I haven’t posted in a long time. And a lot has happened in my life since I did. I feel like I need to write an update post that hits the highlights–seizures, God, hilarious disasters that have happened along the way, etc. And I will. But not tonight. Tonight I’m going to pretend there hasn’t been radio silence and just jump back into sharing what’s on my mind at the moment. Indulge me, please.

So there’s this trending project called 100 Happy Days. You can read about it here. You essentially take a photo every day for 100 days of what made you happy that day and send it to them or tag it on social media. Then if you make it to 100 days in a row, they put the photos in a book for you to commemorate your achievement. The point, I think, is to slow down and inject awareness, gratitude, and creativity into your own life on a daily basis.

It’s an idea that I like a lot. Partially because I love a good bandwagon to jump on. And partially because I think people are indeed happier when they make room for awareness and gratitude in daily life.

But as I was thinking about this catchy idea, I realized that for me there’s a more direct route to happiness. A more rewarding relationship I can invest in than simply the one with myself… I’m referring, of course, to my relationship with God. A relationship that I’ve been a little checked out of lately. So I’m doing my own version of 100 Happy Days.  I’m calling it 100 Faithful Days. 

What is it? Simple. It’s purposefully and consistently seeking and making the Lord a priority for 100 days.

As a Christian, that’s supposed to be what every day looks like, but for me that hasn’t been true lately. I’ve been stagnating, letting busyness and laziness and 100 other ‘nesses’ crowd out Christ. I’ve been disconnected from the source of real joy. And I’ve felt the absence.

So 100 Faithful Days. What are the parameters? There’s really only one. Spending at least an hour a day with the Lord. And–and this is critical–expecting the Lord to show up. This isn’t just skimming through my Bible and checking it off my list. I want more. Thankfully the last year has shown me that if I show up with an expectant heart and focus on the Lord, I always find Him.

From a mechanical perspective, I’m going to essentially have a standing 6 a.m. date with my Bible (ahem, and some coffee). Will I move it occasionally? I’m sure I will. Sometimes I get together with people very early in the morning and pouring into others is one of the ways that I live out my faith. In those cases I’ll push my quiet time back to a later part of the day. But other than an actual meeting with someone, I’ll be seeing my Bible bright and early every morning for the next 100 days. 100 Faithful Days. Hopefully 100 Fruitful Days. (Hmm… I like that too… maybe I’ll have to do 100 Fruitful Days next where I focus on reaching out in faith on a daily basis. One thing at a time.)

Where does this ‘extra’ time come from? Primarily from cutting down on things that take up time and add little or no real value. I’m working on evaluating how I commit my time by using a filter of ‘Is this helpful to my relationship with the Lord?’ (I could do an entire different post on how useful this one question has proven to be in just a few short days…). I’m sure this area will evolve over the course of this experiment, but I know right off the bat that it’ll involve cutting my Facebook and television time down to essentially as little as possible outside of relational interactions (e.g. I’ll return a FB message, but I’m not going to be opening FB unless I get a notification about something that relates to me… or have a post to put up, etc. No scrolling and stalking and envying the fake lives of others, which is invariably how I end up spending my time when I randomly wander over to Facebook.)

This isn’t really a bandwagon at the moment. Just me in my little cart. But if this idea appeals to you and you’d like to jump on it, I’m sure I can make room for you! Anyway, I’m excited. And I’ll wrap this up now because I need to get to bed before midnight. You know, so that I’m fresh for my big date in the morning.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

Lets dive right into the example that inspired this post. I have a friend who is a very intellectual person. She approaches life with a very orderly mind. This can get in her way when she tries to connect with others. Being prone to the same thing, I set out to discover why. (Don’t I sound like a TV reporter? In my head the TV reporter version of me has a British accent for some reason.)

Let’s continue using my friend–we’ll call her Jane–for illustrative purposes. Let’s pretend that Jane read a newspaper article that said that orange juice from Florida had tested positive for some potentially harmful carcinogen. (This is truly hypothetical. Keep drinking your OJ.)

If she were going to tell me about this potential danger during one of our many conversations (in which we regularly talk about our favorite breakfast drinks), she would say something like this:

“Oh, by the way, you can’t drink orange juice anymore.” Then she would wait.

And I would say: “What? Why?”

Then she would tell me about the potential carcinogen and reiterate that OJ from Florida was no longer an option for me. I would leave this exchange feeling vaguely frustrated with her for some reason. With a slight feeling that she wasn’t someone I wanted to confide in on a deeper level. Over orange juice.

I know this sounds ridiculous. Stick with me here…

Before we continue, keep it in the back of your mind that we’re not really talking about orange juice. It’s a placeholder for any opinion. Whether we should vaccinate our kids. The dangers of homeschooling (or not homeschooling) them. How single people should behave in relationships with one another. Whether gluten is the devil or a miracle food. Anything you have a strong opinion about that doesn’t come directly from the Bible.  

Okay, back to our example. When we left off, I was feeling frustrated and pulling back from Jane. And here’s what I realized. There’s a subtext implied in the OJ example. It’s well hidden in the way Jane delivered this seemingly harmless information, but I think it’s important.

Let’s break it down. (And you can sit in awe of my ability to overanalyze things…)

Step 1: Jane receives information and comes to a conclusion based on her own beliefs, preferences, etc. Apparently she’s pretty risk averse. Not everyone would change their behavior for a potentially-harmful-but-maybe-not-really carcinogen. Isn’t everything a carcinogen these days? But she’s a straight-laced kind of girl. You tell her it might be harmful and she decides that she’ll stop drinking OJ.

Step 2: She hears that I drink OJ.

Step 3: This is the kicker. She then had a choice. She could either (1) tell me the information she read and discuss it with me, allowing my preferences / experiences / risk aversion to factor into the conversation or (2) withhold the information she read and instead tell me that I can no longer drink OJ. She chose option 2.

By doing so she implied that (a) she didn’t trust my ability to process the original information and come to the “correct” conclusion (ahem, her conclusion) or (b) my own opinions / experiences were unimportant relative to her own superior judgement.

In reality she was probably just completely oblivious to how one-sided our conversation was. But even though she might not have intended to imply these negative things, I picked up on them. And I’m not the only one.

Regardless of our intentions, how we interact with people regarding the small, everyday things is all the data they have to guess how we’ll react regarding big, important, vulnerable things. If they’re put off by the way we discuss these trivial things, they’re never going to trust us with the important ones.

Whether you think I’m completely crazy for reading this much into this small example or not, what I’m saying is this: If our goal is to be in real community with one another–to invite broken people who need Christ to come a little closer so we can share with them the immense grace that God gives us on a daily basis–we can’t start by being arrogant about orange juice (or whatever other opinion of the day is our current favorite).

The little things matter. Is the way you’re communicating about them one that invites people to trust you with more?

Happy Monday!

You’ll have to excuse me. I’m fully aware that my current level of exuberance is really not appropriate for a Monday morning. But I had a good weekend and I’m excited about the possibilities for the week… and I just can’t seem to help myself. Feel free to substitute some kind of low, sad voice for mine in your head to counteract all the upbeat words I’m about to use. 

I have a story for you all. Just a snapshot, really, of the cool things God has been doing in my life. Pull up a carpet square and settle in for a few minutes. Here we go: 

I had a lunch date with a friend last week at Midtown Global Market. I can’t drive so I had to take the bus. And I had the best night of sleep ever the night before so I woke up too late to make coffee at home. These two factors conspired to put me at the market 25 minutes early. I got a coffee and a table and pulled out John Green’s Looking for Alaska.

Then a man came up with a tray and asked if he could sit at my table. Even though…yep, there were tons of empty tables all around us. I’m both a Minnesotan (ahem, polite) and a Moss (ahem, hostess genes) so my mouth said “yes” before my brain even had a chance to fully process whether that was a good idea. Something that has gotten me into some “interesting” situations in the past. In this case the man was older and disheveled. So I was prepared for this to be a potentially uncomfortable brush with crazy.

As I quickly pulled together the proper mental framework for this encounter, one of the many things that flitted through my mind was something a friend said recently about a homeless girl he met. He commented on how people avoided her instead of seeing her as a human being with inherent value. This comment kept playing in my head when the man who had crashed my table started to speak to me. I looked him in the eyes and tried to be both fully present and nonjudgemental.

What unfolded over the next 20 minutes between the two of us was one of the most honest conversations I’ve had in weeks. He’d been in the hospital recently for some serious health things and he’s up here away from his family and support system. At one point he looked at me and said “I feel like you’re a person who can understand how it feels, you know, when you’re limited. When God blesses you with something and then for a while you can’t do it anymore. How that feels.” At this point I hadn’t told him about my seizures (although I did later). That just floored me.

We ended up talking about everything from music (he played the piano professionally all his life…and agreed after a palm-to-palm comparison of our hands that my fingers are too short to ever successfully learn to play guitar…) to church to how God gives us just the right people to listen when we need them. I felt both blessed by and perfectly used during our conversation. I left floating on a cloud of awesome.

I also left that conversation with an amused smile because he told me he wished he’d read his horoscope that morning because it must have said he’d “Meet and fall in love with a beautiful white girl young enough to be his daughter.” To which I responded, “So, do you have a daughter?” You have to love old men. Everything that would be horribly creepy coming from someone our age sounds roughish and endearingly charming coming from them.

But wait! That’s not all. After my lunch with my friend, I got on a very crowded bus to go home. I had my book out and my face buried in it, but the man beside me ignored all social cues and insisted on talking to me. So I put my book away and let him. He proceeded to tell me about how he feels about riding the bus, some interesting stories from the very eclectic jobs he’s had, and about the mental breakdown slash depressive episode he had once.

He clearly just wanted someone to listen to him. Throughout our rather one-sided conversation, he maintained almost constant eye contact as if he were afraid that if he released my gaze, I would return to my book and refuse to reengage. Twenty five minutes later, we came to my stop. I shook his hand and told him maybe I’d see him again sometime. He grinned and I hopped off the bus (literally hopped… because I felt just that happy).

One of my favorite things in the entire Bible is Acts 2:42-47 (re: the fellowship of the believers). I love the image it paints globally of close community, but also the words it uses to describe the state of the hearts of the believers. Simply devoted, easily awed, glad, generous, continually praising. There’s a specific line that I kept thinking of that afternoon as I reflected on how joyful these two encounters made me: “And awe came upon every soul…”

I love that despite everything–all the information I have, how much I dissect and analyze things, every bad thing that I’ve ever seen or experienced that should make me jaded–God can so easily awe me by arranging a simple conversation. And that he cares enough to do so. That in the middle of all my tumultuous thoughts about the future, God so often says, “Here, look at this awesome thing that’s here right now.”

Also, while not being able to drive is easily in the top five things that cause me the most angst (I find it physically painful in some cases to have to ask people for rides over and over and over and…just shoot me now…over again), I can’t help but observe that neither of these connections would have been possible if I weren’t currently a bus rider.

That’s it. End of story. God did all of that in the span of four hours last week, so you can understand why I’m so excited to see what might happen in the full seven days ahead! Happy Monday friends.

“Breathing the Lord in and my self out. In and out. More of you. Less of my rebellious, insensitive crap.”

This is one of the ‘sticky notes’ on my desktop. I’m not sure at this point if it’s a quote of someone else or my own thought. Because I love quotes I usually lean towards attribution so I’m guessing it’s my own. Either way, it’s my daily companion.

It’s been an interesting six weeks for me. Six weeks during which I’ve had ZERO–yes, I said ZERO–seizures. (Hence the picture of fireworks…) Don’t get me started on the medical end of this complicated and hopefully permanent phenomenon… I’m busy being exceedingly thankful for it. God is beyond good in ways that, as usual, I could never have anticipated.

Now that I’m not all hopped up on anti-epileptic meds (or hopped down?) and am not randomly seizing every week or so… It’s time to get back to normal life. I’m working on that. But it takes a while to reverse all the things you have to put in place when you have such severe seizures. And in the interim I’m going a little stir crazy. And by a little, I of course me a lot. Because of my personality–outgoing, neurotic, high energy, relational–I’m particularly prone to stir crazy. And so the Lord and I have been wrestling. Really in my mind we’ve been circling one another. Like fighters before a sparring match. 

Let’s pause for a moment. Sparring with the Lord–who has infinite power and the best plan–seems unwise, right? I know. I AGREE. But… I can’t seem to help it. I want DIRECTION. I want the Lord to show me where I can be of the highest and best use for Him. And He’s been moderately silent on the issue. Okay, to be fair he’s only been about 47% silent. He’s been 53% clear. But the 47% is driving me crazy.

However, I don’t believe that He would string me along for no reason. I do believe that if revealing things in a more concrete way would serve the highest, best purpose, He would do so. Which leaves me in a bit of a bind. Because I have to accept that His purposes are served by a slower pace than what I desire.

And knowing that He desires a slower pace, I have to decide something important: Can I wait?

Will I find the self-discipline required to live here, in this tortuous ambiguity, for the time required? Can I accept that–not knowing His purpose–He has a higher purpose for His timing? My growth into a more effective tool, the enrichment of the relationships I’ll have to rely on in this time of uncertainty, the increase in effectiveness of my personal testimony through this additional time of struggle… really I have no idea what His goal is or why He would choose this path for me.

But I trust the Lord. That is an unshakable fact, thanks in large part to the trials of the last six months. So I trust that He has a purpose for this period of waiting. And I’ve settled into it a little. I hope the Lord surprises me with a great new direction, but I’m looking beyond that. How can I use the time in the interim? How best can I serve and build up and–thanks to my House Church leaders for their awesome messages this weekend–commit to my local church in ways that draw people to Christ? 

I love November and December. To me they mean more than just colorful leaves, family gatherings, hot chocolate, and cute boots. (Although I really, really love cute boots.) They’re a chance to reach out to our communities and share our physical and emotional wealth–to serve with happy and genuine hearts. It’s cliche and simplistic…and I don’t care. It matters. Those of us who have much–family, friends, hope, security… this time of year is a great opportunity to reach out to those who have little.

How could you be serving? What do you want to accomplish in the next eight weeks? 

Don’t miss out on the joy of reaching out during what’s left of 2013! Plan ahead, take a friend, and see what happens  

“I think Mom and Dad should have gotten you tested for autism.” 

She was referring to the fact that I’m highly tactile. I run my fingers along clothing to see how they feel. The other day I touched someone’s shaved head and literally jumped six inches in the air because it didn’t feel how I expected. (Sooooo weird. Do not touch shaved heads. They feel super weird.)

I have a visceral reaction to the minute details of the texture of things. If I was on the fence about dating someone and they started wearing a lot of flannel and really soft t-shirts, I’d probably date them. (Just kidding. Mostly. Obviously they’d also have to be awesome and love Jesus and… Again, we’re not always as deep as we’d like to be.)

But I also love the non-tactile details of people. The words they use. The things that make them feel awkward. Their senses of humor. The way their eyes crinkle when they laugh. Whether they look service people in the eye. Whether they can sit in silence and be relaxed.

When we don’t know people, we tend to see them for what they represent rather than who they are. A barista or an accountant. A quiet person or a loud one. Short or tall. Funny or serious. Our brain automatically applies a cross section of categories to each person we meet. And they get filed away under those generalizations until we actually get to know them. If we ever bother to.

The people who I love the most are the ones whose details I know the best. The ones who I would find hard to describe if you asked me to, rather than the ones that are still languishing under their generic tags of career, height, and personality type. Because they’re so much more than their labels. 

I think this is the way that God loves us. For our quirky details. For our unique compilation of brilliant attributes and heartbreaking flaws. Loving our courage and comforting us in our shortcomings. Encouraging us to try again. Helping us discover that our highest, best selves are worth striving for.

There’s something profound about being known in this way by another person. Being seen. It’s inherently intimate and infinitely valuable when someone unexpected sees you. It shocks me every time. Most of the time it gives me courage. If this person really sees me and loves me anyway, then maybe it’s okay to let down a few walls. To let a few other people see the unique compilation of characteristics that make me unique. Maybe they’ll approve as well. It’s a heady feeling.

What strikes me is how often fear stops us from expressing our affection for people. When we see others–really take the time to see them–and approve of them, it’s easy for us to be silent instead of encouraging them. Maybe we’re busy and it doesn’t occur to us to communicate our approval. Maybe we’re afraid they’ll misinterpret our approval. Maybe they seem confident and we don’t think it’ll matter. But it does matter. I’ve never met someone who walks around feeling too valued or too comfortable with themselves.

I’m going to try to be better about expressing my approval and affection in my relationships this week. How much I enjoy the tiny, small, beautifully flawed details of those I love. And see what happens. My prediction would be a lot of smiles. And some trust. Maybe some awkwardness (a feeling we’re all going to have to get used to because it seems to be associated with 99% of the growth-oriented activities we pursue). But I’m betting the good out-weighs the bad. Hopefully in some unexpected and charming ways.

“Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.” ― David Byrne

Sorry about that. I’ve had a lot on my mind and heart lately. You’d think this would generate posts, but it has the opposite effect.

I seem to be accumulating things to blog about. This creates a problem. Whenever I sit down to blog, I look over at my mental pile of ideas and am immediately overwhelmed. So I write a little, but it feels forced and uninspired, like writing in a weird self-created sweat shop. I end up trashing everything.

And the silence continues. And grows. And starts to breath. And then when I sit down to write, I’m sitting between a mountain of shadowy, vague ideas on one side and a breathing, intimidating silence on the other. So I go watch Criminal Minds instead. Or make more coffee. Or… you get the idea.

It occurred to me this morning as I sat down to try what has become a rather discouraging ritual that this is like so much else in life. Once you get in a routine that involves chickening out at the last second, it’s hard to break out of it. Walking up to the door to a new church and then not going in. Picking up the phone to call someone and then putting it down. Drafting an email and never sending it. Rescheduling your scary dentist appointment over and over again.

Maybe the first time you’re giving yourself a break. That’s good. Emotional flexibility is a valuable skill. But by the fifth time you run up to something only to ditch out on it at the last second, we have to call this what it is–cowardice. Don’t get all offended, I’m not calling you a coward. Doing something cowardly doesn’t make you a coward. Just like going on one run doesn’t make you a runner. But this one loop you’re stuck in happens to be a cowardly one.

And it’s going to take some courage to break.

A very specific type of courage. The courage to fail. To fail at being charming and likable and perfect. Isn’t that what we’re really afraid of? I’m afraid to write something none of you will like. You’re afraid that walking into that new church will be awkward and no one will like you.

But guess what? Perfect is overrated. I always end up loving people the most for their weird little imperfections. (Seriously… it’s ridiculous how much I love imperfection. More on that some other time.) In real life, perfect isn’t even an option most of the time. As well as you can do at the moment. That’s the only realistic option you have. Maybe your best reaches the lofty heights of perfection and maybe it doesn’t. Either way your best is all you’ve got.

Waiting for perfect translates to doing nothing, which is much less perfect than just doing your best and moving on. And that moment of your best that falls seriously short of perfect… well, it’s good you got that out of the way so you can do better next time. And you broke the loop, which is valuable in itself.

So that’s what this post is. Shaking it off. Getting unstuck. I’ll see you tomorrow with something more inspired. For today it’s enough that I’m breaking the loop.

Is there one you should be breaking too? 

“Anything I can do for you? Shall I consult the list?” 

This is what one of my friends asked me this week via text. The list she’s referring to is the one I threw together for my “How You Can Help While I’m In The Hospital” post. It’s a list of things that make me feel loved, seen, cared for, or amused. Coffee. Mixed CDs. Sunflowers. Hilarious 2 a.m. emails. That kind of thing.

I laughed when I read her text. Because she was serious. And because sometimes it really is just that easy to make someone feel loved.

It’s actually my current pet project…a speech I keep giving to anyone who dares to ask me for advice on anything. Because at the end of the day, 99% of the things people ask for advice on are relationship problems. And I’m becoming more and more convinced that we could solve 90% of them if we realized three truths.

Three Relationship Truths, Sherlock Holmes Style

1. There are specific, little things that make each one of us feel loved. Or if love is too strong a word for you, think of the things that bring that instant smile to your face. One morning I opened my refrigerator to find a big jar of iced coffee sitting front and center with a yellow post it stuck on the front that said “THE Kate Moss.” Instant smile. It was from a friend and this particular delivery method told me in one second that he knew me, had thought about me, and had taken the time to do something nice to make my day brighter. Perfect. (Yes, I realize that all my examples of feeling cared for are disproportionately skewed towards coffee consumption. Sometimes we’re not as deep as we wish we were.)

2. When we recognize those things and let the people in our lives know what they are, we give them amazingly powerful tools to show us they love us. When I was in the hospital, I told people what makes me feel loved. This didn’t change whether or not they love me. It changed whether or not they felt equipped to express their affection. Loving others can be hard. It’s hard to predict how someone will interpret a specific gesture. By taking some of the guess work out of it, I eliminated some of the natural fear and indecision that goes with communicating our feelings and which often leaves us stalled out on the “thinking about doing something nice” stage and never reaching the “actually reaching out and connecting” stage.

3. When a relationship is woven together by consistent, small acts of love, two great things happen. First, we feel more secure in relationships and can let down walls that might not otherwise come down. This allows us to engage more deeply with others and to grow! Second, big relational conflicts are less likely to end relationships because they’re taken in the context of a much larger, more solid connection. One fight doesn’t become the one symbolic image we see when we think of the other person. We have more reason to fight back our pride and work through things.

Taken together, these three things create better relationships and encourage UNITY among us. (Unity is good. See Ephesians 4.)

Of course, this entire strategy is based on a key factor: having a list of what makes people feel loved. How do you get one? 

If you’re me, you just ask. I know, it’s not an elegant approach, but it’s an effective one. And I’m pretty comfortable telling people that I love them and want to know how to love them better.

But sometimes you feel like you can’t ask.

Maybe the person is too important to you and asking would be scary (Strangely, sometimes this is how I feel with family members. That if I actually knew their lists I would feel bad when I didn’t do those things all the time. And once again, relationships are messy!).

Or sometimes you can’t ask because it would be inappropriate or misinterpreted in your relationship. In my case (going in to the hospital), it felt very appropriate to give my broad support structure my list. I have tons of guy friends who were amazingly supportive because they did stuff off the list. But if I emailed one of them specifically and asked him for a list and then started doing stuff for him… that would obviously be a whole different scenario.

But just because you can’t ask, doesn’t mean you can’t have the list! If you sat down and thought about a specific person you know, I bet you can think of five things that would be on their list. People are pretty transparent about things that bring them joy if you’re paying attention. Watch, wait, ask questions, listen, experiment…. it’s not nearly as hard as you’d think. (Or I’m inordinately good at stalking people and excessively nosey, which makes it particularly easy for me. In which case, let me know who you want a list on and I’ll extract one from them for you. Just kidding. Mostly.)

And finally, Sherlock Holmes endorses me theory, as evidenced by this quote (which is definitely NOT taken out of context):

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. — Arthur Conan Doyle

So…who could you try my theory out on? I’m starting with Rock women that I’m close to. For the most part, I don’t have to ask them for their lists. I already know them. I just have to remember to use the lists I have. Which is harder than you’d think.

But being proactive has really blessed some of these relationships already! Possibly because just the act of being intentional about loving these women has changed how I view them. My own perspective is a more forgiving one. My heart hurts more for the things that they struggle with and my brain thinks less about how they should be acting. My view of these relationships is more long-term. More about doing life together and mutual growth than showing up when that person is in crisis and wants help and then walking away. Friend instead of problem solver. Highly recommended. 

Give it a shot!

After my journey through sleep deprivation last week, you’d think I’d be catching up on sleep this week.

But no. I woke up at 2 a.m. this morning with my brain suddenly on. Not pleasantly groggy. More like someone suddenly flipped the lights on. Instant alertness and a little adrenaline.

Normally, I can wait it out and fall back to sleep. But in this case my brain was writing. And my right hand can only flex so many times from wanting to write down a specific paragraph or idea before I break and head to a computer. So here I am at 3 a.m.

And I’m thinking about best friends and blind spots. Mine, in particular.

First of all, I have commitment issues.

I stopped having best friends in high school. Possibly because I was easy to get near but surprisingly hard to get close to. (Something I’m always working on.)

And because I was lazy in relationships. At the first hassle, I’d casually move on to a new person. It sounds callous, but I think it’s actually that illusion we’re all chasing so often in relationships–the illusive click. The tempting idea that somehow, someday, with the right person, it’ll just be easy. The perfect fit. And if it gets hard, then you’re supposed to keep looking. 

Anyway, I went almost a decade operating under this philosophy. Even in the four years that I’ve been part of The Rock community–where I’ve had the deepest, most consistent relationships of my life–I’ve been mediocre at commitment.

I had a very set pattern. I’d jump into relationships and explore them until I came up against some kind of resistance (consistent schedule conflicts, extremes of opinion, misunderstandings…. pretty much anything would work). Once I hit resistance, I’d leave that relationship stalled forever while I moved on in search of easier connection. Just look at all the new people around here whose secrets I haven’t uncovered yet. Maybe one of them will be the magic click, right?

Then I met Courtney Krogstad (formerly McCain, formerly… something else when we first met that I can’t remember). She’s the one wearing the pretty green dress in the far left in the picture above.

Let’s be clear… we were not friends right away. We’re opposite in almost every way. Outside, inside… every way. My sister saw a picture of us standing next to one another in a large group early in our relationship and asked about Court specifically because she didn’t look like anyone I would normally be friends with. (That’s sounds negative, but my sister didn’t mean it that way. And don’t worry, Court knows this story. We were laughing about it this evening.)

Luckily one of our opposite characteristics is that Courtney is incredibly persistent in relationships. And leads with her emotions. Without Christ, I lead with my intellect. We don’t fit? I move on. With Court if you don’t fit, she grabs you and refuses to let you go until you’ve worked through why. Or she doesn’t realize that you don’t fit and just keeps at it until you get addicted to her awesomeness and break years of habit to actually stick things out with her. A little of both, in my case.

Anyway, despite being very close friends for three years, it still threw me for a loop when she introduced me to someone as her “best friend.” It was comical actually. I had a very clear image of how a guy must feel when a girl suddenly introduces him as her “boyfriend” without discussing it with him first.

I smiled on the surface, but inside I was actually panicking. Best friend? What? But… what? I didn’t do best friends. Was this girl crazy? I had this irrational fear that I was going to get hurt if we were in that kind of relationship and I knew for certain that I would end up hurting her along the way.

It took me about six months to get used to the idea of being her best friend. Which is hilarious because Courtney loves a good label. Once she started calling me her best friend, she called me that all the time. Most people introduce me as “Kate Moss.” Courtney introduced me as “my best friend Kate.” To everyone. People who did not need to know that we were best friends. Like the grocery store clerk. Meanwhile, somewhere around month six, it stopped freaking me out.

At month nine, I discovered that underneath the part of me that preferred a relationship exit strategy and was having panic attacks, there was a fragile part that craved the kind of instantly committed relationships we form (if we’re lucky) as kids. Kids don’t think about whether the kid next door might move away or like different toys. They decide to be friends and that’s it. They just are. It’s preemptive, not contingent. That’s what Court was offering.

At month ten, I referred to her as my best friend. It’s hard to describe how that felt. Like finally accepting a gift you really wanted but were afraid someone was going to take away if you dared to touch it. (Don’t laugh. I was legitimately nervous the first time I said “best friend.”)

And tonight, four years after we met and twelve months after she started calling me her best friend, we sat on my porch and spent four hours laughing together, seriously challenging one another on decisions we were making and/or the heart behind those decisions, encouraging one another in our faith, sharing the joys of recent victories and empathizing over trials and heartbreaks. And talking about what a miracle our friendship is and how sustaining it has been for both of us.

“The best mirror is an old friend.” — George Herbert

Which brings me to blind spots. A week ago I gave Court a speech. She had an opinion about something and wanted to express it to a friend to help them. My speech was about not getting so focused on the point she wanted to express that she lost sight of the primary goal of the conversation. Not to be so busy trying to fix a problem or communicate her opinion that she forgot that she wanted this person to walk away from the conversation with a feeling of being loved, above and beyond all else. If she couldn’t get to the problem in that conversation, she should push it back to the next one. Love had to come across first.

Tonight I was despairing of making progress in a specific situation with a different friend. I was talking it through with Court, but I’d pretty much given up already. I was frustrated. I’d been mentally circling around and around it and I could not think of any approach to take that would result in the person I wanted to help recognizing and working through something that’s really holding them back. I could already feel how that conversation would go. It involved me being too direct, the other person being too afraid to jump in and engage with me, and us both walking away frustrated.

Court listened. And listened. Then, when I took a breath to refuel for another five minutes of talking the problem to death, she looked at me and said “What’s the most important thing for her to walk away from this conversation with?” (These were my exact words from the week before.)

I stared at her for a full minute while the gears in my head tried to shift. And then I shouted “That she is loved! How did I miss that? The problem solving can wait for the second conversation. Or the third conversation. What was I thinking?” And laughed with joy. Because I would never have caught that on my own. It was in one of my (many) blind spots. Blind spots Court can see into because we’re complete opposites. And because our God gives us just what we need–both personally and to be the best tools for reaching others–even when we don’t know to ask for it. Because I would never have been smart enough to ask for a Courtney Krogstad.

Okay, end of sappy 3 a.m. rambling reflection on the wonders of friendship….

I’m always impressed when I see someone who is really skilled at either. Men (or women!) for whom angles and cuts and stains are second nature. And writers who can jack open whole new corridors of my mind with just the right words. Who use words as crowbars.

Today I was planning on writing about something else entirely, but in doing my research I ran across Daughter of Pearl, the blog of one Meg Baatz.

I do not know Meg. I was trying to find an old faithwalkers message where someone (Josh Whitney?) talked about using the “three before me” principle with new people at church. I’ve been thinking about using it in a broader life context. More about that in the next post. (Also, if you know the message I’m talking about, you should email or FB me! I’ve listened to it at least three times but can’t for the life of me remember which year it’s from or who gave it.)

Anyway, I ran across her blog. And immediately liked her writing style. Then I clicked on her About me page and liked her even more. Then I clicked through to her most recent post, and it was love. (Hopefully she’s not reading this, because that’s just awkward… but true.)

There were two things in particular that she wrote that resonated with me. That perfect kind of resonance that’s so rare. I always picture a tuning fork or a bell. Running across someone else who in a specific moment was feeling an emotion that vibrates at the exact same frequency as one I’m experiencing. Probably on my top ten favorite things to happen in life. Instant connection. 

First, she described planning her birthday party by saying: “I wanted it to be this amazing thing in the mountains where a bunch of people come to the mountains, play games, sing songs, and connect with God in a way they otherwise wouldn’t when the tyranny of life separates us like lonely coals that aren’t hot anymore because they aren’t together.”

Stop. Now. Reread the last half of that sentence. This is exactly how I feel about the things that drive us apart in life–time, drama, priorities, miscommunications, selfishness. Like I said, love at first “write.” (Ted Birt, that one was for you…)

So she already had me hooked. Then she said this: “Is there anyone who has not been so scarred by unmet expectations in the church that they have completely lost any pure, untainted sense of the ideals and virtues which we are commanded to pursue?”

Ummm, was she watching me yesterday or something? I spent half the day walking around in a cloud of “I can’t believe that this is really the way we’re behaving, that we’ve gotten so far lost in our own drama that we’re missing the entire, joyful, life-affirming point.” (Don’t worry, I spent a few hours wandering around in the woods and have fully recovered my optimism. Well, at least partially recovered anyway. Like 83% recovered. And, like I keep saying, actually being engaged with others is a messy business. Expect a few bruises.)

So instead of writing a post of my own, I wanted to use this one to introduce you to Meg. I think she has pretty epic things to say. Ten seconds into reading her writing I was thinking, “Wow, I wish I could write as well as this girl” and regretting that I didn’t have hours to compulsively read through her prior posts.

Her blog has its own Facebook page that has a good overview of her recent posts magazine-style. You won’t regret stopping by. Highly recommended. 

Love running across people who are honest about the struggles and joys of pursuing the Lord! Instant good day. 

My stomach still rolls at the thought of that room. I may never be able to wear my favorite perfume again because it now reminds me of the hospital. My body is still coming out of some kind of shock that happens when you’re not eating, not sleeping, not moving, and being really stressed out for 8 days. I love words and I know with absolute certainty that I’ll never have the right ones to communicate to someone else how traumatic this particular kind of isolation was for me. Easily the worst experience of my life. Horrific. 

But my heart overflows when I think of all the ways that my friends, family, and the Lord were there for me. Something about being so deprived of other distractions and so buried in a single, unchangeable miserable moment makes joyful things starkly, glaringly bright. As it is, I could make a list that went on for pages of all the moments that made joy rip through my heart. How very well loved I felt. By everyone. And especially by the Lord. Brilliant. 

I drafted about 30 posts while I was there, but didn’t put any of them up because opinions formed under such extremes tend to be skewed. I’m letting them sit so I can revisit them with a less extreme eye. But many posts to come either way.

I can’t recall ever going through such an acute emotional, spiritual, and psychological recalibration so–as you can imagine–my brain is on overdrive processing through all the changes in perspective.

I’ve been out walking around all day, just enjoying being free and alive and in love with the Lord’s creation, and I keep stopping every five minutes to jot down something on my “have to blog about this” list. Excited to share some of those things with you guys in the upcoming days and weeks.

But for now… I’m home. I’m fine. And I’m thankful.