Last night I was out with some friends, chatting about new things that are going on in each of our lives. Within the last six months, one of my friends left her design firm and opened her own business. Another friend of mine started a new job at an Interactive Agency five months ago, and just found out last night that she is getting promoted. And of course, I just started a new role a few days ago where I am finding that trial by fire is going to be my course in learning.

The last gal in our group is a mom. She has several kids, the oldest of which is six. She laughed with us and said, “You know girls, it never goes away. You never get that feeling that you know what you are doing.”

She the went on to tell us that a few weeks ago, she wasn’t sure how to discipline her six year old for something he’d done. Feeling frustrated, she grabbed her head and said to him, “I don’t know what to do with a six year old!” Calmly, her son looked back at her and said, “It’s ok Mommy, can’t we look on the internet? We can just Google it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently read Rob Bell’s newest book Drops Like Stars for an interview that I’m doing. It is undescribebale. It’s actually a coffee table book, with bold pictures and artistic placement of words, and very real stories from interesting people.

There is a part at the end of the book that really has stuck with me. He’s talking about a sculptor and her love hate relationship with her art. How it’s tumultuous, painful, and agonizing. Yet she is so emotionally connected to her work, it is like its a part of her soul.

And when it is all finished, it is the pain that gives it meaning. It is the struggle for the art to come out of the clay that makes it beautiful. That the parts of the art that are tarnished and ruined are the very parts that make it valid and valuable.

It is then that Bell poses the question, “Was this sculptor really talking about art? Or is this life?”

Right in the Middle

This season has been interesting in that it has been painful. Or maybe I need to knock the words “this season” from my vocabulary, because maybe that’s just life. It’s painful. It asks a lot from us. Good lives do anyway. They’re scary. Art is scary. Doing something worthwhile is terrifying.

But I think Im in a moment where Im on the fence between beautiful and painful. I see both. I feel both. And this is one of the few moments in my life where I wouldn’t change the painful hard parts. They are so integral from this view. Taking them out of the picture would render the whole thing meaningless. The beauty has validity because it was painful. Read the rest of this entry »

As I have grown in my relationship with God, I have become very aware of a mistake that most of us make as Christians. I owe this though in most of its entirety to Patrick Dodson, because I’m pretty sure that he thought of it first and then told it to me.

Most of us view God like He’s our personal drill sergeant. Now, initially you might think that sounds a bit too harsh or not quite right, but how often do you hear your friends or yourself saying things like, “God please just tell me where I should go, what is your will in this situation? I’ll follow you wherever you lead me.”

Sounds like a good christian prayer right?  I’ve heard people say things like this more times than I can count. But when you think about what is really being asked we are saying, “God just give me orders, and I will do exactly what you say.“  I.E., we want to be passive participants in our lives, (”Jesus take the wheel”  …thank you Carrie Underwood) and let God do the ordering and thinking. I can’t help but think that methodology is bit off. Or if it was the right approach, I would understand why so many people think religion is a crutch. Read the rest of this entry »

I think most cool Christians go through a phase where they really love hymns. You know, the old stuff that they used to sing in churches that had wooden pews. Maybe your church still has wooden pews, but mine has cushy red chairs. There is no wooden shelf in the row ahead to hold a bible and a Hymnal. There is no leader at the front telling us to “turn to page 117” and we can find prayers that were probably written by monks in caves. We assume they’re English because we can understand about half of the words, but the other half we have to guess at, or we can just add -eth to the end to make it fit the vernacular (panteth, shareth, understandeth…see?)

Even still, I think most cool Christians go through a phase where they really love hymns. And I have hesitated writing on it because I think the classic branding of a “Hipster Christian” is if you are wearing dark skinny jeans and telling your friends that God really “touched me to press into him…because you know, I want my soul to pant-eth after him like the deer…”

I don’t wear skinny jeans, and I match my clothes too much to be considered a hipster, so I’ve avoided the topic. But I can’t deny it anymore. I’m sorry if this means you have to re-categorize me in you mind from “real edgy writer” to quintessential  hipster Christians who find deep meaning and beauty in hymns…but I’m joining their team. I’ve had hymns running through my mind for literally 3 weeks on end. Morning, noon and night. I play them on YouTube when I think that no one is watching. Maybe I feel better indulging myself when I think that no one knows that I rock out to music that’s written in New King James-ian speak.

It is Well With My Soul

Ok, as long as we are in confession time, I have to tell you…I’ve loved this song for a long time. A really really long time. You see, a few years ago I’d heard the story with this song. Apparently the man who wrote the song had his entire family tragically killed in a boating accident or something to that effect (it was much more complicated, but did involve a boat and death). One minute he was a happy man, 3 hours later his wife, kids, everything…gone. Read the rest of this entry »

I just had a weekend that is in the process of wrecking me.

It’s interesting that I spend half my time writing about how God is absent, how He doesn’t provide, and how I’m questioning if He really is who he says He is. Then, I’m proved wrong. He shows up, changes things more quickly than I’m ready for, and I’m frantic, just now it’s about what I’m supposed to do, instead of who God is.

This weekend I cannot help but feel like the gauntlet was thrown. Like the year that stretched out behind me was leading to decisions, and suddenly someone walked into my somewhat suspended life and said, “Jenni, it’s time.”

As in time for me to get up off the chair and start doing what I have been crying to do all year. And you know what my response is? Is it joy, and thanks, and relief? Wouldn’t that make me a nice person? Nope. I’m not nice. Instead, I cling to my chair and stammer, “But wait, this is all happening so fast! I don’t know if I’m ready! I don’t know what this is going to look like! Can’t I have more time?”

Don Miller Packs A Punch

As many of you might know, Miller’s new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years comes out this week, and he is in the midst of his book tour. I’m a  fanatic, so I went to two of their shows. HNB, playing his role as the amazing boyfriend, got me a signed copy of his book. Which, I did start reading last night, and I can tell you it’s going to surpass all of our Miller expectations. And if I can enter one advertisement, if Miller and  Susan Isaacs ( I did a book review of her book, Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir) if they are coming to your city, please go. They do not disappoint.

At one moment in Miller’s presentation, he is talking about the makings of a good story. When we make movies, there are certain principals that have to be there. One of them is plot line. And he said this phrase that has been stuck in my head since Friday.

He said, “In any movie there is a moment, when the hero looks toward the horizon, and decides that he wants something. He has a goal. And there has to be conflict to get there. He’s going to have to fight for it. It has to be a goal worth the fight.”

Why do those words haunt me? Because for the last year I have been fighting and grappling for my plot line. There have been seasons in my life where the plot and the goal was obvious: I went to college and got two degrees in four years and walked out with honors. Good job Jenni. I recklessly bought a ticket to New Zealand and spent 6 months overseas after college without a blink of an eye. It changed the trajectory of my life.

But this season, dang I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been floating. I’ve been wrestling for a year. And not just the professionalism part. Not just for a job to make money. For a direction, for a story, for a plot that is worth the fight.

So why is it then, that when I get a good hard look at that beautiful horizon line that I simply want to run back to my arm chair? I don’t want to speak the words out? That deciding to pick up the script and have a beautiful role in this story just seems too grandiose? That there is a real possibility of failure and hurt?

I don’t think I could look at myself in the mirror if I stayed in the brown armchair. I know I need to get my cahones about me. But, wow, does that thought wreck me.

What is wrecking you? What does your horizon look like? Are you in the midst of a great story? What are you waiting for?

I recently have discovered that I have a fascination with the word frustrated. Lately I say it a few times a day. Mostly under my breath while saying fleeting prayers, begging God to change the parts of my life that I don’t love.  “…God, I’m so frustrated…”

In a flight of curiosity, I typed each letter into dictionary.com. F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-E-D. As I read the responding entry, I couldn’t help but feel the pit in my stomach growing larger and larger with each line.

frus⋅trate:

[fruhs-treyt] -trat⋅ed, -trat⋅ing, adjective –verb (used with object)

1. to make (plans, efforts, etc.) worthless or of no avail; defeat, nullify

2. disappointed

3. having feelings of  or filled with frustration; dissatisfied

thwart:

–verb (used with object)

1. to oppose successfully; prevent

2. to baffle ( a plan or purpose). Read the rest of this entry »

Hiking, PCH, Honesty and Loneliness.

This Sunday, a good friend of mine and I headed down the coast for a good hike in the Canyon. You can’t beat a view like this:

What I like about this particular friend is that our friendship has been like a smooth wine or a sharp cheddar cheese in that it has gotten significantly more valuable to me over time. We have grown into one another, which has felt like an unexpected surprise and I like that.

Aside for my growing affection for this person,  I love that recently she has had a growing sense of self-awareness. She is asking some really hard questions about herself, including, “Am I hard to get to know? Am I a warm open person? Am I friendly? What type of  experience do people have when they first get to know me?” She isn’t asking to be affirmed, but really wants to know if there are areas where she needs to grow.

On our hike, she was mentioning that over the past few years she’s really battled a long and hard war with loneliness -constantly feeling left out, forgotten, not connected, and anxious about it. It’s like that feeling of junior high never left. However, in the past few months she’s  come to a place of acceptance in her war with loneliness.  It’s like a ghost that follows her around. A ghost that used to scare her. And now she simply turns to it and says, “Hi Loneliness. I know you’re there. And that’s ok.” Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you who are frequent readers, it might not come as a surprise that the conversation we started about sex might need some revisiting. The S-E-X article is one of the most read and most commented on, with all of you falling in various parts of the spectrum. Even several months after posting the piece, I am still having new people join the conversation. So I think it’s fair to conclude that we struck a nerve.

Knowing this I have wanted to do a follow up post, but for a long time I didn’t have anything new or profound to say about it. Last week however I read this really interesting article in Christianity Today by Mark Regnerus (which was sort of a big deal because normally I find Christianity Today WAY too conservative for my tastes). His article was called A Case for Early Marriage, and you can read the full piece here.

Regnerus takes the whole conversation of single Christian sexuality and adds an interesting twist, refocusing the conversation into something different than mere sex.  He points out that as a Christian culture, we are highly focused (and maybe over focused) on physical conservatism before marriage, but we are missing the larger issue. Instead of being focused on how to be able to wait longer and longer to have appropriate sex within marriage, he argues that we need to see the value of, and support young Christians entering into marriage. He illuminates the shift in culture away from marriage and commitment, happening both inside and outside of the Church.Yet at the same time, we haven’t allowed for any shifts in our thoughts surrounding sexuality. We have been left with an entire generation of Christians who are trying all of the virginity commitment gimmicks they can muster, while needing trying to abstain for a continually elongating period before marriage. And in the midst we are wondering why the Church’s 80% sexuality rate isn’t that much behind the world’s 90% rate.

In a single statement, Regnerus says that we don’t need to learn how to be more pure, we need to learn how to get married. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight while on a jog  around the bay, the night was so clear that the moon made mirror images on the water. Seeing that it’s a full moon at the moment, it was bright and the night was purple and blue and black – some of my favorite tones.

And while I pumped out all of my energy from the day, a memory resounded through my mind. A few years ago I was in the midst of another dark night lit by only the moon. I remember this moment very vividly – not only for the emotional significance, but for the astonishingly sharp visual that seemed to pair with it. It was the middle of the night when I was en route to New Zealand. In leaving LA, I was leaving behind a host of problems, my life was essentially in wreckage, and I was holding it all together with McGiver-style bubble gum and tape. Little did I know that when I landed in New Zealand I would promptly be deconstructed and begin the process of slowly piecing my life back  together. That moment on the plane was probably one of the darkest, more anxiety ridden nights of my life.

As I flew through the dark night, thousands of feet in the air, the darkness was piercing black. But the moon was soft white, illuminating the ocean as a blanket of sparking diamonds. The night was so clear that even from my height, I could make out the tiniest islands down there in the in the massive blue, and I could see the white caps of waves washing over beaches. It was honestly one of the most beautiful sites I have seen in my life. I remember specifically with tears in my eyes I whispered under my breath, “God I don’t know where you are, and I am scared sh*tless, but here I am.” Read the rest of this entry »

I have had lots of friends asking, “So how did the talks go?” since I have been back from speaking at Summer Camp this weekend. I have two words to describe this weekend:

1) Indescribable.

2) Hades.

Let me start with point two:

Yes, this is the one of the coolest days. The heat of the day is 127…and it’s 113 at night. Basically, you lay on top of your sleeping bag and try not to be miserably drowning in your own sweat until sleep over takes you.

Ok, onto the first point, which is obviously the better of the two.

Have you ever had a moment when you realize that you just stumbled upon something bigger than yourself? Talking to these kids this weekend was an experience that could be described as just a glimpse of the massive story that God is writing. It was for all intensive purposes…chilling.

I was sitting in church the weekend before when I got the inspiration for what I wanted to talk on. I had been praying for days, “God what do you want to tell these kids? Because I really don’t have much to say and it would be really embarrassing to just stand up there for four days.” Well, inspiration came like a flood.  Sitting there in the midst of a service, my mind began spinning, and I started asking complete strangers for a pen before I drowned in my own thoughts. I scribbled on bulletins – my own and other people’s as I desperately grabbed whatever I could get my hands on. Read the rest of this entry »