Underground

...this reflection is from the Church of Our Saviour Youth Community's Weekly Update, I write a reflection each week for our community, a sweet friend thought it may be smart for me to publish them here.  Smart friends, it's good to keep them around...


Two weeks ago on my time off  I took a day to plant late spring and summer bulbs and bushes in our front yard. I wrote a few weeks ago about how I never got around to my grand plan of white tulips, well this was my second chance.  I spent an entire day with my hands deep in soil and my knees against the cold earth.

I learned quickly that a bulb planter is the best gardening tool invented and why people who garden are, no joke, amazing.  After pruning back unruly bushes, turning up the soil, and planing close to 100 bulbs and bushes I stood back to admire my work.  It looked like one big bare front garden.  

Then it started to rain.

Thankfully it has been raining steadily for the past two weeks so I know those deep planted beauties are being fed but my front yard still looks bleak.  I know that there is something happening beneath the surface but I can't see it, I know that soon there will be peony bushes and colorful flowers and green leaves but at the moment  it's all dirt.  Wet dirt.  

Does your life ever feel like my front yard?  You know that something is growing but you just can't see it popping above the surface.  The rain keeps coming, the storms blow through, and you know God is preparing something beautiful but it hasn't broken ground yet and you are left with nothing but the hope that the good thing is on it's way?

My plants are growing but for now it is all happening below the surface, beneath the soil, where only God can see.  God knows our hearts and sees the good things that are growing in us even before they become visible. 

These rains and storms we endure can be used to grow good things.  God can take even the worst that we walk through and transform it into something beautiful in us.  

 

Here it is.

I've been referring to the 'big bad news' for a while now and it just feels like it's time to write it.  To see it here.  To have it in words that I can read again.  I think I may have had to wait until the tomb was empty again.  Till I heard the Gospel read from the lips of a dear friend as my community surrounded me.  To remember the joy that Mary Magdalene felt when she realized that Jesus' body was not stolen but that he was standing before her.  I needed Easter for this.

My mom has Alzheimer's.   

She was diagnosed July 17th.

I have known in my heart for the past four years.  I've been losing her little bits at a time.  I held deep hope that there was another explanation, that there was a fix, a cure, a hope.  My mom has been blessed with the most amazing friends that have taken me in as a child of their own.

My Aunty Mary Alice actually called to tell me the news.

Can you imagine?  Calling your friend's child to share their single parent's diagnosis of a terminal illness when they live across the country.  That women gets all the gold stars and glasses of wine and bonus points there are.

Since July I have been everywhere.  I have cried every single day for weeks straight in the shower.  I have hidden from the reality of it in workouts and chocolate cake.  I have what-if'd and researched and banned myself from research and started the cycle all over again.

I have a large family but the reality of my childhood was that there were lots of people but my life was made up of my grandmother and mom.  They were my world, my memories, my family.  Grandma died in 2006.  I held my breath for all of high school and college awaiting her death, I had a slight break and now I'm back at it again, awaiting the loss of another parent.  But this time the loss happens differently.

I am already losing her.

There is no one left who holds the memories of my childhood.  There is no one left to tell my story to me.

When families gather and reminisce and remember the things you have forgotten you hate it and love it all at the same time.

I am realizing that what is forgotten is just that... forgotten.

Writing has always been my safe place, my therapy, my little world.

I am realizing it is now my memory box.  Each day I pray that I don't one day have to share this diagnosis with my own children but I don't know what lies ahead for me.  I do know that the memories matter.  The stories of our lives mean something.  I also know that this journey I am walking with my mom will change all of us.  I need to write about it, I need to also write down the stories of our kids and lives and keep them somewhere.  I need a place to put all that is inside of me.  There are at least 25 half written blog posts that have something that references my mom's disease so I haven't posted them.  Most 30 year olds don't have a mom with Alzheimer's but some do.  My children will not know my mom as I thought they would, but we are going to need to figure out how this looks for us.  We are going to have to pick up and live our new normal.

The real shit part is, we know what the end looks like.

The comforting and also shitty part is that we are not alone.  This disease is everywhere.

We have to make our way.

The one big rule we have as a family is to be honest and kind.  That also means being loving and vulnerable.  A part of me wants to hide my mom's disease.  I know that she does, too.  I am a little bit scared to write about it because I am outing her as well as me.  It's our disease.  I know lots of things will always be changing but being kind and honest are non-negotiables for us so I'm laying it all out.  WWBBD?  What Would Brené Brown Do?

So here we are.  Amazing things happening, hard things happening, this is being alive, I suppose.  The past nine month I have had the same hymn stuck in my head... It's God's annoying way of being present with me.  I would have preferred a mom without a terminal illness.

Blessed Assurance ...

1. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
2. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
3. Heir of salvation, purchase of God 
4. Born of His Spirit, Washed in His blood.
5. • This is my story, this is my song,
     Praising my Savior all the day long;
     This is my story, this is my song,
     Praising my Savior all the day long.
6. Perfect submission, perfect delight,
   Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
   Angels, descending, bring from above
   Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
7. Perfect submission, all is at rest,
   I in my Savior am happy and blest,
   Watching and waiting, looking above,
   Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

Deac Man... You are ONE!

Deacon William,

It's hard to believe we have had you out in this world as part of our family for a whole year.  Your dad and I can't get over how fast it has gone.  It's a lot like when the doctor told me to push and I thought I had hours before you'd arrive like I had with your sister and three minutes later he tossed you up on to my chest and said, "that's a big boy, he asked for my keys on the way out!"

I know you will hear it from everyone else so you might as well hear it from me, I wanted you to be a girl.  Desperately.  I just wasn't sure I knew how to be a mom to a boy.  I cried in the ultrasound when they told us that you were you.  I will pay for a portion of your therapy later in life.  Everyone told me that as soon as I met you it would all change.  They were right.  I was annoyed at how right they were.  Your sister is me.  She is sassy and pretends she knows more than she actually does.  You, you are your father.  You were a gift to us that we didn't know we were going to need to unwrap this year.

I have heard before that siblings are the best gift you can give your children.  You and your sister are the best thing I have ever seen together.  I didn't get to grow up with your Uncle Toby.  He was 6 years older than me and we always lived in different houses.  Your dad grew up an only child.  He has been given the gift of siblings as an adult.  He is just getting to know your Aunty Amanda & Aunty Courtney and what a blessings they have already been!  It has been earth shattering for the two of us to watch the two of you because we just never had what you two have.  Tonight your sister fed you dinner.  She has taught you baby sign language.  She tells us what you need.  She knows you in ways that I fear we never will.  You two are bonded in a way that I prayed for from the moment that I knew you were growing inside of me.  I think that is why I had wanted you to be a girl.  I had believed that the only way you would be that close with your sister was if you were the same gender.

I was WRONG.

I am never wrong so this will be the last time in your whole entire life.

This year has been hard in so many ways... except for you.

You were born easy.  From the moment you flew out of me.

You ate (once I gave up trying to believe I could somehow breastfeed even though I knew I couldn't).

You slept (and continue to) through the night from an age that makes other moms hate me.

Even when you are sick, which is all the time because you are in daycare, you smile and play.  You had the flu last month and the nurse laughed that I had brought you in for the flu because you had a 'fever' of 98.9.  She said no one with the current flu has a fever that low... the test came back positive. No one except YOU.

Even at one day shy of one month old when you were hospitalized because you had a fever (because your parents just can't shield you from germs because we don't have time for it and you have a three year old sister who leaves the house) and the nurses just came in to play with you because you were the un-sickest sick baby in the unit so there was no actual nursing to do with you.

You did teach mommy a very good lesson during that whole fiasco.  Always wear cute clothes when going to the hospital with your child... pediatric doctors are very good looking.  Do not show up in old maternity pants and a dirty hoodie.  Thank you, dear child.

This year has been full of challenges and pain.  Pain I have never in my life felt before.  We have received news about your Tutu that will change her life and ours.  It nearly broke me.  In the moments when the fear and uncertainty began to eat me up there would be your face...

  

God has placed in you a spirit of joy I have never seen in another person.  I know that I was blessed with a well of happiness that is deep to draw on and I have been thankful for that my entire life but you, my sweet boy, make my well seem shallow.  At first I thought it was just me but I now know that you share it with everyone you are with.  Your teachers see it, too.  Aunty Jen sees it when she drops Leann off in your classroom each day.  You are happy.  Deep down, rooted in your soul, happy.  That gift is for you, but it is also for us.  God knew we needed you for what lies ahead.  Your dad and I agree that you will cause us great anxiety because you have no fear and love fun and do often resemble a small drunk college student but your happiness is infectious.

Last week we lost someone dear to us.  Your Aunty Jenn died of a really crappy disease.  It makes me really really sad that you won't remember her but I will have lots of stories to tell you and she is woven into who you are and who we are as a family and she is part of you.  She was one of the first people that knew you were growing inside of me.  She was there when your sister and you were baptized and blessed the home that you sleep in.  She came to the hospital when you were born and held you.  She had a special thing she did with her son, Chris, who you will know (and who will probably teach you things I don't want to know about) which was called noggin.  They would touch heads.  Towards the end it was the one sign of affection she could actively participate in.  The last time you saw her I had brought you to church because you were sick and I told her to stay away because I was not giving the ALS patient the flu.  She gave me her typical look of 'I don't care what you think I'll do what I like' and rolled over to you.  She loved you so.  I brought you closer and you leaned over to her and gave her a noggin.  It was love.

Deac, we want the world for you.  I was so nervous about having a boy because I feel lots of pressure to raise a good man.  Then I remembered I married one so a lot of that pressure is off because your daddy is really good at this raising a good man thing.  We want your life to be full.  We want you to find a partner that you love, a calling that fills your heart, and we want you to want us to be around you even if you are a drunk college student.  We want you to be a man who stands up for women. We want you to understand consent and teach it to the boys in the locker room.  We want you to break the stereotypes.  We know, pretty definitively, that you will be very tall and intimidating looking.  We want you to use that for good and not evil.  People will think you are a good old boy, like they think your dad is, we want you to surprise them.  We want you to use words like gender stereotypes and penis and vagina.  We want you to see people for their hearts and not their physical attributes or social standing.  We want you to decide if college is right for you or if being a mechanic would make your heart happier.  We want you to fall in love with Jesus and find out why He made you the happiest kid on the planet.

And even though your parents are constantly trying to break gender norms by dressing you like this...

I'm so glad you were born you.  

I love you.

Some thoughts on Advent

*WARNING: contains strong feelings regarding Elf on the Shelf:  if you have a deep love of this tradition, do not read

As a cradle Episcopalian and now lay minister in the church my life is marked by the color of linens and liturgical rhythm that structures our year.  As a person living in America and a mother of a toddler in the age of Pinterest my life is also inundated by the ways that others structure their own seasons; how they shop, how they celebrate, how they 'do life' and how it looks in comparison to my own.

It's an odd space to be in; a mom who ministers to teenagers and spends the entirety of my life thinking either of others' children or my own... the lenses I see the world through allow me to spend more time than the average mom thinking about faith formation.  I live and breathe it.  Each children's book becomes retreat material, each youth ministry book a parenting manual.  The greatest blessing to my ministry has been motherhood.  The greatest blessing to my motherhood has been, without a doubt, my ministry.  

This past weekend as I worked online to organize our family's 2014 Advent plans I came across what has become Advent in America... Elf on the Shelf.  If you know nothing about it, Google it, and become utterly exhausted for all parents.  In a nutshell a little elf moves in to your home the month leading up to Christmas and reports back to Santa nightly regarding your child's good or bad behavior (whether they are on the nice or naughty list).  

When the month leading up to Christmas becomes about the sum of our good or bad works Christmas becomes judgement day... recorded by a small elf who has invaded our homes we have, without a doubt, left Christ out of Christmas.  Christ, in fact, came to save us from the elf on the shelf.  

There is no more tally.  

There is no works salvation. 

There is nothing we can do that cuts us out of the eternal celebration if we chose to accept the invitation.  

There is no naughty or nice list.  

There is only the gift of GRACE.  

Grace (noun) in Christian belief: the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings

What we do with our kids matters.  What we teach them, both explicitly and implicitly, about God makes a difference.  The month leading up to Christmas should be full of excitement, anticipation, and joy.  There are amazing resources out there to help moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles make Advent a time of holy preparation that readies our children for the life altering gift that is Christ's birth.  

• I have learned so much from my sweet friend Christine that I was blessed to meet on a retreat in North Carolina and now I just stalk via Facebook.  She writes about how she celebrates Advent with her family on her blog These Stones.  You will also get lost in her awesomeness, go ahead... I do it, too. 
•  If you are a lover of finding mass amount of information in one place as I am, go ahead and start a Family Advent Board on Pinterest.  Don't start comparing yourself, aint no body got time for that.
• Looking for a great way to teach your children about St. Nicholas? (HURRY!  St. Nicholas day is December 6th!) Watch the Veggie Tales movie on Netflix!
• Jesse Tree.  Just get all up in your research mode and figure out how you can make that happen for your family.  It's the thread, it's the ah-ha! It's beautiful to behold.  My little ones are not quite there yet but I am anxious to make this new book by Ann Voskamp what our Advent is about... HURRY UP AND GROW UP ALREADY I WANT TO DO THIS

We can spend our time moving an elf around as she/he creates nightly havoc on our homes and instils faulty theological ideas of Christ's birth in our children or we can put that energy into forming our children's faith in ways that will sustain them past the magic years.  I need my children to know about, feel, accept, and cling to God's GRACE.  There are Christmas' ahead of them that will be sad, lonely, where they will mourn.  There will be others where they will feel as they do now, where the magic of it all will be too much but no because of a list or an elf or a gift but because of LOVE.  

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." -Isaiah 9:6

So this is 30...

As my birthday quickly approached this summer I kept hearing the same thing over and over again…

I loved 30! The 30's are the best years of your life!

I have only been on this planet for 30 years but I already have a few take-aways…things that as I move through this decade I can be confident in:

1.  There is no best year.  There is no best decade.  Dickens had it right… it is the best of times and the worst of times.  I have put a lot of pressure on best in my life.  Best is ridden with comparison and aint no body got time for that.  Comparison has ripped me of too much joy in this life.  I'm sure there will be great things that happen in my 30's and I am also sure there will be a lot of crap to go with it.  See #2.

2.  People I love are going to die while I'm in my 30s.  Some of which I am acutely aware of at this moment.  Some of which will be sudden.  I'm hoping and praying I make it through but I am also aware that there is no guarantee for me.  Thirty means I am past the age where the only people who die are grandparents and other people's people.  I am going to lose some of my people.  I feel an ache for those losses already.

3.  That my children will drive me bat-shit crazy and I will like them more than any other being on the planet-- all within a five minute time period.  Deac is probably our last baby.  My loins are not quite ready to own that one but it may be our reality.  The other night as I turned off the lights and picked up Deac's onesie from the day I found myself burring my nose in his dirty baby clothes.  I just needed to smell him.  I needed to lock that smell somewhere deep within me.  That smell is love and comfort and mama-can-make-it-better.  For a minute I wondered if I kept it hidden in a rubbermaid somewhere and pulled it out in 16 years… would it smell the same?  My instincts tell me no but my heart tells me try it anyway.

4.  I will struggle with my weight.  This battle has been mine since the 2nd grade.  I am now facing losing the same health-affecting 50 pounds I have lost twice before and the other 20 that's just so I fit in to that one pair of jeans from that one time when all I did was workout and eat Subway.  I no longer struggle with the things I did surrounding my weight as a child or a teenager or even as a young adult (when I fit those prior mentioned jeans).  There is no longer relentless teasing on the playground or crude comments.  I'm not trying to catch me a man.  The people I am surrounded by could care less about my weight.  They see ME.  They see my heart, for better or worse, and are in no way concerned about my jean size.  That's all me.  Since at the moment NONE of my adorable jeans fit I am feeling defeated and all yoga-panty.  This battle is my own but how I fight it demonstrates to my daughter what it means to love herself.  The line between vanity and health can be thin for me.  I will walk it carefully in my 30's… striving to always stay on the side of health because I know Aubrey is watching.

5. My marriage will get better and harder.  Two nights ago I pulled out the scrapbook of memories and plans I made for Jay on our second Christmas together.  I was 21.  I carefully created this book that looked perfect.  I had cute quotes and lists of the things 'to do before babies' and 'to do after babies'.  I had all the cards I had written him while we lived apart carefully glued in to pages.  I knew this was something that would fill with our dreams and history (only it all had to be in my handwriting because his was too messy) but it now sits very empty.  There was too much pressure on the book and we never wrote in it after the first week.  Right there would be the root issue of that.  I have given up on perfect in our marriage. I know that planning a perfect life does not guarantee it. I am working on giving up my own control issues and desire for perfection.  I know in this next decade there will be times that I think I can do better.  There will be times I believe that he should do better.  There will be moments I look at him and fall in love all over again and times I look at him and think really… 50 more years of this?  My sweet boss has said a million times to me (when I get all judgey and say to him How are those two married?) that there is grace in every marriage.  There has never been anything so true.  It has taken me 10 years together to know that we are probably not going to get divorced.  That he is not going to be a recreation of my dad.  And that I am enough for him and he is enough for me.  Note:  can someone please remind me of this when he buys his 8th truck since moving to C'ville, which will happen sooner than I am comfortable with, I'm sure.

6.  There is nothing more important than good friends.  I have been blessed with a best friend.  A person who knows me better than I know myself.  The other day she yelled at me for 4 minutes on the phone while I ugly cried.  She has never, in our 16 years of friendship, raised her voice to me.  She screamed and ranted and cried as she did it and informed me, in no uncertain way, that I needed to stop apologizing for being happy. There is oh-so-much back story of how we got to this point in the conversation that will all reveal itself in time but I needed to ugly cry and she needed to yell and we needed to do it together.  She is my therapy.  She is my other life partner.  When I moved across the country I was terrified that I would not make more friends.  It took a while.  In the past 2 months God has shown me that She will never leave me without close girlfriends because She knows that is my life-line.  Last month when I got some big, scary, life-shaking news (I'm fine, the kids are fine, Jay is fine but it's just not time for it to be internet published) my sweet Jodi did what she does best.  She read books about the thing and is reporting back what I should read and not read (because it's just too much right now).  Things I should think about and begin to work through.  She is making a plan when my heart won't let me but my reality needs me to.  She is my person here.  It's like I can breathe again.  How people survive without girlfriends is beyond me.


So this is 30... The only thing I am 100% sure of is that it will surprise me.

Note:  This adorable picture in which my children are cute and I am dressed to go out for my birthday with all my friends with a gin & tonic in hand... it looks like life is great, right?  45 seconds later Deac puked all over my linen pants (the only nice thing that fits) and I said words that a toddler shouldn't hear come from my mouth.  THAT is 30.

Sam Winslow's Guest Post... What if?

As a minister I am privileged to hold the secrets and the stories and the hurts and the triumphs of the families I serve.  To be present for the most painful, confusing, joyful, and surprising parts of people's lives is a gift. To hold space with them, to listen, to be a safe space, to be a non-judgmental companion as they walk through the hard parts of this life may be the aspect of ministry that fills my heart with the Holy like nothing else can.  Those moments shared are precious to me.  For the most part, they are mine (and ours for who I am with). No one knows what is spoken over coffee or hospital beds or emergency Bodos dates.   

Today, I get to share with you a story that is dear to me.  A story that Sam and his family wanted to share.  A story they wanted to spill out to all parents and kids and those who feel alone.  Sam is beyond precious to me, to our youth community, to our parish.  He is a man who knows how to make others feel complete love and worth.  And he is smart.  Like scary crazy smart.  He sat on my search committee as a sweet skinny tall 10th grade boy.  He is now a senior in college and eloquent and funny and brave.  The way his peers feel about him is how I hope every kid gets to feel.

These words are Sam's.  This story is his.  This truth is universal and real and needs to be heard.

What if…?

It’s a small enough question, isn’t it? It’s just two simple words. Now add a few more.

What if my child is gay?

In the struggle to come to terms with my sexuality, the biggest barrier to coming out was not the rest of the world, nor was it my parents. The person I dreaded telling most was myself. After all, wasn’t I supposed to end up with a woman? My whole life I had had a plan. I’ll go to college. Maybe I’ll pursue a graduate degree. Then I’ll get a job. Relationships would surely follow, ostensibly with women, and then a marriage, kids, and a happy life. If everything was going according to plan, then why wasn’t I happy?

When thoughts of being attracted to men first started crossing my mind, I felt guilty. Every time I gave leash to the idea of desiring a man, a deep shame shadowed my mind. Beat it down, Sam. Hide it. Bury it inside you. Those are forbidden thoughts.

For a long time, I had tried to convince myself that maybe I was just bisexual. Yeah, that seems alright in my conscience. Have your little ‘ideas,’ but you’ll still end up with a woman. Freud would have had a field day with that one. It took more time to stop trying to justify my own mind and accept myself. But why did it take so long?

When going to tell my parents that I’m gay, I called my parents into the room, asking if I could talk to them about something. They thought I had scratched the car. When I told them I’m gay, they were dumbfounded. It didn’t make any sense. Here’s our son, he’s perfectly normal. Gay guys aren’t like our son. This is all wrong.

And so I return to the original question, what if my child is gay? I am not a parent. I am not a sage crone, speaking from years of life experience. I’m merely a 21 year old college student, out of the closet for barely 6 months. But I know one thing, if that question had crossed my parents’ minds for 30 seconds out of the 21 years of my life, then the 10 seconds of eternity following telling my parents I’m gay would have been filled with love, not silence. Have you ever heard true silence? There is quiet, and then there is silence. The latter is infinitely scarier than the first, for it carries all the fear of walking into the dark. I sat there, not knowing what they would say. I begged, implored my parents to say something. “Do you love me,” I had to ask.

I’m one of the lucky ones. The weeks following my coming out were filled with questions, doubts, and fears, but through it all a desire to redo those first 10 seconds. And in fact, we’ve learned things about our family and breaking down emotional barriers that never would have happened without the discussions we had in those first weeks.

But what about all the other sons and daughters out there? What about the kids whose parents sit there saying how disgusted they are with the direction the country is headed? How do they even consider the possibility of imagining a time when they are happily comfortable with themselves, and know that their family stands behind them? How can they be helped?

I am not saying that every parent in the world needs to cater to the possibility of their child being gay by painting the house in rainbows. But please, let the question “what if my child is gay?” cross your mind for 30 seconds. Tell yourself that if that time comes, that you know your initial reaction will be one of love. Hug your child. The world is full of people who are quick to judge, eager to condemn others at the slightest excuse. Perhaps your child is doing that to themselves, already. What would you do if your child told you they had totaled the car? What if they were pregnant? How scared do you think they would be of telling you, only then to find out that their fears were justified? Now to whom do they turn?

My mother told me that her initial hesitation when I came out to her was one of fear. She grew up in the ‘80s. She was my age during the AIDS crisis. She knows that the world truly is a scary place. All she wants is for me to be safe, and to protect me. How cruel it is, then, that her maternal instincts came across as being distanced in those first few seconds. How could I sit there, staring into the silence, and not cry out of sheer terror, curled into a ball so tight I had hoped I could disappear. No, I was not kicked out of the house. No, I was not disowned. No, I have never injured myself, or contemplated suicide. I’ve been lucky.

If you are a parent, if you are a grandparent, an aunt, uncle, sibling, cousin, or friend, hear my plea. Pause. Stop. Think. If somebody you know comes out to you, rest assured that they are more terrified than you could ever be. Comfort them. Your initial reaction will determine the trajectory of the future of your relationship. You can aim for the dirt, or you can aim for the sky. Do the hard work now and let your mind consider the possibility of “what if?” Then all that need follow later is love.

In this, and in all things, I wish you every happiness,

Sam Winslow

Back at it. {an EYC Update}

This is what the past 3 months has looked like for me... pretty darn cute, huh?  This morning as they laid in our bed while I got dressed (a new concept for me lately. I'm sure the teachers at Aubrey's school were a little shocked!) my sweet little world of mommy-ing and home began to crack open.

Welcome to real life, I thought.  You can do hard things.  I keep reminding myself that the to-do list will get shorter (haha!) and that being without my little man will have joys along with the sting of not having his chubby hand grab for mine all day.  And already, 5 hours in, the joys are appearing.  I am beyond excited for our mission trip in July.  I had breakfast this morning with our high schoolers just because I missed them. Nothing has changed: they are still brutally honest and make me laugh more that I'd like to admit.  I was welcomed back with breakfast from the staff and flowers.  *Yes, that is double breakfast... be jealous*

When I came back to work after having Aubrey I was afraid of how I'd get it all done.  This time I know, I won't.  I can't do all.the.things.  as much as I desperately wish I could.  I'm not the 25 year old youth minister with nothing but time who could go to every everything that ever happened on a campus.  Now I'm the *gulp* almost 30 year old youth minister with two kids, play dates, friends, and a house who can't be everywhere but who can be far more authentic than I was 5 years ago. Who can speak the hard truth and hold up the mirror to show my students their beauty and worth.  The realness of Christ's movement through my ministry... the way that being a mom has taken time away from my students but given me a heart for them that only a parent can have, it has changed the game for me.

I used to want to give our students the joy of the life I had in high school by living withing a strong Christian community.  Now, I want to make sure that each and every one of our students knows that they are worthy.  That nothing they do or say or accomplish can make God love them any more or less.  That the world needs their unique beautiful selves unfiltered (via Instagram or their peers) and by living into THAT they will know true community and perfect love.

You.  Are.  His.  Beloved.  

and so am I.