We look for feelings that make us believe that a certain city, a certain set of people, a certain house, a certain career, a certain person to share a bed with every night, add up to a natural, “home” kind of environment for our unique little soul. A setting where [...]]]> Home is a funny thing.

We look for feelings that make us believe that a certain city, a certain set of people, a certain house, a certain career, a certain person to share a bed with every night, add up to a natural, “home” kind of environment for our unique little soul. A setting where we fit. A life uniquely tailored to who we turned out to be.

What if home is a place you burrow out when you involve yourself in something? When you sink in deep and wiggle around and make space for yourself somewhere? Sometimes I wonder if home is more like a mold…when you really allow yourself to be embedded in the world around you, no matter where you are, you create a space that does actually perfectly fit you – not because it was created just for you before you got there, but because you allowed people and relationships and ideas and experiences to get close enough to your very skin that you are the only person who can fill that space. The only person who can fulfill the requirements of and fully comprehend the joy of the environment you inhabit.

How is this about my life? I bought a house. It’s adorable, and I plan to post pictures of the renovation process if you’re curious. I was born about 20 minutes away. I can see my middle school from my front door. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to call this “home,” at least not deep down in my heart.

I have chosen, for the moment, to live fully where I am. I met my neighbors. I spent an hour and a half with the woman who owns the gelateria down the street discussing why I believe there is hope for her children and their generation. I think my dog likes it here. My past, my personality, my ways of engaging people, my thoughts, my desires for my future all fit here because I am making a space for them all. And when I need to go somewhere else, I want to live fully where I will be then. And my past, my personality, my ways of engaging people, my thoughts, my desires for my future will fit there too because I will make a space for them all.

My Father knows me and he actually is preparing a place for me – I believe that and I dream about that and one of the most undiscussed desires of my heart is to be in that place. But I cannot help but notice that I am finding my place in that relationship already, sinking deep and wiggling around and learning who exactly I am in his eyes. And I hope that I will always be living as fully as I possibly can with him between now and then, finding my place in the kingdom that is near at hand and will never end.

Oh wait…no, that’s just what Taliyah thinks. No big deal. I’m old to a 14-year-old :)

23, actually. I’m turning 23. I almost typed out some words of joy about this little bracket of time in my life, but I choked up a little, so I’ll let that speak for [...]]]> I’m turning 30 this month.

Oh wait…no, that’s just what Taliyah thinks. No big deal. I’m old to a 14-year-old :)

23, actually. I’m turning 23. I almost typed out some words of joy about this little bracket of time in my life, but I choked up a little, so I’ll let that speak for itself.

I’ve been thinking a lot about protecting people lately, so that seems to be the theme working itself out in the beginning of my 23rd year. Protecting other people’s health, other people’s relationships, other people’s stress level, other people. Being responsible for something other than myself and what affects me. Carrying the weight of the growth and well-being of some of the people in my life.

Don’t worry – I’m a balancer. I’m very aware of needing someone to stand next to me with MY stuff too. And, thank God for the structure of his family, I’ve got that.

But not just carry things. Actually PROTECT certain specific things. Fight hard for some of the marriages I’m closely tied to. Shelter little flames of passion in certain very pure hearts that desperately want to become/help me become a better disciple of Jesus. Guard the peace of my home (roommate transition 1-of-who-knows-how-many is gonna kill me, and I miss Casey already, but it’ll be wonderful in the end). Grow as deep as I possibly, possibly can in the art of intercession (read: war). Oh so many ways God is prepping me for things I never, ever, ever, EVER would have pictured myself doing. I’m not exactly a fighter.

But God is. And he’s my teacher. And this was his idea more than it was mine. And it’s gonna be ok.

:-)

I think I’ve decided on what I’ve found myself made of recently…

Glass.

If we take a hike back to Chem 101, glass is a fluid. But every single thing about your [...]]]> Sugar and spice, and everything nice. Putty. Stone. Variables. Contradictions. Flesh and bone. Mind, body, and spirit. Experiences and beliefs. Beauty. Filth.

I think I’ve decided on what I’ve found myself made of recently…

Glass.

If we take a hike back to Chem 101, glass is a fluid. But every single thing about your personal experience with glass will tell you exactly the opposite – if you’ve ever been sliced by a broken window pane, or had a tiny piece of a shattered bottle embedded in your bare foot, you would say that it is, if nothing else, more solid than you are.

If you observe it long enough, though, you’ll see what it really is. Because as decades pass, the fluid flows slowly, slowly, until it noticeably accumulates heavier at the bottom of a window frame.

So here’s what I know about me:¬† What you can know about me, like so many people, is rather dependent upon how long you have been interacting with or observing me. But, somewhat counter-intuitively, those initial impressions are probably very close to the truth. Make no mistake, shattered glass is sharp and will cut through your skin (just in case you were wondering)…if I throw something with a relatively mild force behind it at a relatively thick pane, the thing will often bounce right back at me…and these are facts, not just misperceptions. But it is also a fact that, given enough time, your experience will also tell you that glass is really a fluid. And you would never know that if you walk away after your projectile bounces off of it and never come back.

If you lean on me, I’ll often be strong enough to support you. With a hard hit, I can crack. These things are true. But the deeper reality is that I am made of something softer than a quick collision might imply…I need more than just my own strength to carry too much weight, because over time my softness becomes evident. And the cracks never last forever, because my soul is soft enough to flow back into wholeness. And I’m starting to notice that the better I know Jesus, the better I can allow him to be the strength I cannot be forever and the healing for the cracks I cannot fix quickly enough.

Glass is also transparent. But that’s a whole other issue…

My job is to take ideas and make them [...]]]> Today is Saturday. And I almost went into work again. Not because I’m so overwhelmed with work that I need to catch up (even though I probably do). Not because I forgot and thought it was Friday. Not because I’m a workaholic. Because I wanted to.

My job is to take ideas and make them 3-D, then communicate it through pictures to someone who makes it a reality. I haven’t climbed a wind turbine, but I am putting one together piece-by-piece. Every cable, bracket, washer, bolt, bearing, and gear.

And there is an art to it. I not only sculpt these parts from simple shapes, I have to build them as simply and clearly as possible. That information is communicated through a drawing, where dimensioning schemes and tolerances have to cooperate to ensure a functioning assembly. I control the clear expression of information. There is no single “right” way to take a 3-meter-diameter cast metal rotor hub with hundreds of holes, fill five sheets with different views and sections and angles, and produce something that can be handed all by itself to a machine shop to create the final product.

And you’d better believe it’s fun. Frustrating sometimes, sure, but let’s be serious – I get to DESIGN all day long. Model and put together machines that take WIND and make them ELECTRICITY. How crazy cool is that?

I think most of this came about because my fingers are tingling to do something artistic. I want to balance out my visual, virtual job with a visual, physical art – which has been pushing me toward pottery/ceramics, since I anticipate very little success with paint :) But in thinking about why art is so refreshing to me, I took a good look at my work and realized that a lot of the reasons I appreciate creating apply in my office too.

So basically, I’m thankful today for that.

This is especially true about faith. [...]]]> I never liked to cry much that I remember. I was “logical”. I’m a scientist. I don’t like to be swayed by my feelings, and I enjoy consistency. I probably give in to emotion more than I realize, but I don’t like the idea of reacting subjectively to life.

This is especially true about faith. My most debilitating fear was that all faith has been subverted by emotion. When some feel calm, or feel happy, or feel like being a friend, or feel like going, or feel like changing jobs, it must be God. As though God hijacked just our feelings and now everything we feel is a sign from him. I have not often considered myself to be a “spiritually sensitive” person, and so my quest to determine how spirituality is different from continually giving in to feelings has been a rough one from its beginning years ago.

So I turned to what I now realize was an intellectual pursuit of God, since that is what I believed was missing. The more I knew about him, the more I would understand him and the closer I could be to him (what I learned from that alone might end up in a whole entry by itself). And I ended up with a list of questions a thousand miles long – a lot of beautiful understanding as well, but lots of questions. My crisis of faith was wrapped around the things I couldn’t explain or argue through. And I lashed out at emotionality again, thinking how useless that would be to my questions.

And then I temporarily put just one big toe in the water of what I will call “physicality” – wanting to see spiritual things manifested in a physical way. Wanting to see, hear, touch. A little bit angry that so little of the spiritual realm is ever physically apparent. Questioning why.

All of this because I wanted to find out what it means to be spiritual. I thought a simple thought a few weeks ago that hasn’t left me yet. “God created my emotions.”

It started there, and has grown in my heart to be something much more important. God could have created me to be purely physical, intellectual, and spiritual. But no, made me an emotional creature as well. And I am to love him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength – notice which one is first? The heart. The emotions. He loves my feelings. I am starting to see WHY the first commandment is what it is. Spirituality is not entirely separate from FEELING things, or LEARNING things, or SEEING things, any more than it is JUST feeling or learning or seeing. I am entirely knit together by a God who loves my intricately woven design – he made me this way. We are a complex project, we humans. Somehow each of these layers of who we are exist very distinctly from one another, and yet they flow together and need each other.

In an Eden world, I would see and hear and walk with God. I would have a spiritual communion with his Spirit. I would know and learn about his character and his deeds and his creation. And I would be overwhelmed with emotion and adoration, I’m sure! What if God, temporarily distant in many ways until he completely redeems it all, really does interact with us in all of these ways now?

So here I am, learning how to love God with the emotions he gave me. Not be controlled by them or satisfied with only knowing God emotionally. Not stifle them and fear them, considering them weakness, but understanding them and allowing them to be used for his purposes. What an amazing thing to be overcome by compassion and moved to action. To actually feel deep hatred toward sin. To be emotionally and physically and spiritually and intellectually CALM.

God loves my emotions. What an odd thought.

I turned down a job interview a few months ago as an engineer in orthopaedic device design at one of the largest of such companies in [...]]]> I just closed a browser tab on a church in Memphis I visited while I was there with FCA. The next two will be of job listings in Memphis.

I turned down a job interview a few months ago as an engineer in orthopaedic device design at one of the largest of such companies in the country – in Memphis. A city I grew to love very deeply in a very short time. There are actually two major medical device design facilities nearby. I can now find at least half a dozen job postings I qualify for on both websites that would be exactly what I hope to be doing as a career one day soon.

And I am not moving to Memphis.

I think I say that more for my confidence in it than for anyone else’s information. If you know me well, you know I’m intentionally digging in roots here. I need a phase of life that is not transient. Where I can learn consistency and long-term dedication and devotion. Sure, college was four years of being in the same spot, the same phase – but it was also one of the most wholly transitional times of my life. The most consistent thing was living in the same apartment for (almost) two years.

There is a (hopefully dying) part of my pride that recoils every time I have to tell someone I am STILL living in my hometown. Not working in the career field I have a passion for. Not feeling like I am changing anyone’s life with my 9-5, even though I have pretty good experience with that feeling and could even take THAT job again (if I wanted to move 1500 miles away). But there is a growing humility in the fact that I am thrilled to be exactly where I am, and I chose this.

I chose my family, because for right now we are all in the same place and it will not always be this way. I chose my job, because with all of its imperfections I find so much joy in the people and the opportunities I have to be helpful and kind in a corporate culture of stress and selfishness. I chose a few close friendships that have developed out of older, more casual friendships that I really don’t think I could give up now. I chose to be molded into the family of Radius to learn from those who have done very well what I am called to do well in my future and to develop a mature dependence upon the living God with others who also desire to be disciples. I chose my roommate, because she makes my heart happy and only has a short amount of time to be here and enjoy MY city before she moves on. I chose my mentee – I don’t even know her yet and I love her (January, get here faster!).

I chose my city. Because I love Memphis, but it is not my city yet. My heart is here. I am being trained here. I walk the streets of downtown sometimes to ask God how I can see it more and more the way he does. Love it more.

I need the roots to remind me on mornings like this one that one day, I might be released to go. But not today.

“Truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall [...]]]> And to think, I really believed I didn’t like Christmas music. Sometimes the third verse of a song can surprise you.

“Truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease.”

I heard this on the radio today, while I was feeling a little grumpy because of all of the Christmas music. Now don’t misunderstand: I am by no means a grinch. I just don’t like how Christmas starts before Halloween now, and my recoil is to start desiring Christmas music on December 22 or so. I am actively training this out of my personality, don’t worry.

But today I was grumpy, and when I tuned back into what was playing it was the third verse of O Holy Night. This is such a gorgeous snapshot of the things I long for my life to project as a disciple of the one whose human life began on said holy night. Why?

1) Jesus taught us to love. The first and second commandments, mind you.

2) I sometimes fail to think of salvation and the message of the gospel as peace. I am easily frustrated with the misconception that salvation spawns a lack of conflict. That idea produces spiritual soldiers who not only have no idea that they are armed, but who also have no idea that they are, in fact, in a war. Peace, however – peace with God on multiple levels, peace in one’s heart that stems from the hope of the gospel, peace with neighbor… – that is quite different. It is one of a few often-quoted indicators of a life lived in the promised Spirit of God.

3) Jesus brought us freedom. I am starting to see how vital freedom is to my heart as a disciple of Christ. Pursuing righteousness has frightfully little to do with pursuing legalistic self improvement. In fact, as I have started to see areas where I rely upon certain things or behaviors to fulfill me, I have begun to crave the chance to be free from that kind of control. Discipline has become kind of lovely to me. Through it I have the ability to choose culturally confusing, expectation-independent, freeing and beautiful options.

And this brings me to my recent “what if” moments. I hesitate to share them specifically for fear that someone will think that I would prescribe this exact experiment for everyone – but for clarity’s sake I’ll go with it:

I realized earlier this month, while spending a short amount of time studying darkness in and around my life, that I do not willingly leave my house without makeup on. If you know me at all, you’ll probably think that’s strange because I really wear very little makeup to begin with (mostly because I am completely untrained in and baffled by this skill). But a part of me relies on that short and simple routine every morning to feel prepared to present myself to the world. Is makeup wrong? I don’t think so. But on that one particular morning, I suddenly felt like my habitual application of a designated quantity of makeup was slapping my Designer and Creator and Husband in the face because of how very difficult it would be for my self-image if I were to give it up. I was telling him that I personally believed I was not whole. I needed to change something about my face or I would be uncomfortable in public. I wasn’t even changing much, but that in itself showed just how much of a hold the idea of beautification had on me. So, what if…I just didn’t wear any?

I could give up makeup for a while out of guilt or legalism. But instead I am giving it up out of a desire to be rid of that sick need I never noticed until now. I’ve already had a few chances to share my reasons and my delight in the results. I just want to be free from everything except that which I have chosen to chain myself to for the sake of the kingdom of God. I love freedom. I love that my confidence is being re-shaped solely around the fact that I am enough for a King to be enthralled with. And I love having extra time in the morning to do something – ANYTHING – besides stare at myself in the mirror and ignore why it’s called a “vanity.”

This is just the thing I happen to have attacked first in this little quest. It’s simple and not uncommon. But for me, it was huge. Find things that are huge for you. What things or routines or general behaviors in your life would you not give up, and why? Live free and use your freedom to serve.

I would have told you a year ago that I never wanted to be sitting here, in these circumstances. I would have told you that I wanted [...]]]> So here I sit, in my living room with my roommate and my dog. Post-college. Employed full time. Financially independent. Recovering from food poisoning, but that’s another issue.

I would have told you a year ago that I never wanted to be sitting here, in these circumstances. I would have told you that I wanted to stay a college student forever.

And now I’ll tell you that there’s something distinctly lovely about the structure of my daily life. The house I live in facilitates a lot of the ways I feel called to serve God. My roommate is wonderful. My dog – let’s be serious, Ellie’s the coolest dog ever. I appreciate my job and the people I work with.

And I’m learning how to love God and love people in new ways that just didn’t make sense in school. There is something very simple and challenging about life spent understanding and pursuing the kingdom of God.

Anyway, I’m sure I will get a chance to put real feet on that soon. For now, as an update on life, there is an absurd amount of joy to be had in the “adult” world that I would never have understood before now and never would have arrived at without Jesus.

I’ve been ruined for a baseline life.¬† For making some days above average and excuses for the rest.¬† For never asking questions or never giving too much or never becoming unhappy or uncomfortable.

For wasting anything.¬† Time, love, extra bedrooms, extra seats at the dinner table, good books, my [...]]]> …in the ruin of a life.

I’ve been ruined for a baseline life.¬† For making some days above average and excuses for the rest.¬† For never asking questions or never giving too much or never becoming unhappy or uncomfortable.

For wasting anything.  Time, love, extra bedrooms, extra seats at the dinner table, good books, my past, friendships, loving and wise advice, sunny days, grace, God-given creativity, laughter.

Will I fall away from it sometimes?¬† Of course.¬† But it’s not something I’m convicted of that I’m guiltily conforming to, it’s something I desperately want.¬† I want to live in that ruin and let the Spirit make it beautiful.

Don’t live as though you were dying.¬† Live as though you were dead.¬† Free.¬† As though you have nothing of your own and you’re spreading a culturally subversive kingdom that holds out the hope of the world.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31