Good news updates!

1. Multiple job offers = a blessing and a curse to this one who sometimes agonizes too much over making the best decision

2. For the first time since high school I submitted something I've written for publication and just heard back that my articles will be published in December and January (Its a small webzine. Please don't congratulate me. Unless it's simply to congratulate me for writing at all. That's my new goal: just to write a little each day for my own enjoyment, not for an audience)

3. Accepted a job offer to what might be a dream job. I start Nov 14th. More on that in a future post.

4. Some hard things have happened over the past month too. I will share more on that in a future post as well. For now I am so grateful for so many loving and supportive people in my life here in Philadelphia. It feels like nothing short of a miracle how many and how loving and how quickly they have surrounded me.

Much love to any sweet soul reading this. I hope all your dreams come true  <3

Kubo and the Two Strings

Fantastic movie. The incredible attention to detail in this film allowed for a mesmerizing immersion into the world of stop motion animation - the perfect backdrop for a deliberate and unhurried unfolding of the main character’s story. And truly magical (gets a little weird at the end though - wouldn't necessarily recommend for kids). I went to see this during it's opening week in August.

Before I found myself immersed though - I think it was sometime during the previews - I sensed God nudging me to pay extra attention. He seemed to be putting me on alert to catch a nugget of truth He had for me in this movie. So I leaned in closer and was probably even more immersed than I otherwise would have been.

I don’t recommend building your entire relationship with God on films, music, art, nature or personal “senses” of Him speaking. But outside of the historically reliable and time-tested, transformative truth of Scripture, I’ve found that God will also use just about any means possible to reach us. These more subjective means of hearing God should always be interpreted in light of God’s special revelation of Holy Scripture. It keeps in check what could be hurtful, crazy, or just plain incorrect. So I would recommend listening for God always in everything, but what a shedding of light Scripture brings to all things! Knowing it - really truly knowing it and wrestling with all its paradoxes - is like opening a big, wide door to a dark room and letting daylight stream in and make sense of everything in the room that before you could only bump into and make sense of by feeling.

So there I am in a dark theater. Mesmerized, immersed, and leaning in close to listen.

The movie itself is about a storyteller and his story. He goes from being the storyteller to being the center of the story. The boy on an adventure. The main character on a quest.

At one point a main character says to another, “You are my quest.”

Fireworks.

Maybe I should explain what happened the week before I found myself here. A group of friends had been praying for me. One of the friends saw a treasure map and got the word “quest” for me. He said I was on this quest that seemed kinda crazy to people around me, that it didn’t make a lot of sense to others. Nevertheless I was on this journey on this “quest” with God.

You are my quest

I don’t watch movies very often. And I don’t often hear God telling me to pay attention during them. I find myself at this movie, not knowing much about it, essentially there because my brother wants me to see it. Then before the movie starts I hear God telling me to listen to this one. I'd already tucked away "quest" in my heart from the prayer the week before but I don't know what's coming in this movie. It turns out the movie is about a quest. Then “You are my quest” is spoken and I sense God was just using it to confirm further what my friends had already prayed for me. Here's how the prayer and quote have come to be unpacked for me over the last couple months:

I’m not simply on an adventure with God. He is the adventure. Though there are thrills, and I’ve been a thrill seeker, I am no longer thrill seeking. Though there is romance and mystery those are no longer the goals either.  Though there are friends and family, the most wonderful friends and family and the most frequent cause of my heart aching these days, they are not my source of fulfillment.

I wish I could share what amazingly wonderful, beautiful things I’ve said no to in order to get to this place.  NOT to build myself up in any way. Not at all. But if I could only express just how much God is worth all those other things. And even worth the people - oh my heart! - even the people who may never fully understand how incredibly dear to me they are.

Yet He is worth it all. He really, truly is. I hope against all hope that someone who doesn’t know Him, really know Him, is reading these words and can experience even a taste of how good, how sweet, how adventurous and wondrous and completely fulfilling life with Christ is. Maybe enough of a taste to seek God as revealed in Christ - the fulfillment of promises made in Hebrew scriptures centuries before He appeared. Not that I want anyone to seek out religion, but to seek truth, testing everything....

I’m still in the middle of this journey so I say this with a level of timidness - but I want to say with confidence - that I could go anywhere and do anything because with God as my adventure and with Him as my completely satisfying love, nothing is too dirty or too scary. Nothing is too boring or too average. Nothing is too good for me or too far beneath me. Nothing is too important or too small. I could be in Philadelphia or I could be in Oklahoma. I am so over believing that the grass is greener anywhere other than where I am. Right now I’m still confident that God has led me here to Philadelphia. Maybe I’ll be in Oklahoma or China or Syria tomorrow. But today I am here so today here is perfect. Today is an amazing gift. Today I say to Him “You are my quest”. And I say to anyone else - He is worth the search. He is worth the quest.

All things

I feel like I'm in a choose-your-own-adventure book and I get to a page where I'm sure I've chosen the wrong adventure, but then I turn the page and.......... it gets even better. I'm excited to fill everyone in soon. Prayers for discernment/wisdom appreciated and for genuine joy regardless of the outcome. I still don't have a job yet.

This is not a simplistic, shallow promise:

~And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose ~

So don't name it and claim it and expect material blessings or temporary happiness to be your reward.

But it is a true promise (feel free to check out what it really means in the article). He's proven it a hundred times over to me.

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/all-things-for-good-part-3

Girl Interrupted

When you look back on the narrative of your life who (or what) is writing it?

I’m for sure not writing mine completely on my own - there are too many things I can’t control. I am neither the master of my fate nor the captain of my soul. Feel free to believe that you are in total control of your story. I don’t really want to argue about it today.

Today I want to confess that I sometimes let ambition and fear write my story. Like when I feel compelled to meet certain goals because failure is not an option. Like when I care more about other people and their opinion than about truth.

I am pulling out of the program at Penn.

I like to do hard things. There’s something fulfilling about persevering through something hard to come out on the other side a stronger person. Believe me when I say that stopping in the middle of all that is interesting and challenging here at Penn is not something I take lightly. I also don’t take lightly that I have colleagues who graciously gave of their time and effort in the application process to get me here, or classmates that I’ve linked arms with and now I’m jumping ship. I have so much gratitude for each person.

I am, however, constantly reassessing if my next steps are actually taking me closer to my life goals and desires. Sometimes in the process I learn new things about myself and what those desires are. Until last week I was certain I was supposed to be at Penn and was continuing to work at school with all my heart. Then what I learned about myself and the outcome of this degree informed my decision to stop pursuing it. So after the usual prayer and overthinking things, I let go.

As much as I love climbing mountains, it’s clear to me that getting another degree is not my next mountain to climb. At the end of this degree I will have a job. And a job is also something I can have now.

I don’t regret anything.

I don’t regret starting the program. I have found friendships that I can’t imagine not having. And I hope to keep them <3  I don’t regret moving here. My plan was first to move here and then I chose a school in the area, not the other way around - so the job searching has begun :)

It’s maybe a little embarrassing to start something and not finish. Still, I figure if I make public announcements celebrating exciting changes I should be honest when things change again and don’t look so perfect. I’d also rather invite you into the story right now, when I don’t have a job yet and things are very much in the middle of the story instead of waiting until I have a nice bow to tie on this.

Just know to not be disappointed for me. I’m getting to walk out one of my many dreams right now, because I have an indulgent Father who says things like, “It is for freedom I have set you free” and “I have come that they might have life AND HAVE IT TO THE FULL”

I’m curious -

What are you hungry for?

What are you chasing?

There is a God who knows you, who ‘formed the spirit of man within him’. I find to really know the me that is always changing and growing I must go to the One who carefully crafted me. I find He really knows how to fill my hunger and then lead me on another adventure where He satisfies my hopes and dreams all over again. He knows how to make me happy more than I know how to make me happy. Throughout the twists and turns to my plotline, the Author of this story never disappoints. He never leaves me empty.

And gracious if I don’t hope that for the entire world! My friend, I hope the deepest desires of your heart are truly filled. I hope you are filled to overflowing.

Thanks for peeking in on my story as it stands right now.

Sometimes I think I’m pretty good at predicting plots and not only did I not see all of this coming very well, I don’t really know what will happen next. But I am full and I am satisfied and I’m content to raise my glass to the Author.

“who forgives all your sins

and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit

and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s”

Dark nights and Promises

                I'm writing this as my own reminder. Maybe some day I'll share it more publicly. Today I write it for me.

          About four years ago the word "gift" kept coming up in my life. With some variation -"gift", "God's gift", "gift from God"- it consistently presented itself through people, through spoken or written word, or through a series of "coincidental" events. My attention was first drawn to it through two of the same gifts brought to my home in one afternoon. I think God often uses repetition or multiples of the same thing to get a message across. I sensed God say, "Pay attention. I have gifts for you."

          Fast forward one year.

          I had continued thinking on this gift thing as it appeared in my day to day life. I had had a full and interesting spring, summer, fall. One night - and it was literally an over the night change - hopes were disappointed and doubt began to weave its torturous web.

          It wasn't even so much the specific let downs that were depressing, it was what they reminded me of. They reminded me that I'd hoped before, been disappointed before, felt this pain before, and wondered if it would always be this way.

          I hardly ever have any trouble sleeping. Within minutes of my head hitting the pillow I drift to sleep. Once asleep I stay asleep until morning. I've been grateful for this. I know it's not everyone's experience.

          This night was different though. I tossed and turned. I cried. I cried out to God.

          "I don't understand. Do you even see me? Do you really care? How does this keep happening and will these desires ever stop being painful?"

          "Do you know what I want? Do you care about these desires? Do you even see me?" - like a broken record - "Do you know me? Do you see me?"

          It was a long night and at the same time I was still surprised morning came so soon. I was so preoccupied with my questions - with trying to make sense of things, and having no progress - that it seemed as if no time could have really passed.

          But there it was. The first grayish-white, cool sensations of light creeping into my bedroom through the curtains and slowly becoming wider and warmer and golden.

          I'm a communicator. I could read, or talk, or listen, or write every moment of every day if it were feasible. Communicating is the last thing I do before going to bed and often the first thing I do when I wake up. Since I'd already been talking to and trying to listen to God all night and was getting precious little for my effort, I opened my email.

          This is what I found*:









          Gifts.

          There it was again.

          I guess if God was trying to answer my questions those answers would be,

          Yes, I see you.

          Yes, I care.

         Yes, I "know the good desires of your heart" because I put them there.

          I see. I know. I see. I know.

          About a month later I was out of town and ran into a friend I hadn't seen in awhile who also couldn't have known what I was going through. She asked if she could pray for me and the words in her prayer were so similar to Tony's above they might as well have come from the same email.
More repetition. More God trying to get my attention. More telling me that what I want isn't bad, that I don't have to resent it. I don't need to pretend it doesn't exist. More promises that God has good for me.

          I need this reminder fresh today. I needed to write this, needed to reflect on this.

          I have good in my life. Much that is good. Actually there's not much of anything in my life to not be deeply grateful for.

          At the same time there's more ahead that I am hoping for. So much more.

God sees. He knows. He sees. He knows.


*I think it's important to know that no one - least of all Tony - knew what kind of night I'd just had. The night of house church he's referring to in the email was a night I shared routine life updates with my small group. I was not sad then in the least and was actually anticipating some specifically good things coming my way at that time. Disappointments came after that house church night.