I'm growing a human.

The universe is doing a really good job of throwing my own stuff in my face.

A dear friend who taught me how to radically accept myself at age 18 and 250 pounds is spending a month reflecting on her body not being an apology.  I wake each morning eager to read about what battle she is targeting today.  Rubbing thighs, back fat, she is singing my song as I silently read her words wishing for her bravery.

The woman who just started working out at my gym this month is just a few weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy.  She climbs walls and really squats (with her butt below her knees!) and I was secretly wishing it was her first pregnancy and she was going to balloon.  Then we spoke.  She has 4 children.  This is her 5th.

My OB-GYN has told me 10 pounds. This entire growing a human things should look like a max of ten pounds on my body.  Ten pounds came and went 2 weeks ago.

These rules about what this body is supposed to do and look like and how it's allowed to grow and how it should really shrink are once again becoming the loudest noises in my life.

They've always been loud.  On my best days I tell them to shove it and listen to the music that is this beautiful life I am in.  On my worst days I repeat the lies.  I own them.  I believe them.

I have been sorry for my body since the 2nd grade.  I have fought it, blamed it, and hated it.  A friend once told me that she was afraid of not loosing the weight and someday getting pregnant because no one would be able to tell she was pregnant.

That fear has rooted in my own heart.  Make sure they know you're pregnant and not just gaining weight.

Because, obviously, the worst thing in the world I could be is fat.

I will most likely not grow another human again.  This is my last experience doing one of the raddest things my body can do.  Some women know how often the baby kicks and exactly where they are stretching and what hurts.  I am too worried about what the scale will say tomorrow, how much dinner I've eaten, and if I look fat and not pregnant to enjoy the rad stuff.

I'm pretty freaking fed up with myself.

This body birthed an awesome little girl.  She isn't worried about what she looks like when people are taking pictures at swim class, but I can't seem to make eye contact with anything while in a swim suit.

Does she notice?  Is she picking up on it?  Of course she is.  I'm lying to myself when I think she isn't absorbing my body issues.

I have an OB appointment tomorrow and we find our the gender of this little human inside of me.

Stoked.  That's what I should be.

You know what I am?  Scared.  I don't want to hear the lecture about weight gain that I may or may not get and because of that I am already at the point of tears today.  I am worried about something that may or may not happen depending on the mood that some doctor is in when they see me.

Seriously?  If you were me saying this to me I would give you the sit down.  I'd feed you a piece of cake, tell you that our bodies are AMAZING and that they will do what they will do and inform you it's time to get amped about your ultrasound tomorrow.  You are growing a human.  That is amazing.  You have friends that would kill to grow a human inside of them and would gain 100 pounds if it meant getting this gift.

When what we believe about others doesn't apply to ourselves there is some real reconciliation that needs to happen.

I would say I need to get it together for AG but really, I need to get it together for myself.  I deserve more than a life where the loudest voice in my head is concerned with a number on a scale.

I am growing a human here.

What Humble Is.

I have a deep deep rooted fear that I will raise my kid wrong.

Just plain wrong.

She only says the number 2, she farts and blames other people, and there are days she eats only things that come from Trader Joe's that include nothing green.  Oh, and I don't ever shop at Whole Foods but I like people to think I do so they think I buy meat that won't give my kid some health problems but we really buy what's on sale at the grocery store.

Jay tries to remind me that she will end up fine.

He reminds me that we decided our number one goal as parents was to raise a humble kid. (Is farting and blaming it on someone else humble?  I don't know what category that falls under!)

Humble is what we came from.

Humble is what our culture taught us.

In our home, humble and loving is what matter.

But outside those walls is feeling mighty scary lately.  I live my life through the lens of teenagers.  I know what is ahead for her.

Then today I got the wake up call I needed.  It started with a grand idea for our trip back home, a joint birthday party for myself (okay, real humble Em) and my cousin Becky.  We've been doing it since I was pre-pubescent.  Is started remembering the parties we've had.  Becky is 7 years (-7 days) older than I am.

We had a pool party with root beer in bottles.

We had a party when she was in college where I got cool teenage stuff and she had just moved into her first place and got dishes (she was totes pissed about getting practical gifts and it was hilarious).

And then I just started to cry.

What 20 year old wants to have a birthday party with a 13 year old?

The same one who took me to the beach every Sunday after church in my awkward fat kid one piece while she was adorable and cute and her bikini and introduced me to all her friends (even the cute lifeguard) and was never ever ashamed of me.

The girl who let me meet her smokin' hot new boyfriend (who she ended up marrying and making cute babies with) to make sure I liked him before he met our family.

That's how I became a well-adjusted (mostly) adult.
It was not organic produce
or a fancy preschool
or baby sign language

it was the people God decided needed to be in my life.

I don't remember a lot of crap I learned in college.

I don't remember ANYTHING I learned in preschool but I do remember outside play including sitting on a big block of ice to make it melt so I feel like I'm pretty on track with AG's education.

I do remember the lessons that people taught me, like how Becky always made me feel worthy and important and honored no matter my age.  Also, how our family indulged us in having so many birthday parties with gifts when we were probably far too old for such things.

So chances are I am going to totally screw up my kid.
We are saving for therapy and not college because we feel like the therapy will come first anyway
But...
I hope there are lots of Beckys.

To know how to be truly humble you have to watch someone be it for you first.  To lay aside all that the world says is the right order and choose a different order that allows another to feel unconditional love.

I have received that a million times over and still never grocery shopped at Whole Foods so there is hope for my offspring.

When Jesus sneaks up...

I'm pausing.
Right now.
Because I have absolutely no time to do it so I am fairly sure I should.

May in ministry feels like an endless string of ends and beginnings that don't fit together.
Graduations and welcome letters.
End of the year breakfasts and next year's calendar.

It always makes me feel like I am living in two separate worlds and I often struggle to be present in the moment we live in anyway so, needless to say, Facebook tweaking and reality TV watching has overtaken quality Sabbath time and meditation.  As I slowly begin to awaken from my media-numbing coma I'm left with June.

Aubrey Grace will be baptized on Sunday.
We leave for the mission trip the following Saturday.

And it's time I check in and get present... stat.

These are sitting on my desk right now.

Devotions for each night of the mission trip.  Carefully typed, copied, color coded, and to be highlighted.  I know what they will look like in a few short days, scribbled with reflections on Jesus and service and 14 young people's dive into the lives of His people in Arkansas.

I pray over each one, as I highlight and wonder what meaning these words will have.  God always seems to reveal himself in them in a deep, meaningful, personal, ALIVE way each year.  I know this year will be the same.

I am ready to be amazed.

I have put so much of my heart and prayer-time and energy into preparing for this year's mission trip, the details that matter and those that just make life easier, that I have done what I promised I wouldn't do.

I've let my daughter fall into second place.  

Last Sunday I had a fleeting moment of 'we should just POSTPONE the baptism'

Jay told me I was crazy.  

He was right.

I said 'I'm just not prepared'.

I hadn't bought the perfect dress (for either of us).

I had not planned anything meaningful or unique or special for my daughter.

I hadn't really given it a second thought.

I even dropped the ball on asking her Godparents to be her Godparents.  That's something someone really likes to hear last minute!

I had created detailed car assignments for 14 teenagers and 3 leaders but had not taken 10 minutes to pray about my own child's BAPTISM.

Mother's guilt is real people.  And it's living at the Rutledge house right now.  

And and as much as I would love to believe in the miraculous power of my type-A personality I know that my organization does not make the Holy Spirit move.

My color-coded devotionals do not move a teenager to accept Jesus Christ.

My carefully selected (or not) toddler dress does not make AG's Baptism powerful and Holy and real.

So...

I'm pausing.
Right now.
Because I have absolutely no time to do it so I am fairly sure I should.

Why I call myself a Christian.

I was born an Episcopalian.
Crossing myself right out the womb.
I was never re-born or had to find Jesus.
I was lucky to be given Him from the start, in a little beach church, with lots of different kinds of people, all trying to love as well as possible and do good stuff in a hard world.

I never planned on becoming a youth minister, I was supposed to be a teacher.  I was supposed to get summers off.  Life just doesn't work out the way we plan it.

I also didn't plan to surround myself with a bunch of Jesus loving liberals.  But sometimes God is REALLY good.

My Facebook went red today with this.

It was proof of all those liberals I love.

Sometimes I did a double take at who put it up and nodded and smiled.

But then there was 'that post'.
The one that was probably meant for us.
Written about us.  
Written for me.  
Asking how someone can call themselves a Christian if they pick and choose the parts of the Bible they want to follow and leave the rest.

The Bible.
Written by humans.
Full of history and letters and poetry and laws and stories and tales and metaphors.
It seems like people really like the laws.

And I do pick and choose which ones I follow because
I still cut my hair Don't cut your hair nor shave. Leviticus 19:27
and today I am wearing a cotton-poly blend Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric Leviticus 19:19
and don't get my started on the period ones... I break those suckers left and right.

BUT... I do choose to follow the ones that Jesus (our main man... who created this community I have given my life to) underlined, italicized, and bolded for us.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 

This is the first and greatest commandment. 

And the second is like it: 

‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40

I work super hard to love the people around me.
Sometimes that is some exhausting work.
Today it meant loving the lady with the nasty Facebook post directed towards me.  And I do, I love her, she is a woman who desires an authentic relationship with Christ and I respect that.  I do not love her belief about homosexuality or her way of condemning my beliefs in a backhanded manner.

When I first started this gig as youth minister I thought I needed to keep my beliefs about equality to myself.  I was scared to ruffle feathers or offend.  But this journey in ministry has given me a deep rooted foundation based on the life that Christ lived on Earth and the way I want to live it as well.  He was outspoken.  He called out the hypocrites.  He loved the ones that everyone else pointed at. He told us that when we choose to condemn another we are usually ignoring the condemn-able in ourselves. He wrote LOVE WINS on the heart of his people when he died on the cross.

That is why I am a Christian.

I'm a Christian who breaks Old Testament laws and sings the praises of Christ's radical love from mountain tops. I'm a Christian that believes in communion and reconciliation for all and that none need it because of their sexual orientation. I am a Christian that believes in a Living God and Living Word that must be interpreted and analyzed and lived out in a broken world.

And on a final note... I am an Episcopalian because of this...

The NO Phase.

Today has been one of those days when humanity is exhausting.

And AG has entered the 'NO' phase.

The combination of these things led me to letting AG play in the dog bowl for 20 minutes because I just didn't have the energy to re-direct her and she was quietly entertained and  amamajustneedsaminute sometimes.

And if you were wondering if my child ever wears clothes in our house... the answer is no.  It's our little way of keeping some Hawaii in this mainland girl.

As I watched this sweet difficult human find her voice (which now only consists of NO and DOGGIE) while playing in dirty water, I thought of today's battle with humanity.  

Today's battle: not everyone is as open, loving, and accepting as the people that I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by my entire life.

I am pushing up against situations that I have never experienced before, situations where all I want to say is:

NO (while pointing my finger) 

and YOU ARE STUPID (because I'm not very eloquent when people make me mad)

and START LOVING LIKE JESUS OR GOD IS GOING TO SMITE YOU (because sometimes I want the Old Testament God to enforce New Testament rules like loving EVERYONE)

note:  I realizing hoping for smiting is unChristian... I'm working on it.

I have been trying to reach back and find a situation in my life where someone else was unable to show inclusive love in a difficult situation.  Truth be told, I can't.  My entire life I have been immersed in communities that said:

YES

YOU ARE WORTHY

YOU ARE ONE OF US

YOUR DIFFERENCE IS BEAUTIFUL

and 

WE BELONG TO EACH OTHER

Where the hell did I grow up and go to school and work?  Points for my mom because although life has been hard, and scary, and brutal, I have never lived in a world without unconditional love.  

As an extremely overweight teenager I had friends who celebrated my gifts and supported me as I grappled with unhealthy habits.

As a daughter I was told that I was enough; grades, accomplishments, and honors were not icing on the cake, they were THINGS that did not define me. If I got them, great, if I didn't, great.  

As a wife I have been shown worth, and care, and compassion and that no matter how hard I try... Jay isn't going anywhere (divorced kid problems!)

And now, at 28 years old, I am facing situations which make me feel like a 18 month old, just learning how to be.  It's a foreign universe to me, this place where judgement is cast without considering compassion.  

Maybe I'm glad I'm being stretched.  Maybe I'm not.  I can't quite decide.

A friend told me today, "not everyone lives in the bubble of love that we do"

Well that stinks... because this bubble is pretty rad.  

So as I watched the puddle grow bigger and bigger on our kitchen floor (remember, I was thinking all this during my minute when AG was making a complete mess) I realized that smiting would never be allowed in our love bubble.  

But... more people are totally allowed.  

Those people who I'm pointing my finger at and saying NO to.  They are welcome.  They need to be shown with compassion how transformative life is when you choose love.  And that, my friends, is my challenge.  It's my call to joyfully clean up the  mess before me.  If only I could look as cute as this kid does when doing it.  

Temperance

As I work through (and boy, do I need to take it all in slowly) Mere Christianity I found Uncle C.S was writing the words of my heart.

"One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the work Temperance to the question of drink.  It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things.  A man who makes golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as 'intemperate' as someone who gets drunk every evening.  Of course, it does not show on the outside as easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road.  But God is not deceived by externals." 

C.S. Lewis

First off... I am an idiot and do not think drink when I see the word TEMPERANCE... I think of the character on Bones, but maybe that's a personal problem and an issue I will deal with in the week I give up TV.  

It is that last phrase that, God is not deceived by externals, that frightens me and calms me all at once.  This week I am giving up sweets, treats, and extras.  It's a little cliche but I am glad it is where I am starting because it is making me aware of the moment.  Making me aware of my own hunger, my own needs, my own life.  When I threw in "extras" I was pretty vague with myself.  I now know that for me it is all those moments I feel something and decide to turn to food to feed it.  Joy.  Fear.  Anxiety.  Love.  I feed each with carbs and chocolate.  Target also fell into the world of extras.  Don't ask me how, but you probably get it... roaming those clearance end-caps lets me turn off the world and escape.  I've found that as life has gotten crazier the Target charges have gotten more frequent.  But a little extra chub and lots of Target bags are par for the course for a new mom.  I'm not falling in the street drunk.  I'm buying cheap groceries and clearance linens so to the world I just look like another mom sucking down her soy latte decorating her house.  

But God is not deceived by externals.

I know that God laughs at it, that She rubs my back and says, "Nice try, Emily, but no clearance end-cap is going to fill that hole.  Just invite me in a little more often.  Sit with me.  Feel that hunger and react to it don't feed it.  It's a comfort to me that God is not deceived by my armor.  It comforts me that I can't trick God in to thinking I've got it all together or that I know what I'm doing.  It's freedom.  It's knowing that it is okay to be hungry.  It is okay to feel like being a mom is just the hardest most beautiful thing that you can't handle and want more of all at the same time.  It is okay when you don't have the right words for that students or you have to tell their parents a hard truth that will be good for them in the long run... promise.  It is okay to be lost and question and celebrate and know all at the same time.

Just

BE

BE LOVE & 

BE BELOVED.

I find true calm when I dwell in the knowledge of being fully known, loved, and celebrated by my Creator.  That to be fully loved, to be beloved, I don't need to change a thing but I need to simply BE, and more often than not I need to just BE STILL and stop running from the powerful love of the one who can love me perfectly.  

So today I say 

thank you 

thank you 

thank you 

to my fellow lay minister and anglo/episco friend C.S. Lewis for speaking the words that ring true in my heart today and reminding me that even when the world may be fooled, our God is not deceived by externals!

Lenten Fast Week #1... fail?

We make plans and God laughs.

Or give us an ear infection?

One of the two.  As Saturday rolled around I looked at my fancy calendar all blocked off with a week by week of my Lenten fast.

Week 1: Stay up till 11pm each night.  

I was actually excited to snuggle on the couch with the dog, hot cocoa, and Mere Christianity for six nights in a row.  I already had my favorite highlighter laid out.

Then it happened... that bug that has taken down AG and Jay finally hit.

And I slept... all day Sunday.

And Monday happened and our amazing nurse practitioner laughed at the severity of my ear infection and told me to 'take it easy' and 'get good rest' and gave me horse pill antibiotics.

And I came home and cried.  Isn't that what everyone does when their sweet husband stays home from work to help with the little so you can lay in bed and watch HGTV for 12 straight hours?

Or it's just me.

BUT MY PLAN I pleaded to God.  My plan to let you move more in my life by giving up planning has failed!

Silence.

It was the silence my mom gave me the day I died my hair blonde and came home and told her that I had just spent the whole day in the sun.

So this week it looks like God is already doing His thing in my life instead of MY thing.  There is no possible way I can be staying up till 11pm each night, I'm having a rough time making it through bath time.  After crying, and sleeping, and some great medication, I realized that this is small stuff.  That I can easily move things around.  That God is already showing me that my inability to be flexible makes life much harder that it needs to be.  It also confuses Jay (why was I crying anyway!?)

So a new plan...

Week 1: No sweets, treats, or extras!

You may think that sickness would make this fast easier, but people, sickness does not stop this girl from dessert.  In fact, when I am feeling sorry for myself I often feed that feeling.  With chocolate.

But more on that tomorrow.

The Mailbox Chronicles

I grew up on a very busy street with neighbors on either side who we often had to call the police on.  We once had a transient man make his home at our front door.  We didn't even live in a sketchy part of town, but we most certainly did not live an neighborhood.

In August when we moved to the 'burbs I am fairly sure Jay wanted to cry and I wanted to meet every person who walked past our house.  This is no different that most social situations we encounter.

We are the first house in Pleasant-ville and the communal mailbox is about 200 feet from our front door and thus we are the freaking welcome wagon.  Because of the unfortunate prestigious placement of our starter home we meet new neighbors daily.

Yesterday:

AG and I walk out to the mailbox and an adorable family is a few feet behind us.  I am wearing compression pants, an old hoodie, TOMS, and haven't showered since my early morning workout... it's a cute look.

I check our mail.

I introduce myself and AG, apologizing for how shy she is as she stares at them.

AG then crawls into this woman's arms with a please save me from my abusive mother face.  Awesome.

Then we small talk, I meet their sweet little girl, and notice her pregnant belly.

Me: Do you know what you are having?  
Her: I actually just gave birth.  We got back from the hospital today.
Me: (to myself) Crap... fail.  That's what a new mom wants to hear.  You pushed a human out and look pregnant.  Recover, Em, recover.  She isn't offended but don't say anything else stupid.
(outloud) CONGRATULATIONS!  It's amazing that you could leave your house and on top of it, not be crying uncontrollably.   

I am considering only checking our mail under the veil of darkness from now on.

Bring it, Brene.

Fasting.

Does that word make you as hungry as it makes me?

It's that beautiful time in the liturgical season when Lent is so close you can taste it and you start eating everything you are contemplating giving up in mass quantities just in case you decide to give that thing up.

But then if you are like me, you never actually give it up.

I have been of the I don't give something up for Lent because I choose to take something on club for many many years. What that has really meant for me is I love excess and have horrible impulse control so instead of doing something difficult like fasting from any part of my fluffy life, I will just add more to my overcrowded plate... but I will phrase it in a way that makes me sound spiritually evolved.  

Guess what, friends.  I am not spiritually evolved.  I am spiritually numb.

I am reading Brene Brown at the moment and she speaks about the importance of vulnerability so I am practicing it now.  This Lent.  With you watching.

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ― Brene Brown

So this Lent I am saying... Bring it Brene!

Vulnerable confession: My life is so loud that I am having a really hard time hearing God lately.  The loud is my own doing, my own planning, my own turning on when I should be turning off.  I have felt  both numb and dumb to the movement of the Holy in my life.  This disconnect is both embarrassing and real for people working in ministry.  It's the unspoken demon that many of us battle with.  The battle of our own faith when we spend day in and day out working to nurture, reflect, and honor the faith of others.

As Lent has drawn near I know that it is time I get real with myself and my relationship with God.  It's time I start giving up some of the things that I enjoy (and that temporarily fill the hole in my soul that God desires to occupy permanently) and make room for the spirit to move through me and use me.

It's time I give something up.

A few years ago I left Facebook behind.  It was the one and only time that I have given something up for Lent and it was hard and beautiful and needed.  I am in desperate need of something hard and beautiful right now.

A few weeks ago Jay asked me, why are you never happy anymore?

Ouch.  And true.  And pretty painful.  I mean he is the grumpy one and I am Miss Mary Sunshine.  How dare HE call ME out on being down.  

Once I stopped being angry about what he said (only furthering his point, which was more annoying than anything) I started to take a good look at me.  This life of mothering and ministering should bring me much more joy than it is... but because I have packed it so full there is no ROOM for joy but only room for the next thing.  There is no room for Holy because I'm not giving the Holy room to move through me.  There is no room for the unknown because I've tried to schedule the unknown right out of my life. I have found that God tends to draw closest and move most powerfully through the unknown.  I have basically been boxing God out of my own life while try to infuse Her in to others' lives.  

When I give up control, when I stop planning every minute, those are the times in my life I feel a deep sense of the presence of God, yet those are also the times I feel most uncomfortable vulnerable.  

So, I am planning for a Lent of vulnerability   

I am FASTING.  I am cutting out one thing each week of Lent. One of my major time suckers.  I am seeing what happens when I remove all the little gods from my life and give God a minute to move in me.  

What are my little gods?  I bet you can guess them...

Gym 

TV

Spending

Internet

Sweets/Treats/Extras 

Sleep 

Note: I am not saying that sleep or the internet or working out are bad things, but in my own life they become things that take away from the Holy.

From Monday-Saturday each week during Lent I will eliminate one of these things.

Pray for Jay.  And AG.  And maybe for yourself if you cross my path on week I give up going to the gym.  

I will be writing about my experiences through the week.  Why those things hold so much weight in my own life.  What spaces are being opened up and doors are being open and how God is using my fasting to feed me, which I know She will, she is only waiting for the opportunity.  I am praying that this the numbness fade and my eyes open again to the presence of Christ in my life.

Life Lesson: No one cares about your stupid Pinterest project, Emily!

God has been pretty awesome lately*.  I had been praying a good long time for a few things:

1. Friends (my own age!)

2. A bible study that AG could be with me for. Since it would have to be on my day off I didn't want to lose out on an entire morning with her.

*note: God is awesome all the time, I know this, but I am selfish and often His awesome makes stretches me and I HATE CHANGE.  

So through the many ways and channels that God works a group of young mamas was assembled for a bible study book club.  There are four of us with 6 kiddos (5 of them are two and under).  Our first meeting was last Thursday.  I cleaned my house.  Like really cleaned it, I even mopped my floors which only happens 3 times a year.  I decorated for Valentine's Day with Pinterest crafts that made me look straight Martha Stewart.  I even washed the dog pillow.  Really people... I was on a roll.  As I set out snacks and made coffee waiting for my doorbell to ring I looked at my house and thought... 'Oh yeah, Emily... you are TOTALLY a grown-up and your house looks adorable'.

Enter women and kiddos and diaper bags.  It was an hour and a half of talking about JESUS and how to be a woman of God in this world.  An hour and a half of loving on other mama's babies. An hour and a half of hearing each other's stories. An hour and a half in the presence of other women walking this hard path of raising little people and loving our husbands and trying to somehow hold on to ourselves in the process.  For me, it was an hour and a half of overflowing grace.

Then babies were packed up and plans were made for next time and my dog got to come back inside.  

I sat in my kitchen feeding AG lunch and a thought occurred to me... no one said anything about my adorable Pinterest decorations!   In that moment I knew that God had brought together the perfect group of women for me. The ones who won't feed my ego but will nourish my soul.  The ones that won't perpetuate my desire to be the perfect mom/wife/daughter/Christian but who will remind me that we are broken people trying desperately to serve Christ.  The ones that care much more about my heart than my house.  

His providence continually humbles me.  I hope this week God's providence is revealed to you in a new and surprising way!  I also hope you don't waste too much time on Pinterest... apparently that crap won't make you friends!

Not cool, Robert Frost!

NOT COOL, ROBERT FROST!

I came across this little gem this weekend. It was during nap time when important things are supposed to occur in my house. The important thing that happened on Saturday was that I watched every single Kid President video on YouTube.  

Kid President brings up some important things in his pep talk:

• I'm on your team, be on my team
• That road in the woods is ROUGH ("NOT COOL, Robert Frost" may be a new way that I comfort young people walking those rough roads!)
• What's YOUR Space Jam?
• We were made to be AWESOME.
• It's everybody's duty to give the world a reason to dance.

I find it easy to forget that we were made to do awesome things.  That we are each called to change this world in our own way. That we each have a Space Jam in us. For me it gets lost in the menu planning and Facebook stalking. The gym workouts and diaper changes.  The laundry and the grocery shopping.  The Target runs and youth group planning.  I get lost.  I forget that my life is more than what I check off my to-do list on a certain day.   

We were not made to live lives on the smooth road but to walk through the rocks and thorns and glass so we can become AWESOME.  I have watched a lot of awesome in my 28 years on this planet.  I wonder if all of those awesome people know what I saw in them? I wonder if Pierce Temple remembers what power his imagination holds.  I wonder if Lehua, from my first year of teaching, knows that her spunk, her snark, and her attitude may have made me nuts at times but that they are powerful tools of her unique womanhood that will get stuff done!  I wonder if Lucille Caldwell knows (really knows) how many people fell in love with Jesus because she made us sit still, pay attention, and take our own faith seriously... no matter our age or how cute the boy across the room was.  

I wonder what my Space Jam would be if I put away my lists and plans and decide to just live the dream.

 

I needed Kid President to remind me that I need to pull my head out of the routineness that has become my life and expect more from myself, to not give up, to make my Space Jam.

 

So here is to each of our Space Jams... and giving the world a reason to dance!

 

And hey, if you didn't already know

I'm on your team!

Perfection

from the January 14, 2013 EYC Update...

Perfection. 

We are a little obsessed with it.

Perfect families.

Perfect bodies.

Perfect grades.

Perfect (insert your unrealistic noun here).

Webster has 18 definitions of PERFECT, the first four are:

1. Being entirely without fault or defect: flawless

2. Satisfying all the requirements: accurate

3. Corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept

4. Faithfully reproducing the original

I am starting to wonder who creates the ruler that we measure this perfection by. 

Who decides what our own personal perfect looks like?

Jesus lived in a time when 'perfect' meant you had to follow a lot of rules.  Rules about how you washed your hands before you ate.  Who you were allowed to interact with.  How you dressed.  Sometimes we hear that Jesus was PERFECT. 

To us, now, we see his perfection.

To His society, in first century Palestine, he was far far far from flawless, accurate, and corresponding to the ideal standard.  He ate with tax collectors and let a sinful woman wash his feet.  He touched lepers and called fishermen to be his apprentices. 

Jesus' measurement of perfection looked very different than his society's.  It still does. As His people... our definition should probably look a very different fromour society's.

What if we stuck to just focusing on one definition of perfect:

faithfully reproducing the original

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1-2, 14

Streamlining.

For 3 years I have tried to blog.  It has failed.  Epic epic failure.  As I looked to the new year I wanted my focus to be being PRESENT.  Being present for my own life.  I know myself, and I know to do that I need to write it out.  I knew that when I made two blogs a few years ago.  Emily's personal blog and Emily's youth ministry blog.  And both were epic failures.  Thank you for those who reminded me, you are the people I love most because you know I need to be called out.

For 3.5 years I have been trying to keep the distinction between Emily the friend/wife/sister/mom and Emily the youth minister.  Boundaries (which I am not saying I don't believe in but I am getting a little more realistic about) that I tried to keep to make my life manageable.

Well my life is NOT manageable.  

That has become pretty real for me.  I am a full time mom, full time youth minister, full time wife, full time daughter, and full time friend with a baby in childcare only 2 days a week.  I am one big ball of unmanaged mess.  But this is what it is right now.  This is what life looks like.  One big messy blog, filled with youth ministry rants and mama freak outs and life.  My vocation will never fit in the 9-5 world and it spills into my parenting and my marriage and my family.  And my family and my marriage and my parenting spill into my ministry.  It's not perfect.  It makes me feel guilty and blessed.  But it's all one.

So I've given up on trying to keep things in their neat compartments.  If I am living by my word in 2013
being present
it's going to be sloppy but it's going to be real.

and I figured out how to merge my blogs while AG ate lunch so bonus points for me today and successful multi-tasking and working at home with a 16 month old.  

Empty Tomb Moments

  First... watch this clip.  If you are anything like me, have a tissue available.

I believe that THAT is the kingdom of God.  Right there, on that court, is what eternity will feel like.  I don't know about you all but lately, I have been loosing some of my faith in humanity.  I know that our God can shine his light in even the darkest of places but sometimes it just seems unfair that those places are dark at all.  

Sometimes, I need to see a Jason McElwain.  I need to see that sometimes there is nothing but light.  A young man who humbled himself, served, and gave thirsty people water.  A young man who spoke words of encouragement and power into a team he loved but couldn't suit up with.  A young man who did all of this without letting a bitter root grow in his heart.  

And then, to see him receive the glory he deserved but never asked for... it is like seeing the empty tomb. 

So here is to a year of having 'empty tomb' moments. Moments where the light is so bright we momentarily forget there is any dark.  Moments when the power of Christ is so near we can't stop making 3-pointers.  Moments when we are so excited for one another that we can't help but to jump up and down and scream.