As Far As it Depends on You

Throughout my life, I have been blessed with a lot of incredible people in my corner. I have friends who have been in my life for decades. Decades! The ebb and flow of life has only strengthened our bond as we've journeyed together. 

I've also had friendships that haven't survived. 

The lack of survival isn't always bad. Some friendships naturally end with the end of a season or with a change in circumstance. It's bittersweet when those friendships come to mind, isn't it? They were the best people for such a time as this. The blessings are rich from the people who have come and gone. 

But sometimes friendships crash and sometimes they burn. 

This was true of one particular friendship in my life. We were friends for years - co-workers first, but then dear friends. Vacation together, talk every day kind of friends. But then our friendship ended in a dramatic and unfinished way. In the aftermath of the end, there were attempts at reconciliation that were rejected. There were superficial interactions on social media, but there was never any intentional conversation. And now, years later, we run into each other from time to time. And it always feels like reconciliation without the reconciling. There was no resolution even as we moved our separate ways. 

I walked away from that experience carrying a lot of confusion and grief. There is a lot of complexity to losing someone that used to be an important part of your life. There's an awkward tension about what to do around their birthday every year. There's a weird feeling seeing something in a store that reminds you of them. There's navigating the hard conversations with your mutual friends to try to avoid collateral damage. There's a lot of surrender and discipline that comes with knowing where and how to step next. 

But by the grace and mercy of God, He has made Himself known to me in all of it. 

The Lord has met me here. 

I have learned the weight of other people's choices affect you, but they are not meant for you to carry or manage. I have learned that the opportunity to reconcile may not be afforded to you. I have learned that is okay. I have learned that you may never get the opportunity to hear the other person's perspective. I have learned there is a choice even and especially here. I carried the weight for a long time of trying to manage the aftermath and of trying to fix what was lost. I was so meticulous in trying to understand the story. God gently and graciously and continuously whispered to me That is not your job. Let me take this. 

Healing takes time. And as obvious as that sounds, I think that this statement is so much easier said than lived by. It takes so much time to heal, more time sometimes than we want to give it. And I have seen that the only thing that heals is the presence and comfort of God and God alone and the tools that He so graciously gives. He's it. Everything else is secondary.

And the really beautiful thing about this is that healing can be found without being dependent on someone else. This is such a grace. 

So, what do you do when a friendship dies?

There is a verse in Romans chapter 12 that reads like this: "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." The second part of this verse used to trip me up. Living at peace with everyone is a lot of pressure, especially in moments like these. But the Lord shifted my focus. Sometimes (all the time) you will only be able to do what depends on you. What is my role - and mine alone - in living at peace with everyone? It is surrender and discipline and vulnerability and humility and grace - yes, a lot does depend on me. My heart and my posture. But not everything does. If possible, so far as it depends on you. This is so important. And maybe this, this, is what brings the peace. 

Gratitude wins. It changes things. It is the very source of joy. It is in this giving of thanks that rewires your brain towards good. This kind of gratitude saves. Practice this as far as it depends on you - gratitude at the faithfulness of God, gratitude for the memories, gratitude that you are a person that God goes with. 

We get to choose. There is always a choice. We can't predict other people's behavior and we oftentimes can't influence their choices, but we can determine our own. What a grace. We can choose holiness and honor, courage and kindness. We can choose to be steady in the face of confusion. I have learned this piece of what makes us human - our choices - is arguably the most beautiful. 

And then? You get to cultivate and build new friendships. What a grace! You get to dig deep into the ones that know you and love you and call you worthy. You get to step out and meet new people and you get to be the person God created you to be. The fruit of starting new does come. The friendships in my life now are so rich and fresh and wise and mature. The death of one has made the life of the others that much more vital.

Some friendships die. But yes, some friendships live. 

God Cares About Your Reading Life

I couldn't find one of my clients last week. The prison system lost her. 

I've learned that the prison system does what it wants when it wants. It waits and waits and waits and then all of sudden, acts without compassion. The stories I could tell you. But usually when someone is transferred in the system, you can look it up in the next day or two. Usually. 

But this time, I couldn't find her. Her name wasn't showing up in the system anymore. I couldn't schedule a virtual visit with her. I wrote her a letter and it was returned to me with the words "Unknown Person" written on the envelope. I hadn't received any phone calls from her. We made a few calls to the detention center and received confirmation she wasn't there. I was starting to worry. But where was she? How was I going to find her?

I started googling anything I could find about the detention center downtown. And after several articles, I found a few sentences halfway down the page that said there were overcrowding and safety concerns and as a result, there were sudden transfers to another small local detention center several towns away. Out of the 400 people who were moved, there was room for 15 at this one detention center. I went on that website and looked up her name and there she was. One of the 15. 

I immediately wrote her a letter and stuck it in the mail. I FOUND YOU. I was looking for you everywhere and I finally found you!

I found her. 

One of the things that has been speaking to my soul lately is something I've been learning in church. Throughout the month of December, we focused on four core fears that we all have as people. 

1. We fear we are not going to be heard by God. God, do you hear me? 

2. We fear we are not going to seen. Do you see me, God? 

3. We fear God is not at work. Is God really working in my life? 

4. We fear no one or nothing good is coming for us. Is anyone good looking for me? Is anything good coming?

The beauty is that the essence of the story of Christmas speaks to all of these fears. God saw you. God heard you. God is working for good. God came looking for you. And as Eugene Peterson writes in his book "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction," "There is no reason to suppose that God will arbitrarily change His way of working with us. What we have known of Him, we will know of Him."

I'm so relieved by this. I'm so grateful for this. This changes everything. 

One of my dear friends (and fellow avid reader) was sharing via Marco Polo the other day about how she finished a book she was reading one morning and then that same afternoon, a book she'd had on hold for four months at the library became available. She said to her husband, "isn't that a cool coincidence!?" And her husband replied, "I think God cares about your reading life." 

I imagine God would go to great lengths to find you if you were lost in the prison system if He didn't already always know where you were. I imagine God cares deeply about the things that bring you joy - about the books you're reading and the things you're learning and the friends you're making. I'm believing that God sees your exact circumstance and He hears you and He knows you and He actively and abundantly cares. He pursues you when you're lost. He delights in you because He created you.

This is the kind of hope I'm walking into 2022 with. 

Church

I'm starting to look forward to Sundays again. 

I left my job as a pastor at an evangelical church in October 2020 after working there for ten years. It was such a beautiful - and hard - story of God calling me away to start something new. 

There's so much I could unpack here about this journey. There was so much I underestimated, so much I didn't see coming, so much I rejoice in, so much pain, so much loneliness, so much joy, so much beauty. But the one thing I didn't anticipate was how so very hard it would be to go to church again.

I believe in church. I wanted to be in church. But the idea of going back to church after my years spent working there seemed almost impossible.

Church has been a place of great sorrow and grief for me. I could write novels about the ways in which I have been disappointed in its leaders and the way I have seen firsthand the trauma unfold in the lives of its people. I have seen pastors do and say really disappointing things in the name of pride and fear. I have found myself in too many conversations with congregants, trying to pick up the pieces and explain the aftermath. I have more personal wounds than I can count. 

But Church has also been a place of my greatest relationships and my greatest joys. I'm the person, the pastor, and the follower of Christ that I am today because of the body of Christ that I've been privileged to be a part of. I have more riches and blessings and joyful memories than I can count. 

The soul holds space for all of it. 

I believe in the Church doing good. Church is beauty. It is so necessary to the life and faith of what it means to follow Jesus. 

It has always been a place of belonging for me and I yearned for that again. But I kept looking way down the road at where I hoped to be - in a community and place of belonging and growth - but the steps to get there felt so overwhelming. It was completely unknown territory, one that I wasn't sure anyone was with me on. 

Finding my place in the church again felt awkward. Knowing how I wanted to be known there felt so uncertain. Googling a list of churches felt so lonely. I tried a handful of churches throughout the year and one asked me to lead their student ministry and one shared their immigration policy from the stage. Too much, too soon. I was too burnt out to bear it.

My tendency is to turn my healing into a checklist. I can tend to look way down the road at where I want to be and then start formulating the steps and the action plan to get there. That way of thinking comes in handy when working on a project or when accomplishing a goal, but not when it comes to healing. Healing is too organic and powerful to be ordered into a to-do list.

I've learned this past year that when it comes to church, the call has just been to show up.

God has consistently and gently whispered to me to just show up. To show up and sit under the leadership of someone trustworthy. My counselor said that to me, my pastor said that to me. And I kept asking myself the questions, "but where will I land?" "Where will I plant roots?" "Where do I see myself serving?" And God always just kept saying, "but maybe you're asking the wrong questions. Where will you just show up now?" 

So, I decided to show up without giving much thought to what the long term result might be. There would be no more measurements or critiques, reading into what's said on stage, wondering if people are trustworthy, assuming they're not. No more making a list, googling churches, no more wondering what denomination I am looking for or what deconstruction looks like in my life. Church was a call from God to just show up. Sit. And listen.

It’s been about eight weeks and I’ve been surprisingly shocked at what has transpired. I really look forward to Sunday mornings. The church I'm going to just finished an incredible series on the person and story of Daniel and it has been extraordinary. I can’t take enough notes. I come by myself and sometimes sit by myself. And it has been really nourishing for my soul. More than I could have hoped or imagined. I can't put it into words. It is falling back in love with the Word of God and with the person of Jesus. It is having a pastor to teach me, with no expectation.

I think I’m beginning to like church again. It's being redeemed. I’m liking church and being healed by church in ways I couldn’t have seen or predicted. Sometimes the healing isn’t problem solving or making a pros/cons list. 

Sometimes it’s Jesus simply saying, “come to me.” 

But what do I do? Come to me. 

But where do I belong? Come to me. 

Maybe that’s all that grief and healing requires.

If you left church for one reason or another, I hear you. I literally see you. It is so extraordinarily difficult to even know where to begin in going back. 

I have a few thoughts about beginning again. 

1. Start small. Start with who you trust and just work from there. Do you have a friend you trust that always talks about her church? Go with her one day. Ask your counselor where he goes to church. That pastor's content you love on instagram? Show up at their church. Start with what you trust. Take it one Sunday at a time. 

2. Be so gentle with yourself. I'm not into the shame and condemnation sometimes given to those who are having a hard time with church. I'm just not into that. Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have. Instead, I'm into pushing yourself with gentleness. I'm into finding mentors and pastors and friends who ask you every couple of months, "but what about you? Where are you going to church? Have you found a place to land?" And when you say no, they tell you to keep going. Compassion is the way. 

3. Be brave. It takes a lot of courage to begin again. It's intimidating to start over and to heal. From inside the system of the church, I could never really empathize with how much courage it takes to try. Friends who are on staff at churches now, look out for us. Be ready for us. Assume the people walking through your doors have been to church before. Assume they've experienced some hard things. Invite us to come back. Kindness is more powerful than any hospitality strategy. 

4. Remember to worship. There's a part of showing up that requires the vulnerability of shedding the role or expectation of "doing" something and just coming to worship. Of bringing your whole self in worship for the glory of God. There's a really beautiful acknowledgment that happens when you begin to understand that God delights in you as a part of this community.. because He created you. And that brings Him joy. 

5. Allow church to surprise you. I met the loveliest group of people at a church in Chicago while I was job hunting last year. And while I didn't end up taking that job, these pastors played a pivotal role in restoring my faith in what a healthy church could be. I was listening to a Carey Neiuwhof podcast recently and he had this quote - "Somewhere there's a humble leader and a simple community that will embrace you. And if you can find humility in leadership and you can find simplicity in the church, that's a really good thing."

The humble leaders and the simple community. It's out there. Keep going. 

7 Ingredient Almond Butter Cookies

I love to cook.

Several years ago, I was stuck at a standstill with my meal prepping. I wasn’t thinking ahead about what I wanted to eat, so each night right around dinner time, I found myself staring hungrily into an empty fridge. Most nights I, more often than not, ended up roaming the aisles of the grocery store or ended up getting takeout. I was spending more money than I wanted and I was eating things that didn’t make me feel good.

It was around that time that I decided to get HelloFresh, the meal kit program that changed my life, and I haven’t looked back since.

HelloFresh revealed to me that I loved to cook. I loved creating something delicious with my hands and then enjoying it afterwards. It became a stress reliever, a place I could empty my mind, and a place of personal growth. It became a place where I wasn't striving or performing, but a place where I was creating. The portions of food were perfect too, so I wasn't wasting food or energy. 

I've learned that I love to cook, but I always hesitate in giving any validity to it. What makes one a "cook?" Can making meals for yourself be considered anything more than just making dinner? I'm also pretty hard on myself by nature, so sometimes I'm hesitant to consider my hobbies as more than something silly. 

But this year, I've decided to place more intention and purpose into the things I love, without label or expectation.

I discovered the Defined Dish in 2020. Her recipes are healthy and easy and full of color and flavor. They've stretched me to make new things and have brought joy along the way. Her latest cookbook - called "The Comfortable Kitchen" - just recently released and I'm making it a goal to cook my way through each recipe this year.

So, today, on my last day of Christmas break, I made her 7 Ingredient Almond Butter Cookies. They require... seven ingredients (maple syrup, almond butter, arrowroot flour, almond flour, vanilla extract, baking soda, and salt). So easy, so delicious! I baked them while listening to The Hatch - a podcast that dissects each episode of the show Lost (the hosts don't like Jack, who is my favorite character, so listening to this podcast might be short lived).

I was listening to a webinar this afternoon led by Jess Connolly and she talked about getting to the why of a goal. She said to make it a habit to ask yourself - "why is this a goal?" Power comes in holding the why up to the light. So, my why is because it brings joy. There are some recipes in there that I've never attempted before and I think there is a lot of beauty in failing. Also, who doesn't like good food!?

Cheers to all the food joy this year!