she writes on sundays

  • An open letter to who the hell knows.

    An open letter to who the hell knows.

    Dear human,

    I’m sorry that when we met for coffee, facetimed or talked on the phone it seemed as if I was biting my tongue while you spoke. You talked about where you wanted to be or who you wanted to be, or you processed through a lie you’d been battling.

    I want you to know that I heard you. I understand that the thing you feel, the lie that haunts you or the goals you wish to achieve feel weighty and insurmountable to defeat or achieve. I want you to know that I believe in you. I believe you can achieve that thing, you can defeat that lie and grab onto that truth.

    I’m sorry if it looks like I want to shake you or if my voice starts to raise.

    (I’m sorry if I quote the mindy project too much)

    But I need you to know that I BELIEVE IN YOU.

    I need you to know that you are already that thing.

    I guess I bite my tongue for this reason:

    I can’t believe for you. I can slam my hand on a table, or look you in the eye and tell you that you are already the thing, the truth, the person.

    You don’t have to wait to become anything. You are already the fullness.

    You are already free.

    You just have to decide. To choose. To believe.

    And I know that’s MUCH easier said then done. When the days are long, and tiring, when the lies pile up, when the failures feel like huge and the victories feel small, it’s hard to know that you are still the fullness of the person that you are.

    Because it doesn’t feel like it.

    But we don’t need to “feel” like ourselves.

    We are ourselves. All the time. No matter what.

    (This is as much for me as it for you.)

    Everyone time I tell you that you are already the fullness of yourself I’m saying it to myself at the same time.

    When I look at you I see the full picture of who you are. I see your wisdom, your truth, your hope, your abilities and gifts all on display around you. I see them like an old video game where you just have to grab the icon to power up.

    I believe you can grab the icon and power up.

    So to you I say; shame off, guilt off, striving off.

    Choose to know today that you don’t need to figure everything out first. You are fully the human you were meant to be today.

    Take a step in those shoes and see what happens.

    You are already the thing. So get to it.

    With love,

    Me.

    ,
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  • the recipe series: butternut squash macaroni & cheese

    the recipe series: butternut squash macaroni & cheese

    {this recipe series is dedicated to second generation nsquad and all the lessons we learned and all the dirt under our fingernails and the stories we still carry from Africa.}

    (This recipe has absolutely no measurements because I have made it for the following amounts of people: 4. 22. 55)Cubed butternut squash

    Macaroni noodles

    Shredded cheese

    Butter

    Garlic for days

    Butter

    Milk

    My 8th month of the world race I was in Nsoko, Swaziland living in a team house with 21 other women.

    Sounds crazy yes?

    I was team-leading a group of 4 other lovely, bad-ass women (our name was team BA for all correctly assumed reasons) and we were doing everything from hugging babies to harvesting cabbage.

     

    team BA: month 8 debrief lip sync champions

    And though we probably won’t admit it–one of the best parts of separating the men and the women for one month was not having to worry about feeding the men.

    (They ate a lot.)

    We took turns cooking every night and grocery shopping every 3-4 days because there was only so much food in Swazi supermarkets and 22 women needed A LOT of cabbage. I mean food. Breakfast and lunches were individually based, cooking and making food as you got up or when you had a break in ministry and dinners were family style. The cooking teams were so creative that month, from taco nights to soups to yes, cabbage, in literally everything.

    Another amazing thing about that month was the lovely WR alumni Morgan who brought us peanut butter cups and coffee creamers and stacks of magazines.

    And tossed among those were cooking lights. And for women who had been surviving off of cabbage and food cooked over coals, it was like water in a desert.

    And then someone said “hey meg, you should make this butternut squash casserole”.

    Challenge accepted.

    Cooking for other people is one of my favorite things.

    Even cooking with dull knives, water that runs out when people are using the community water tap and not super hot gas stoves.

    I created this random recipe to the best of my ability. And I had blisters on my hands from cutting squash. And was also super grateful I didn’t have to scrub the pots of the aftermath.

    But then two weeks later, I made this dish again.
    For my entire squad.

    Here’s the thing: this isn’t a hard recipe. You essentially make macaroni and cheese and then you cube and boil butternut squash and mash it up like potatoes. Once everything is cooked you combine it all so the cheese melts into the noodles and the butternut squash is creamy.

    It is macaroni and cheese with butternut squash. That is it.

    But when I sat around a table in the kitchen of the cozy off-the-grid hostel on what would be the last night I was in Africa since then with 5 people from squad chopping and dicing enough butternut squash to fit 50+people, I wasn’t just chopping and dicing, I was allowing myself to begin to breath out Africa.

     

    RIP my african tan

    Being in Africa for three months took a toll on my mind, body and soul and in that last week in Africa I knew I just needed to get out of Africa to have my head on straight again. Africa gets in between your toes and under your fingernails. Africa is a battle from sun up to sun up again.

    And that moment cutting and chopping and dicing and laughing with friends I had been journeying with since January; I laughed. Big belly laughs and giggles and even some tears. My whole body hurt and was tired from sleeping on sleeping pads, on cement floors and dirt. All of my clothes were more than a little dirty from handwashing and a month in Mozi when it never stopped raining.

    But my heart was full of memories of women in the Mozambique marketplace and the smell of guavas and so many other things I can’t even begin to describe.

    I didn’t chop Africa out of my life that night as I made food for Nsquad; but I allowed myself to say goodbye.
    I said goodbye to Africa stirring an overflowing soup pot and crammed on the floor of the carpeted main room at the hostel. I said goodbye to Africa pulled up the bar outside with a beer in hand listening to the sounds of Swaziland settle around me.

    I said goodbye to Africa doing my most favorite thing, cooking with those I love. And feeding my family.

    Cooking isn’t just cooking for me.

    It’s the ability to pour out my story into food and just myself to see what it said.

    Cooking?

    It’s the work of my soul.

    What’s yours?

    ,

  • I met shame in 6th grade

    My roommate has a now infamous grad teaching she did in Spain. –well, infamous in the yellow house.

    She talked about decisions, not having a bad day, living above the fog.

    When I feel like a bad human, I give it a relisten. When I am leaning less on my ice cold brain and more on my ping-ponging red hot heart. It doesn’t happen a lot these days. It’s actually harder for me now to give grace to my emotions then ever before.

    I stop my emotional output more often then not because I choose to believe that I am not ruled by how I feel and others should not have to deal with that.

    I thought I was a horrible human last week. I was tired, grumpy, lazy. All the things. I couldn’t look at God. So, in church today hike everyone around me was  singing the words “your praise will ever be on my lips”, shame came. 

    It overwhelmed me. 

    I’m one of the first to speak shame off of someone, it’s like I have a tiny shame alarm that pings when someone is speaking shame over themselves. I actually never thought I dealt with shame as a big theme. A lot of other heavy, messy words–but not shame.

    I’m reading “Scary Close” right now. It’s shocking to me how many statements hit home. But, it was the brief chapter on shame that nestled into my being to be saved for later.
    Like I said, I felt like a horrible human last week. I broke down twice- once in my bosses office and then with my roommate. And on Saturday I had a grumpy hangover–this feeling where all the joy has been taken out of your world and you no longer no how to exist in said world (no drinking involved). I was beating myself up about my lack of humanness. I couldn’t even sit with myself.

    Then I read the chapter on shame.

    Donald Miller talked about doing an exercise in which he pinpointed the moment shame stepped into his life and oddly enough I thought his moment might be similar to mine. But no heart-tug, nothing jumped out at me. But I didn’t go any deeper. I shut the book and moved on to Netflix.

    So, when shame walked in this morning and weaseled his way next to me, it shocked me that all of a sudden I remembered where he came from.

    I was in sixth grade when shame sauntered into my life.

    Sixth grade was the year the girls got mean.

    I remember this specific morning that I got to school and plopped my backpack down by my class and walked over to the middle of the yard to find my friends.

    I looked all around for them. In the corner of the play hard I saw a wall of kids all standing in a line and looking forward laughing and avoiding eye contact with me. I would come to find out they were doing that to hide all the girls I was looking for. They were crouched down and hiding from me. They were giggling and laughing.

    They didn’t want me to see them.

    All the reasons flooded into my being. I talked funny, I was too fat, I wasn’t enough.

    I was too much. I didn’t cry, I just laughed it off and walked away, tears bringing at my eyes. 

    I made a new friend that day: shame.

    He now wheedles his way into a lot of places.
    When I feel not enough, or too much, or like I am being too sensitive.

    Last week I felt all those things. Felt like a failure. Inadequate, not enough. 

    Left behind.

    And because of that, shame snuck into my house over the last 5 days. He took out his paint and painted the walls a disgusting green.

    So all the things, the words, the actions, all the everything that I felt I was doing to counteract the bad days got colored in shame.

    The emotions, the venting, the deep breaths were now ways I was communicating to myself I was not enough. That I was inadequate.

    So now, I am sitting here with all these thoughts and realizations and have no clue what to do with them. I have no way to tie up this blog in a neat package.

    And that’s ok. 

    I’m not going to dwell on the not knowing and I’m going to (try) not to beat myself up.

    And I’m going to remember that I am a good human even when I have what seems like 100 reasons that I’m not.

    Because it changes things, when you realize how shame first walked in the door.

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  • A letter to creatives

    A letter to creatives

    To my dear creatives,

    I know you are probably sitting in front of a blank slate right now.

    I know you believe with every passing moment that words don’t form in a sentence or you aren’t able to mix colors just right on a pallet or your cake falls flat for the third time that you are no longer creative. That something inside you isn’t working right anymore.

    And I know that the shame piles on from there. 

    Man, does it hit you like a wrecking ball. Each time you say you are going to do this or that and come up empty. Each day you set aside time to practice or write or sculpt or cook and you end up cleaning the house or reorganizing your coffee cup collections for the fifth time.

    You don’t know how to sit with yourself and not feel the shame pile on, not feel the guilt or the all of the “I told you so..” about your creativity.

    And I know you probably feel if you have to call the creativity out of yourself that something in that isn’t natural.

    But sometimes, my friend, we have to call out to our creative spirit. We have to yell at it and tell it that it needs to come to the table and do some work. We have to remind it that there are nuggets and truth and whimsy below the surface and sometimes we can’t wait for it to just be there, sometimes we have to ask it to show up.

    So, my dear creative friend, to you, I say first: shame off. You are no less on the days when you feel incapable of creating then in the days when you write the great American novel.

    And second, on days where you feel the furthest from the creative that you are take a deep breath and choose to call the creativity out of yourself. 

    Tonight, amidst yawns and back pain and exhaustion that’s what I needed. I chose to, in any way shape or form, find a way to put words on a page and realize that the shame creeping in wasn’t mine to grab onto.

    So third, please remember this:
    You don’t have to always create be a creative. 

    You are creative because it’s who you are, not what you do.

    It’s in you, down to your tiptoes and it pours out of your finger tips.

    You are still creative even when you feel incapable of creating.

    With love,

    A writer who doesn’t always feel like a writer but knows forever she will be a writer.

    , , ,

  • 2015: I didn’t need a passport.

    On the last day of the year I always write and post a blog about the year. It’s not as much for people to read as it is for myself to look back on and see where I’ve come from. 
    2015 was a doozy people. It was only the second year out of the last 5 that I haven’t internationally traveled. It was the 3rd out of the last four that I have flown to Georgia. It was the third out of the last four that I’ve spent time in Kingsburg. And it was the second year in a row I split my time between two very different places. 6 months in Kingsburg and 6 in Bellingham. And man, were both times full of all the things. Today as I was walking home (practically in tears mind you from exhaustion), I was pondering what I’ve learned the most, what has sunk the deepest into my being and I was honestly surprised at the words that popped into my head.

    Tribe. Hometeam. Covenant.

    I learned about all of those things in 2014. I sat in classes that taught about covenant, learned what it meant to be apart of a tribe and then had to leave all of those people.

    2015 started with going back to a lot of physical places and officially saying goodbye and letting go. The one that hit the strongest was saying goodbye and letting go of Orange County. That was hard. It wrecked me to see how far I’d grown away from that place.

    And then I came back to Kingsburg. And actually it held a lot of loveliness and a lot of healing. The second prior to Spain had been the worst period of time I had ever had in Kingsburg. And the time from February to July was restoring in ways I never though possible.

    And then there was Bellingham.

    Egads. Getting on the plane in Fresno to go to Seattle was one of the most terrifying plane rides to date (And probably the shortest). And then I was in Washington and in a car with my friend Patrick whom I’d never met traveling to a city I’d never been to, to a house I was already renting.

    To stay. To build. To dream.

    I’ve been in Bellingham for (almost) six months now. Working, living life with all the people around me, freezing in the tundra that is western Washington.

    And I want to say that I love it, that it’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

    But I can’t. I cannot say that all these decisions are the best I’ve ever made, because honestly that might not be 100% true.

    It’s been hard, I’ve felt disconnect and comparison and like less of myself then I have ever been. I work a job I rarely feel qualified for and I, at least once a week, question whether I actually hear God’s voice because I am surrounded by powerful people.

    I cry more then I ever have (I mean, I am crying right now).

    And that brings me back to:

    Tribe. Hometeam. Covenant.

    Without having those pieces, those people I wouldn’t be able to do life through this year.

    Because of tribe, I made the decision to have a plan for this year.

    Because of covenant I stuck to it.

    And because of my hometeam I get through the days where I feel inadequate, feel less than, when I feel not enough.

    “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” {Matthew 5:14-16 the message}

    So here is to 2016.
    A year full of tribe and hometeam and covenant.

    A year of new dreams and plans and visions.

    A year of more space for all the things.

    ,

  • the Recipe Series: Grandma Sue’s shrimp cocktail

    the Recipe Series: Grandma Sue’s shrimp cocktail

    1lb of baby shrimp

    1lb of imitation crab

    2 bottles of del monte ketchup

    1/3rd cup water in each ketchup bottle shaken to get all the excess out.

    Heaping Tablespoon chili powder

    Tablespoon horseradish

    2.5 cups minced celery

    Bunch of green onions (tops and bottoms)

    Juice of one lemon

     

    All of my life every single holiday was about the food. My mom’s side of the family is full of cooks and bakers and candy makers. And while, my hands down favorite family holiday meal was and still is Christmas morning breakfast; there is one staple that needs to be at every holiday was Christmas to Thanksgiving to Fourth of July:

    My grandma Sue’s shrimp cocktail.

    She made it every year, for every holiday and served it in a gigantic glass jar that she had from who knows when and then we would eat it in Dixie cups with tiny little shrimp forks and bowls and bowls of ritz crackers (always name brand ritz never generic).

    Growing up I didn’t think we were a family that had traditions.

    But now, as this is the second Christmas in a row that I haven’t curled up on the puzzle piece couch sipping my coffee as us adults clammer for breakfast first and the kids want presents, I see that we are indeed, a family with traditions.

    Someone always forgets the salsa for the tamales and when my grandma was alive she would pull out a half used container of old salsa, my father always shaves his beard after we eat breakfast, there is at least one prep heavy dish that someone walks through the door with not made an hour before dinner. My mother always supplies socks for all my male cousins. My Aunt Ann usually gives me a gift that makes me cry. My aunt Sue brings all of my favorite Christmas cookies. My Aunt Marie always makes sure we have trader joes chocolate milk. And aunt Marie would also make sure everyone got out on the front porch for a picture even with all the complaining.

    Christmas in the big blue house on 21rst was a magical homey event even with stress and drama and everything that comes with a big family holiday.

    My grandma didn’t give the recipe to my mom until about 2009. She then, watched her make it for three years to see if she was doing it right. And I guarantee when she gave the recipe to my mom it wasn’t with exact measurements, or how much it would actually make.

    And as much as I love my mom, the shrimp cocktail hasn’t ever tasted the same. And if I’m being honest–even though I know how to make it now, I don’t know if I ever will. Because there is something about the huge recycled jar, and the Dixie cups and the ritz in the brown bowls.

    Because sometimes, having family recipes aren’t for the remaking of them. It’s the knowledge that I could if I needed too. But mainly, it’s the five minutes on the phone with my mom telling me how to make it, it’s the memories of my grandma in her apron scooping it out in Dixie cups only after pulling out the big wooden box with the tiny forks in it.

    Christmas for me, is about traditions that I didn’t realize were traditions until I missed out on them. Like my grandmas shrimp cocktail, or sitting on the puzzle piece couch with coffee, or drinking tangerine juice out of the metal glasses.

    As I’ve moved out and now am spending my first Christmas with my own “family” and am starting new traditions with people in my life I find myself most grateful for all of the things that came before it.

    I miss my Grandma Sorenson the most during Christmas. She passed away a little under three years ago. Every moment of Christmas makes me think of her and her house and her shrimp cocktail.

    Like I said, I may never ever make this shrimp cocktail. But one day, when I have a husband and a family, and we have a Christmas party that night and I have no idea what to make, I might sift through the archives of my mind and mix this together and grab some ritz crackers on the way and think of my grandma Sue and Christmas morning spent on her blue and green puzzle piece couch.
    Merry Christmas my friends. Take a moment to bookmark traditions that you’ve never deemed traditions and hold onto them. And maybe, just maybe, make your own.

    ,

  • The Recipe Series: an international wedding cake 

    The Recipe Series: an international wedding cake 

    Edit

    1 cup sugar. Half a cup of Greek yogurt. Half a cup of milk. 1 and a quarter cup of flour. Third a cup of oil. 1 and a quarter teaspoon of baking powder. A splash of vanilla. 20 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius makes one layer of a five layer cake. Repeat times 7 (because you need back up cakes)That is how you make the layers for a five layer wedding cake with one 9 inch round and a hit & miss oven in the south of Spain.


    I remember when I got a random Facebook message from Whitney- a woman I had never met. She told me that Tiffany and Abby had told her that I made wedding cakes. (Fact: I had made one wedding cake) And she wanted to know if when I got to Spain I would like to make the wedding cake for Esther, Andrew and Mo’s daughter.

    That wasn’t terrifying at all.

    You see, Andrew is the founder for G42, the leadership academy I went to in Spain and at that point in my pre-Spain brain, I was scared of meeting him, because I had a feeling he would be a person who could look at me and cause me to cry with a glance (and I mean for the most part I was right except replace terror with lots of love). So, to make the wedding cake for his daughter was saying a lot about myself. But, of course, being the human that I am, I said yes.

    I was only in Spain for a couple weeks when the weekend came to prep and make the cake. I was going to make all of the layers and freeze them the day before and dirty frost them. I had made one test layer prior to this day and it turned out well and got rave reviews, so I felt prepared the cake wouldn’t suck. And I googled how to fill the cake with jam without it toppling.

    Baking is sacred to me. And if I don’t like how it turns out I normally will toss it. So, for the first time in my life, I started to fill the baking of this cake with prayer. Because I was an absolute nervous wreck. This cake was going to speak of me, or so I thought, what if it fell apart, or didn’t taste good. Most of the people I was now doing life with in Spain didn’t know me at all, didn’t know who I was or what I was capable of.

    What I am trying to say is that I was practically paralyzed with fear that the cake would be a failure.

    So I scooped and measured and stirred and cleaned and sang and face timed with friends. I coated the kitchen in flour and powdered sugar and got shaky from said powdered sugar and mass quantities of coffee. I cooled the cakes and wrapped them in Saran Wrap and stuck them in the freezer.

    And in the midst of the stirring and measuring and baking, Andrew came by the house to drop off some wedding prep items and as I was the only one in the house he popped into the kitchen to talk to me. I couldn’t tell you what he said to me at this point, but the peace fell in that moment and I believe because of that, the peace fell into my baking.

    I had two days of baking in the Mijouse kitchen to create a five layer cake with raspberry jam filling and buttercream frosting. I was mainly alone with some assistance from the flower girl and visits from my friends.

    But what I learned from that moment was my stress translates into my baking and cooking. And instead of pouring stress into something I need to pour love and peace and goodness. So I wrote a prayer for Jason and Esther on the cardboard that I used as a cake board.


    No one saw it but I knew the cake was sitting on a foundation that more then just a physical piece of cardboard.

    In the end I was just plain honored to have made that cake.

    I made that same cake two more times. Once halfway through my time for Kellen and Whitney’s one year wedding anniversary and once at the end for Andrew’s 70th birthday; because according to Mo–I made Esther’s cake in the beginning so I needed to make Andrew’s at the end of my time. And it’s funny as I look at the timeline. That I made that cake three different times in the span of six months and how I was a different human each time. And by the time I made Andrew’s cake, I was bursting with love for him and for that place and for that tribe. So I poured all of the love and honor and celebration (and tears) into that cake and it showed. I could tell the cake was different then any others I had made.


    There’s a moment in my favorite cheesy dance movie CenterStage in which Charlie tells Jody to “Whatever you feel, just dance it”. I don’t want to bake or cook with whatever I feel. I want to get it all out, the stress, the nerves, the overload, the weight on my shoulders, with the chopping and the mixing and the cutting and the blending. But when I pour the layers into the cake pan, or simmer the soup on the oven all that needs to be left is the truth, the joy and the celebration.


    Things fall flat or burn or fall apart when they come from a rocky foundation. But when things are filled with hope and joy and truth and celebration they aren’t wobbly. They are declarative and they are a resounding choice to not be controlled by what you feel. And a resounding choice to live above the fog.

    Cooking and baking is about more then just the act of feeding and nourishing those I love. It’s about story and emotion and truth and revelation. This new blog post is the inaugural post for “the recipe series”. While right now it is just words and story on a screen my hope is that one day it will be a physical tangible cookbook. Filled with stories about making butternut squash Mac and cheese for my entire squad in Swaziland, or cooking over the fire at training camp or vegetarian April and poblano pepper and mango quesadillas or my new signature dish coconut sugar, gluten-free cheesecake.

    So without further ado, let’s eat.

    ,
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  • Today I choose.

    Today I choose.

    The last thing I want to be today is thankful. I’m rolling my eyes at the cliche’ of it all because on a day that is literally dubbed “Thanksgiving”, the thing to do would to be go against the grind and say that I’m not thankful.

    I mean, I am thankful. It’s the machine that I operate out of on an (almost) daily basis. I grew up with a mom who, when I had a bad day, would tell me to write a grateful list. And for as many times as I rolled my eyes or got angry I did it. Because 9.5/10 times I have more to be thankful for then I don’t.

    But if I am being honest, over the last three weeks I’ve just wanted to not care, I have just wanted to write emo-sounding song lyric Facebook statuses. I have wanted to curl up in a ball and zone out to some mind numbing show and shut off my brain and let the to-do lists and the emotions and the feelings I have overwhelm me.
    I haven’t sat in front of anything long enough to write anything because I haven’t wanted to know what was going to come out.

    I have wanted to call in sick even though I haven’t been sick.

    I have wanted to not show up.

    Good lord, I have wanted to have a bad day and not care who I effected in its wake.

    But that’s not who I am.

    Even this morning as I woke up all I wanted to do was stay in bed and be checked out of a day that is meant for telling others that you are thankful for them. I wanted to give in to the weight that has been perpetually on my shoulders for about three weeks and let it crush me for a moment.

    But that’s not what I did.

    I woke up at 8:30 and laid in bed texting some long messages to my hometeam because I didn’t know them three years ago and now don’t know what my life would look like without them.

    And then I cried.

    I wiped my tears, made coffee and chopped five pounds of potatoes to make some soup for people stopping by today.

    And I cried some more.

    I’ve been slowly texting people to speak words of gratitude. Today it’s coming out of a place of me choosing to show up for other people and remind them and show them that while being grateful is a feeling, it is also my choice to be grateful.

    And when it comes down to it though it doesn’t FEEL easy it isn’t a hard choice. Showing up for fourteen one year olds on the daily FEELS hard. Showing up for the people around me, for the community, when it’s weighty and heavy and filled with stuff FEELS hard.

    But the choosing is easy.

    Because, man, those kiddos brighten my day when they say my name and come at me for a hug when I walk in the room and getting the chance to see them learn to walk and talk and smile and laugh is everything. 

    And the people in my life, as close as the room next to me and as far as across an ocean, are worth it for me to make that daily choice. Because seeing them be known, and achieve dreams, and have others see how freaking amazing there are is literally the greatest thing. 

    So, that is why I choose to be grateful today.

    That is why I choose to be grateful everyday.

    That is why I choose to show up. When it’s hard or easy and everything in between. That’s why I check my mood and choose to not leave a path of destruction behind me as best I can.

    So I will choose.

    {so today while I have so many different physical things to be thankful for; today I choose to be thankful for Kingsburg and Costa Mesa. For Bangkok and Chincha and Nsoko. For Mijas. And of course, for Bellingham. 

    They aren’t places in my mind. 

    They represent story and truth and moments that impacted my life.

    Today I choose to be thankful for people.}

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  • blank journal revolution

    By 8 every morning my kids have taken out the animals and Legos and dumped them out at least 3 times. By 8 every morning I have helped put the animals and Legos back in the basket at least three times.

    Because if the toys are cluttering the room then we don’t have space to play, or in Teacher Meg speak:

    “We need to pick up these toys and put them away so our friends can have safe bodies and We need to put these toys away so we can get something else out to play with!”

    We can only get another toy out if we put another away.
    We can only have something new come if we make space for what is to follow.

    Goodness.

    This past Sunday I yelled at God a lot. I yelled on behalf of myself, my roommate and our community.

    {God can take my yelling and he did.}

    And then Monday, with gritted teeth, I went and bought a new journal. I then took a page out of the Patty Reed book on declaring (that, of course, has a foreword from Tiffany Handley) and I wrote:

    “I am here”.

    And then I flipped through the glorious, beautiful blank pages.

    I was introduced to the blank page when I went on the World Race and the unicorn that is Betsy Garmon doodled and painted her creativeness into my being.

    To some the blank page is daunting. The emptiness, the space of it is scary. Having no structure, no lines, no one telling you what picture to color.

    But may I change the way you see things?

    When you have space it means you have cleaned up, set aside, organized, moved. You deliberately did something in order to have that space. You rolled up your sleeves and did some work. And sometimes, yes, the Legos get dumped out again, but you get quicker at putting them away and making space.

    So, basically, a blank journal, is a place to make space for even more. It’s a space to put clutter and thoughts and things that don’t seem to fit anywhere, to make room for lovely and goodness and things that do make sense.

    It’s a place to put all of those pieces together; the ones that don’t make sense and the ones that do and have them make sense together.

    And then once they make sense, you have space to do more, be more because you have organized what feels like clutter in your mind.

    We need space to have the more that God wants to put in our life.

    And man, does he want to do that. The more is there for the grabbing, but we just need to make room for it. We need to roll up our sleeves and clean up the damn Legos one more time and put them back where they belong.

    Because even the things that seem gritty and ugly have a place in our story. We just need to pick out what’s good and put it back on the shelf in a new box with a new name.

    We need to make space to have space to have more.

    So this is my challenge; join me in the blank journal revolution. Get your own space to clear out the mess to have more.

    And if that seems scary, blank pages with no lines, holler at my roommate and I and we will pray some journal freedom into your life.

    Space is a good thing guys, let’s own it.

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  • In search of: a kitchen table

    In search of: a kitchen table

    If you are friends with my roommate and I here in Bellingham there is a really good chance that we have cooked or baked for you. 

    Like last Saturday I literally spent the whole day cooking. I started with omelettes for 7. We crammed in the kitchen, me making omelettes, Joanna making waffles, we surged the power with the microwave and heater going, we drank coffee from the carafe that I found at a thrift store and then parted ways for the day slowly with my friend Jonathan doing all the dishes for me as we watched the Office. I quickly moved into planning on cooking dinner for the triumvirate that often is gathered around our kitchen island. The three of us ate, drank wine and talked about all the things as per usual.

    Cooking and baking and gathering is the tree of life for me, for us.

    Sadly, we are missing something from our house that is incredibly important. Yes, there are certain pots and pans and a garlic press that we want. And yes, we need all the seasons of Dawson’s Creek (with the original music, because duh) and our creepy, clown cabinet only has like an 8th of a bottle of gin.

    But, what we are lacking above all of that, is a kitchen table. We have a spot for it. A picture of our G42 class in the center of a wall awaiting a table under it. I will admit, we are pretty picky. 

    Because, it isn’t just a table to us. It’s so very much more than that. 

    It’s a place to land.

    A table that’s a little weathered, that maybe has the faint ring of a wine glass, maybe some flowers placed upon it says something.

    It says, “come and be.” Come however you are, with whatever day you have had, with whatever you need to shake off, pull up a chair and you can be fed, nourished and loved.

    A table says you are not alone. You are cared for in the most basic of ways, which are the ways that truly matter.

    We need that symbol to go along with the spirit already in our home. We gather around a lot of tables here in Bellingham. At restaurants, coffee shops, at the Liberty house.

    We gather at our little yellow house too. 

    But we need that place to set our platters and lay our forks and clink our glasses.

    So, without further ado:

    IN SEARCH OF: a kitchen table.

    Square, or rectangular with leaves that can expand the size, but can also be folded down to fit against our wall. Does not have to be brand-new, we value character and story in our furniture and our lives the same. Has to be able to withstand meals teaming with food and also lively games with beans and dice. Must be able to be the centerpiece for truth, life and laughter. Must be ok with tears and yelling. Needs to be a table that can double as a place for creativity. Where dreams can be dreamt and plans can be made and vision can be established.
    And without a doubt, must be a place to gather, a soft place to a land and an easy place to take off from and come back too. 

    And must be a place to live from.
    The yellow house in Bellingham is searching for a table; can you help us?

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