ocean with them….So here’s this guy whose intensely relational, needing other people, and in order to cause him to appreciate the gift of companionship, God had him hang out with chimps for a hundred years.

Its quite beautiful really. God directed Adam’s steps so that when he created Eve, Adam would have the utmost appreciation, respect and gratitude.

Miller then goes on to note that in this day and age, men can merely go to the Internet and access all of the naked women he wants to see…and we wonder why women get raped and molested and abused. Maybe if we all had to toil for a hundred years before we found each other, we would treat each other differently.

Now, a few nights ago, my girlfriend and I had a great Friday night. It was blazing hot, and we had headed to the mall to get a new “meet the parents dress” for Hillary. Because we are women, we had a wonderful time shopping; we found a dress and shoes that made her look like a million bucks, and we had a coupon so she hardly paid anything out of pocket. After the shopping was over, we headed to an El Torito Grill for some bomb Mexican dinner, and margaritas. We relaxed, ate, and connected over great conversation.

When we were leaving, there was a local musician playing guitar in the center of the mall. The night was warm, and lingered there, in little cafe chairs, looking up at the night sky, enjoying the music and thinking about how grand our little lives were.

And then Hillary says “You know that would make this night PERFECT? Yogurtland.” Only one problem….as we began to walk over to finalize our perfection…we were suddenly struck with the realization that

YOGURTLAND WAS CLOSED.

Clearly, we were incredibly let down (if you’ve hung out with me lately, you’d know that I have a slight addiction to tart frozen yogurt, berries and captain crunch….its my weakness).

But after letting Miller’s words sink in, a hard and fast truth settled into my mind.

Yogurtland MUST be closed. In life, perfection yields ungratefulness and a sense of entitlement. So as long as I am going to be a woman of character, Yogurtland must always be closed.

About a year ago, I really wrestled with this issue. I hated that God couldnt have orchestrated the world for us to be people of character without strife. That we couldnt love and appreciate Eve without naming the animals first. That we couldnt appreciate the night sky and the cafe performer and still get to sit and devour Yogurtland. It all seemed a bit unfair. That you had to have a struggle to have a blessing.

What I love about Miller, is that he sees the beauty in the whole thing. In fact, he uses exactly those words several times, recognizing the tension that God has created, and that it is actually quite beautiful. Its artistic. Its ironic. Its meaningful.  Its like the movie “American Beauty” where just when the main character becomes truly happy, he is murdered. But he dies with a smile on his face…and in that there is beauty. You are almost happy for him as he lies there dead and smiling.

I’m not trying to say that God is morbid. But I am saying that God is an artist. A play-write. An author. He writes interesting plots of movies worth watching, and books worth reading. He delights the reader with the complexities in the story line.

He shows us that the tension is supposed to be there. It was there in the Garden of Eden. That tension is not the result of ”Sin” and ”The Fall” as some Christians would like to believe… even as I want to be believe. Looking back, I vied with this thought for such a long time because it paints a very different kind of God. In my head, the way things should be hashed out is like this:

1. God was hanging out in nothingness before time (this is a huge theological blanket statement…I realize…let’s not get hung up here)

2. God created all kinds of great stuff.

3. God created man to be in relationship with Him and his stuff.

4. The world was perfect. I.e. no work, no tears, no toil, no hunger, no TENSION, no struggle, no unhappiness….etc.

5. Man biffed the whole thing by that whole “Snake and the Apple” story and all of the exempt items from point 4 came crashing into our reality.  

Now the reason that I dont like the whole “No Yogurtland” concept is because this idea does match with my five excellent points of Theology. It changes my frame work. If God created the world to involve tension, and struggle, and loneliness and work… then maybe God isn’t who I thought He was when I signed up for this whole thing. Which is why for a long time God really made me jazzed…in a bad way. I felt lied to or something.

But as I am reading over Miller’s words, maybe I am starting to see it all in another light. Maybe I’m half right… God isn’t who I thought He was (Big surprise there).  But the part that I am thinking that I was wrong about, is that God isn’t a liar. God didn’t fake me out… maybe its just that God is more of a visionary, an artist and a storyteller than I originally gave Him credit for.

Of course this doesn’t mean that I’m comfortable with the whole thing yet. A God that is a Liar feels unfair, but a God that is a visionary…that’s just plain scary. Scary in a good-great-change-your-life kind of way. I suppose this is really why I haven’t just turned and walked away on the whole thing quite yet. I feel like I’ve seen too much out of this Visionary-God to be able to cut the cord.  And even though a large bowl of tart frozen yogurt covered in fresh berries and captain crunch in my weakness…I think I can forgo Yogurtland when given the chance at a real life. 

It started slow. Like a lift of an eyebrow, or the waife of an eyelash on the breathe of exhale.

Heads were lowered and tucked with dark security, vowing to never come out. Curled in our hiding spots, we thought that we could exist; breathing in and out, but never lifting a foot to tred outside of our crafty secrets.

We didnt want to talk, to even whisper the thoughts that traveled through our hearts and minds – like that of a news ticker, clocking our very words as they ran along the bottom of the TV screens of our lives. We wouldn’t utter a single sound, but instead fastened our lips and pulled the covers over our heads, content and convinced that “It didnt really matter, and I’m better off inside here. Its soft and warm, and there are no other people to ask me questions or share my stories with. I think I’ll stay in here for quite some time.”

But then something happned one quite afternoon. As if we were bears waking from a winter hybernation, our eyelids lifted open to let in the first spring light. Suddenly our warm quite secrets didnt comfort us, but instead they began to make us aware of our tight quarters. They confined us not allowing us to breathe or stretch. We noticed that the sun was quite nice and quite warm, but in our little winter sleeping spots we were just out of the reach of the sun’s embrace.

The ticker clock at the bottom of our lives began to remind us more of a beating drum, like that of an marching band, calling us to fall in line in the parade of the world. The longer we listened to the pounding thud, the closer the walls came crashing in, reminding us that this space was not for us to sleep in any longer.

We were like spring seeds, pushing through the icy winter soil to be whips of flowers, proudly displaying the banner of Spring that was to be on its way. We heard the call, and we had to grow. We had to stretch from our winter’s sleeping place, and let our heads untuck from their quite nooks.

The light struck into our eyes and we were flooded with calling. To shed the sleeping, to push through the icy ground. To leap from the winter stifle, and rush into pastures of new green blades of grass.  Our paths were littered with small colored flowers, like confetti falling from the sky of a Spring Parade.

Our pace quickened as we drank in the crisp air. We were not the same. We had to run, to run like there was not a care in the world. To run like we would never tire. To run with arms and legs flailing, down hills of green pasture, the glory of spring’s climax rushing past our ever seeing eyes.

Winter could not hold us. Spring had called us. And we had to run.

Once, early in my twenties, I dated a truly horrible guy. I dont know that he always meant to be horrible, but there is no arguing the fact that he was more than terrible to me. He was manipulative, and arguably emotional abusive – telling me I should loose weight, and dye my hair, and always talking about the attractiveness of other women in my presence. The list of discrepancies goes on and on, from isolating me from my friends, to constantly telling me cutting remarks about my family….which over time I began to believe.  

Why I was blind to this, I could not tell you. Maybe this is part of the entire dating/relationship journey for me at this point  – to reconcile what lead me to permit such destructive patterns in my dating life in the first place.

But the climax of our dysfunctional story took place in March of 2004. At this point I had slunked down to barley over 100 pounds due to depression and the need to appear attractive. I was in my junior year of college, and the classes were beginning to get to the point where they would swallow me alive if I would let them. And our relationship was spinning out of control – the way that he was treating me was getting steadily and progressively more unbearable. One night, after leaving a swimming party at his house, I had the gut sinking feeling that something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. So, I went back to his house (which I realize makes me a neurotic woman – but in this instance direly necessary)…and I found him in bed…with another woman.

Needless to say that at 21 this kind of event could kill a girl. And it nearly did. I couldnt keep food down for weeks. I had no more friends…he had successfully picked fights with all of them, leaving me alone in my hour of utter despair. Well, I chose not to leave him through all that time – which left me in utter despair.

Now I don’t want to drone on all of the awful minute details, but what I am getting at is this. This was the first time in my life that didnt have a relationship to hide behind. It was the first time that I was so unrecognisably smashed, I had no choice but stop hiding from God. To come clean, to look Him in the face and say “Ok Lord, lets do this your way.” I can honestly say that night back in March of 2004 was the darkest hour of my life. And looking at all of the places that I have been and grown since then, I am amazing that I am even here sometimes – for there were days, weeks, or even months where mere survival felt like the only objective.

It was not only hard because my heart was crushed, but because I didnt trust God at all. And I didnt want to. Not being able to hide in relationships anymore meant that it was time to face the music and do some serious business with God. And that scared me shitless. SHITLESS.

Now, in those dark hours, there came a promise from God. “Jenni, you will be vindicated.” (God speaks to me often through music, so of course this was a message whispered in the midst of the Dashboard Confessional song, Vindicated.) I knew what the word meant, but I didnt really know the gritty details of the word. So I looked it up. Vindicated was explained as being “to claim ones self for another, to deliver from; liberate, To justify or prove the worth of, especially when the party at hand could not do so on their own.”

Needless to say, I clearly lost it when I read this. And in my mind, that vindication played out in thousands of calculating ways. If I had my way about it, I would have grown up to be entirely successful, going to law school, and making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Then one day, looking stunning and powerful in an expensive suit, I would be getting into my brand new Porche, and he would be homeless, begging for money on the streets. He would turn to me and say “Got any spare change?” And in that instance, he would recognize me, and vindication would be won. I would answer “For you?” And then spit in his change cup – or something equally degrading. (ok, I can be mean when Im mad).

So here it is 2008. Its been years. We still go to the same church, so over the years there have been instances where we have seen each other. Usually we ignore each other. But my heart still races, my hair stands on end, and I feel like I am going to vomit. Usually old thoughts come back like “I wonder if I look ok? Do I look skinny? Is he jealous?” Clearly childish, and I would remind myself that I simply dont care anymore, and move on with my life.

Tonight in church he was sitting DIRECTLY in my line of vision. Ten feet away. Its the closest we have been in 4 years. I’m fidgety in church trying to make myself pay attention. And then something happened during worship. God says in my ear “Forgive him. And tell him you forgive him.” FUCK NO! Seriously God? Forgive maaaaaaybe. But walk over there and TALK to him. No. Absolutely not.

And then a crazy thing was happening. My feet were moving. Towards him. My hand was reaching up to grab his shoulder. I was smiling, then leaning in and saying “This may be more for me to say than it is for you to hear…but I forgive you for all those things that happened.” And then he was saying back to me, “I apologize for everything I did to you.”

Vindicated.

 I dont know that he really meant it when he said he was sorry, or that he even knew all that he was apologizing for.  But I am realizing, I dont care. It doesnt matter.

I’m smiling because this is NOTHING like what I wanted or pictured vindication to feel like. But I feel like I have taken a suitcase of poison, that I never really even knew was there, and cut the chord between me and it. He still may not think that he ever did anything wrong, anything worth forgiving. He may think that I’m a crazy girl with a 4 year old grudge. But none of that matters.

He can be or think whatever he wants. Because in this moment, I am realizing that vindication looks like being able to walk away….to REALLY walk away emotionally. To see him in the hall way at church and feel nothing. Not anger, or hatred, or nausea. Vindication looks like realizing that between the two of us, I was big enough to rise above the pain. That I was the one who was big enough to surpass all that he threw at me, and then, even in light of that, to be able to say “I forgive you.” Vindication looks like being a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart…not a skinny girl who has made her ex-boyfriend jealous.

So maybe I didn’t go to Law School, and I most definatly dont have a Porshe. And he still isnt homeless. But I can tell you, that this vindication feels so much better than Law Degree, and expensive suit and a sports car ever could.

I am a birthday person. As someone in my counseling group said tonight, “Loving your birthday is like self care – people really should celebrate the entire month!” Needless to say, I whole heartily agree with her opinion.

Now, I dont know that this is a widely known fact, but people have “Golden Birthdays.” Your Golden Birthday is when the age that you are turning matches the date that you were born (17 on April 17th for example). Your Golden Birthday is supposed to be a very special birthday, or at least an excuse to have an extra -umph in your birthday hoopla.

Even less commonly known are “Silver Birthdays.” This is simply you 25th birthday; the date that you are ushered into your quarter of a century. These birthdays also cause for greater celebration – celebrating the fact that you’ve survived childhood, made it mostly into adulthood, and that you are well on your way.

For a very few special people in the world, you get one day in your life that surpasses all the rest of your birthdays. If you were born on the 25th of any given month, you have your golden and silver birthday on the same day. Dear friends, I was born on October 25th. And I can tell you, I have have been excited to be 25 since I was old enough to figure out the colossal coincidence of my birthday.

So, as we are rounding the corner onto my big day (ok, so we really have 5 months, but we are over half way there!), I have begun to think about the reality of being 25. 

Twenty Five.

Looking over the course of my life, I wouldn’t tell you that I had an agenda. I wouldn’t have told you that I have a schedule. As organized (and arguably neurotic) as I am about planning, I have never sat down and planned out the events of my life. “Get married by 23, have a house by 24, pop out first kid by 26.” In fact, for the most part, I’d say that I have been pretty content to figure out my life events as they come at me.

But as I have begun to roll downhill to my 25th birthday, I have begun to look around at the scenery of my life at this point. And as I look at where I am in my life, my job, my growth and emotional development, I am completely caught off guard.As a six year old, dreaming about having a party on the 25th of October, with 25 candles in my cake and 25 people singing me happy birthday, I always imagined something a little different than this. I’d love to believe I didnt have an agenda, but as I am am coming closer and closer, I am realizing I DID.

I don’t think that I had specifics, but I know that I thought that I would be a little bit more settled than this. Maybe that I would be a little further and successful in my career. That I would be relatively emotionally stable, and dating someone seriously. I would MOST DEFINITELY have my own place by now. I didn’t have every detail etched in stone, but I know that I didnt think that it would look like this.

This week at church, we brushed upon an interesting point. In Exodus 16, we find the Israelites in the midst of a mess (What else is new?). They are lost in the desert. They are hungry. And they are pissed. We find them talking smack on Moses and Aaron – making accusations that they are frauds leading them into the desert to die. And the really interesting part is, they begin to dream about Egypt.

The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenthday of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’shand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

Flip back a few chapters, and we all seems to remember the Israelites being in complete bondage – slaves, working 15 hour days without adequate supplies, while their families are starving, dying, and agonizing.  But that’s not what the memory looks like to the Israelites in that moment. In their minds, Egypt was the best days of their life – they remember meat,  parties, and relaxation.

Slavery?? …Naa… Egypt was more like this:

  Now I would laugh at them for so clearly being ….um…RETARDED… except for the part where I do the same thing. I look at my life, and dont see all the tick marks where I thought they’d be at this point in the game, and I realized that I’m a little irked by that. Even for my future, I have things that I want to happen a certain way. Read my blog from earlier last week and you know that it’s a dream of mine to get out of Orange Country; to live internationally and work overseas.

And as I’m sitting in church, it slowly begins to sink in…my schedule for my life is my Egypt. The check list that I thought I would have finished by my Golden Birthday is my Egypt. My dreams for my future are my Egypt. I have been freed from so much in the course of my life. The more that I have trusted God and walked with Him, the more crazy adventures, interesting stories, and wild desires have come. But still, I have the urge to turn around and long for the days where I called the shots, where I got to say what life was going to look like. “At 25 life will be…[fill in the blank].”

So it turns out that I don’t have much on the Isrealites. Leaving Egypt is harder than you think. I dont know that I am able to say “God I don’t care if we never go anywhere interesting. I dont care if we stay in Orange County. I dont care if we wander the desert for 40 years. I just want to be with you, no matter where you are. You are always withy me in a pillar of fire or a cloud, you give me manna and quails, and I’m cool with that.”

So, when is your next birthday? And what’s on the checklist before that day? Where is your Egypt?  Are you ok with your dreams looking more like desert than promise land? And, if you do find that you have managed to find you way out of Egypt and into contentment, … Can you please pass the map?

I have had some very amazing thoughts rolling around in my head for the past few days. I am almost afraid to commit them to text, because I am afraid that in my mind they sound extremely profound – but once they dance from my finger tips to the page, I fear that they might loose their illuminating clarity.

It almost feels like when you understand algebra for the first time in high school. Your teacher has been standing at the blackboard with chalk-tipped fingers for 6 months saying “X = 3…X is three. Replace X with 3!” And then the grand day comes where you are sitting in your chair, and it all clicks. Magically all of the Xs on the blackboard morph into 3s and slowly you manage to drawl “Ooooh….X is IS three.” Maybe its also similar to the ever famous “There is no spoon” so eloquently put by Keneau Reeves.

So, without further adu, please pardon me while I try to usher you into my illumination.

For most of my life I have known that our God finds joy in restoring and reconciling. And in my experience this process is usually something that is completed with so much irony, I can’t help but shake my head and laugh at the sense of humor of God. Maybe its the idea that he loves a backward kingdom; the first are last, the strong are weak, the poor are blessed. The longer I am walking in this road, the more I expect that this backward kingdom is something that we get used to. But the longer I walk it, I realize that it only becomes more and more profound, no matter how you try to expect it.

Alot of my thoughts this evening center around this paraphrased verse (Luke 7:47): “For those who have been forgiven much, love much.”

Now, for most of my life, this has translated similarly to that of a loan shark. If you owe someone 10,000 dollars and they write off your debt, you love them! Who wouldn’t? And let’s pretend that this loan was accompanied by large amounts of insurmountable debt. The writing off of all of this would undoubtedly yield a grateful heart. But in someways, I also seemed to relate to the shame in that.  The thought “I had to be forgiven much, so I really owe it to you to love you much” seems a bit more realistic in my heart. 

I am taking a class with a wonderful group of women through my church. And although many impressionable things were said last week, there was something that snagged me. The woman in her 60s was speaking about her journey in healing from sexual abuse. And it was from this that she was saying that she really had a well of emotion to draw from. She was a painter, and although she considered her abuse unjust, she recognized that God was able to take that very broken raw emotion, and transform it into beautiful artwork – deep expressive colors, textures, skills and creativity. She said that she was able to find the darkest parts of her soul and invite God into them. And through her streaming tears, sleepless nights and unbearable pain, there has been a deep rooted sense of talent and stunning beauty that has grown out of that.

I guess this is the part where I fear it doesn’t translate. If you have grown up in the church, you have undoubtedly heard the overplayed Crystal Lewis song “beauty for ashes, strength for fear…” We all know that God does this. But maybe I am just beginning to experience this in my soul, because the gears are slowly turning. I am beginning to see that “loving much” doesn’t mean that you are obligated to love much. It looks so differently.

It means that I am growing and finding parts of me that I like more than I ever have. Not in a loud showy way, but rather in the same way you smile silently smile at a child that you thought was adorable – when you thought no one was looking. It means that I am beginning to see the things that I want for my life, and I am excited about them. It means that I am beginning to view the darkest places of my soul in a way that could very well be the strength, the courage, the texture, and art work that allows me to walk into situations with my head held high. Not even in pride, but more in oblivion. Due to the battles I have fought through, maybe art is going to flow out of the places in my heart previously occupied by my demon, guilt and shame. And it will flow out as naturally as water in a deep mountain spring.  Without thought or pretension, just as if it was always meant to be that way.

The thought that seemed to really relinquish me into this idea was simply this: I still don’t trust God. My story has been one of God continually displaying himself and saying “Jenni, jump out of the plane with me.” And in the real life story, there have been several real planes, and even more spiritual/emotional ones. “Trust me Jenni. Trust me Jenni.” I know that there are places within me that are so hard, and painful, and jaded. These are the areas that when I am really honest with myself I don’t think that God is big enough to save me from. And the thing that got me to the end of it was simply breathing “God, I am incredibly  sorry that my stupid wretched heart doesn’t trust you.”

And slowly, in that thought there was a breathing. A releasing. A widening of the vision. A showing me of my name. Telling me who I am. Showing me what I was created to do. A charging of responsibility. An excitement for the things that are to come almost in disbelief. And in the face of this, the ONLY response that makes sense is “Oh my God, I am so in love with you.”

Maybe this is the sense of humor of our God. To find the very things impossible, and over time expound them into earth shaking strengths. I do believe that God loves to laugh. And he does. As I write and share my heart, and learn more about my demons, my demons transform into pillars of strength. And I believe he laughs so hard he cries….kicks his feet and holds his sides.  The sheer idiocy of it all it astounding. Most of the time it reminds me if a child that has pulled a practical trick on you, and looses themselves in laughter because they love being so clever.

I like it that we have a clever God that laughs. A God that believes that doing things backward is important. A God that likes saving much. A God that proves that he is worth loving much. Maybe God likes being an equation that we can’t quite always get our brains around. 

“Wait…..X is  ….what??”

Every year of distance that I gain from my twentieth birthday, the emotional growth that accompanies that time seems to amplify exponentially. The way that I remember seeing life and the world around me from ages 20 to 22 was dramatically different than from 22 to 24. Maybe its a testament to increasing adult mentality. However, in someways it seems like I not only have a changing out look, but that someone has allowed me to take off the lenses I use to view the world, and rub them down with a clean cloth. Or even yet, in the past six months, I can almost begin to say that it feels like someone has allowed me to take the very eyes from my head, and given me a new fresh pair. These new eyes have vision that has not been scarred by the wounds of my past, but somehow has retained the wisdom proved by those scars.

Unfortunately, I am not suggesting that I suddenly have arrived, or have my life figured out.  If anything, the more distance I get from the tender age of 21, the more issues I am stumbling upon. And it is this continual realization leads me to become more in touch with the places that I am horribly flawed. In some ways, I fear it leaves me nearly paralyzed.  Almost as if my issues are a sleeping giant that I do not know if I should wake until I have a plan in place – complete with a pack of matches, a map, 4 meters of climbing webbing, a Swiss Army Knife, some flares, and maybe a few gallons, of water…you know, in case my life erupts into World War III and we have to go into McGuyver style survival mode.

The most interesting thing is that I would think the more in touch I became with the places where I am tempestuously broken, the more I would become hardened or deflated in my soul. I would think that the surmounting issues would pile themselves in a way that would cripple any last sense of vitality that I had left. However, it just hasn’t turned out that way.  I feel like there has been a softening within me, much like that of a refined piece of leather that has been pulled this way and that way, and conditioned. Stretched far away from the stiff brittle piece of hide that it once was, and forming into a beautiful, valuable garment.

I am finding that I like myself a little bit more. I find my very own thoughts a bit more interesting when I have the resolution to voice them with conviction. I find that my failure are slowly becoming less like tremendous catastrophes, and more of an opportunity to respond to the landscape that my actions have painted for me. 

In my very first job out of college, I was given a responsibility much heavier than I had ever worked with. I was supporting several hundred business partners all across the nation for a large international company. And I remember the alarming chill that coursed through my veins when I realized that I had made THE biggest mistake of my life, and it had been broadcast across the United States. I remember quite literally asking my supervisor at the time if I was allowed to crawl under his desk, and remain there until the end of the day. But later that afternoon, when discussing my mistake with my boss in a “How Do We Salvage This” meeting, my boss said something very profound. She wasn’t a very good boss, but this was one situation where she hit the nail on the head. She turned to me and said very purposefully “Jenni, sometimes in life, the important factor is not that you made a mistake. Mistakes are inevitable. But what is important is how you respond to the mistakes you have made. You have an opportunity here to show us what you are really made of – to pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you can. And to me, that speaks more of your value as an employee, than if you never made the mistake in the first place.”

In that moment, her words were extremely valuable. She was giving me permission to fail. To make mistakes – even to make mistakes that could be felt by management all across the country. And even though I dont work for her anymore, her words still resonate within me.

 Coming from a background where I didn’t really feel like there was much room for failure, that if I did, the potential consequences could feel dreadful, the idea of failing is one that scares me. Maybe its that I dont trust- don’t trust God, don’t trust other people in my life, don’t fully trust myself. Maybe its something in me that needs to keep all things pretty, clean, in order, successfully humming like a finely tuned machine. But when I am really honest with myself, those ideas repulse me. Where is the life in that? Where is the vitality? Where is the growth? I think there is more vigor in thrusting yourself out there to be rejected, investing all of your money only to go bankrupt, or desperately trying but somehow missing the mark – than there ever could be in a little life of cleanly order.

Maybe I need to remind myself of this a bit more. That its ok to be wrong. That it’s ok to make mistakes. And that if I am going to fail, I might as well do it with conviction, and commit to the ideas that I am advocating for.  Somehow I need to convince myself of that. Maybe I will walk around whispering the words softly under my breath “Jenni, you have permission to fail….you have permission to fail…you have permission to fail…”

Sitting at the station on a cold hard bench. Holding a ticket in my hand. “Destination – ARRIVED.” The train moves all too quickly, and yet the longer I ride along the cold iron rails of life, the more I realize that maybe “ARRIVED” is a place that doesn’t exist  – a made up fairy tale that we tell ourselves in order to keep us going along the tracks.

There are so many ups and downs along the journey: new jobs that are nothing like what you thought you were signing up for, relationships that come at you like a bus and leave you slightly broken, expensive things that break just when you don’t have the money to fix them, friendships that turn dramatic when all you need is a break, a cold beer and a smile.

And as I sit in my seat, holding my ticket, I continually tell myself, “We are almost there. I am almost arrived. Any minute the announcement will come ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are nearing our final destination. Please gather your belongings and thank you for choosing to travel with us this afternoon.” However, the longer that I ride this train, it is slowly sinking in that ARRIVED doesn’t exist and we never get there. That maybe the train is my new home, and I am going to have to be content living in a small cramped seat, and eating bad food from the dinning car.

And lyrics from a song echo in my mind over and over as I sit waiting in my seat “Once, in a while when it’s good, it will feel like it should…”  Living on the train is a tense marriage. I am waiting to be ARRIVED, I am realizing that we never get there. Somehow it is only once in a while that life feels like it should be.

Maybe the train stops for a pit stop, and we get to get off and stretch our legs in the sunshine. Opening our eyes we look around the beautiful rolling green hills, and majestic architecture of a city. We get to walk to a quaint cafe, sipping coffee and relaxing in the fresh air. Feeling like “Finally, this is good. This is what I have been waiting for. This is what ARRIVED must be like.” And as we drain the last of our cup of coffee, a whistle yelps in the background, reminding us that this was just a glimpse, and we are to get back on the train. Back to enduring. Back to the cramped stiff seat and stale recycled air.

It all seems a bit backward, that we should be in the open air of the country and the busy downtown of the city all the time, and enduring the waiting on the train occasionally…but the longer I ride this trip, the more I am realizing that this life is backward. We sit and endure for much too long, in order to get the glimpses of good life, of fresh air and happiness.

And as I look over my shoulder once again, bidding goodbye to the quaint coffee shop and the rolling hills, I begin to think that maybe the trick is to learn to like the train as well. Maybe sitting in my little seat and holding my ticket I need to learn to say “Thank you that I have a seat. Thank you that I have friendly passengers to pass the hours with. Thank you that when we travel through cities where the weather pounds, I am inside my little train, and shielded from the brutality of it all. Thank you that my little stiff seat has a window. Thank you that sometimes I can open the window and let the air in.”

Maybe the trick to the whole thing is to love the train. And love the journey that we are on. I think if I am holding out for “Destination – ARRIVED” I think I will be desperately disappointed when I realize that it isn’t a real place.

ARRIVED isn’t a place that ever existed on a map. Maybe I need to learn to see that ARRIVED has been cleverly tucked away in a series of places: the coffee shop, the rolling green hills, in a friendly smile at my stiff seat. The longer I ride this train, the more I realize that I need to learn to have eyes to see ARRIVED both on the train, and in the glimpes of life when it feels good like it should. 

Stop This Train – John Mayer

I have been here before.  I have walked through this painful mess once before. We have opened the boxes slowly and examined their contents. I have cried at the wounds, and been brutally honest about what I feel when I see these things.

You have promised me victory over the mess. You have promised that the wounds would heal. You have said that I would no longer be held captive by the darkness that laid within those boxes. You have told me that there are lies that I should no longer listen to.

So why then, does the whole thing still feel like a mess? Why then do I feel as lost as ever when I think about the half packed boxes that are strewn about the floor of my heart? Why is it that I have pray that you are big enough for this? Because I think if I am really honest, I don’t believe that there is enough grace for this. I really don’t think that your truth can speak loud enough to silence the demons. I don’t think that these scars will ever heal.

And as you beckon me back into conversation, asking me to sit down with you once again to lift the bandages and peer into my broken progress, I am not sure that I am willing. I don’t know if I want to see the ugliness that is still there.

I know with my head that you are enough, and long to bring all things back to the way that you intended. I know with my head that you love me like the new father that bounces his little girl in his arms while softly singing to her. I know that you are smiling at me because I have no idea how big you can really be. I know that you smile when you think of me because you are crazy about just me.

Then why are the demons so dark? While does their lure still feel so strong? And what else can I do? Like a small child about to get a shot, I let the tears fall and shake my head slowly. I dont want to continue forward. I dont want to see. It’s dark and painful, and I dont want to talk to you about this anymore.

But also, like the little girl about to get a shot, I have no choice but to hold your hand, and look through the tears, and nod ok. I don’t want to be a woman that misses out on you because I’m scared. I know that there is no stopping the speed of life. I know that I cannot be big enough on my own. And worse than living a life that scares you is living a life that you are hiding in.

I don’t promise that I will be brave. I dont promise that I will be good at this. I don’t promise that I will want to look through the boxes with both eyes open. But I will promise to trust you. I will promise to try. And I will promise to not walk away just because the demons are dark.

Scowl crosses forehead. Deep and pressed, much like that of a pouting four year old. Brown soft curls frame a tear stained face, complete with small sniffles of snot off a button nose. Big brown eyes, edged in red from salty tears. Slightly slitted eyes look forward with a sense of uncertainty, almost as if to say “I don’t know how I feel about you.”

The difference is however, the little girl with the tear stained face has long sense passed her fourth birthday. In fact, there have been 20 birthdays since this type of tantrum would have been expected. In some ways, the pout hasn’t changed since her last four-year-old-tantrum. But even in its similarities, some things have changed to make it all more serious. In her mid-twenties, the game is bigger now, the stakes are higher. We aren’t playing for cookies and barbies anymore. And when the four year old gets jipped its only the matter of jax and dolls. The world has gotten bigger since then, giving us so much more to be jaded about. 

Even through the tear stained scowl, there is a little bit of a smile, an acknowledgement that this is trivial and childlike.  Because it is. Who tells God “You stay on that side of the room, because I didn’t get my way, so I don’t know if I want to be close with you anymore.”? Does that happen in the life of an adult? Well, it is happening, so a better question is, SHOULD it happen in the life of an adult?

And aside from the inner four year old who knows they are being a child, there are still some deep seeded truths, some things that cant be shaken.  Something that says “This isn’t a silly little moment, something so trite and trivial. this is the deep and dying truth of what I have been working on.” I cant seem to get life how I want to, to make it all line just right. And it seems such a cruel joke, even when it does line up just right, it all seems to fall to shit anyhow. And at this point: “enter four year old –  stage left”. Please stamp feel and cry about how the whole thing is jilted, and tainted and shaded, and wrong.

Does the little girl with the big brown eyes and beautiful curls have to to soothed? Does the whole thing need to be rectified? Do we need to rock her to sleep and wipe the tears from her eyes? Does she need to be sufficed by the adult that needs to be rational, logical and sensible? Can we leave it a mess? Can we leave the tantrum hanging in the air and the tears fresh on the face?

Let’s not clean this one. Let’s not convince with trite explanations of how “God is in control, and this is all for the best.” Let’s not box this one up with what “Should be done” and how rational and logical we can make the ending. Let’s side with the indignant kindergartner. We may have been warned, and we should have known that life doesnt work this way, but for once, let’s toss the adult logic and throw a fit.