I want 10 mins to be nervous, to not know, to feel weird about transitions and why they happen so quickly lately, and for someone on the other side to just hug me and tell me that it's gonna be fine.

Learning the hard way.

There are things that never get old. Like blossoming flowers, the first snow fall, the smell of fall, the way the people in your life love you.

Sometimes, regular life, dulls the brilliance of these thing. The day in and day out normalcy leaves us feeling complacent about the little miracles that meet us with each day.

The struggle though is to not let commonplace get the last word.

It's been a rough couple of days.  Days that have been a culmination of stuffing feelings and change that is inevitable, and the idea that my life might looks significantly different in the moments to come, the idea that everyone is horribly human and that sometimes our humanness gets the best of us. I wonder where jesus is, and whether or not the church can change the world when so many shitty people are doing things in the name of Jesus.

and it kind of caught up with me. When i don't feel affirmed, when i feel like my work doesn't have meaning, when i feel like my friendship isn't t enough. I cry. I throw softballs as hard as i can.

Sometimes, though, people show up, and even the smallest things remind us how profoundly we're loved. I often spend a lot of time, doubting how loved i am. How if my life fell apart (again) i'd be alone.

So i spend a lot of time, feeling alone in case lonely is actually in my future.

But then things happens to prove me wrong. People show up at work with drinks and scones and let me cry as i hug them. They let me word vomit over  group texts, or they do the very brave thing of loving me when it the most frustrating.

The funny thing about me, is that when i let humaness get the best of me in a big loud way, Jesus sneeks in, quiet, unassuming, showing me in an ordinary way, that love does win, and it doesn't have to be big and flashy, it's constant. it's people. it's how relieved you feel when someone who you truth shows you in their own way that they are for you.

In metaphorical way of grabbing your hand and holding it until the tide goes out and you can feel you can get back on the horse  again.

In small ordinary ways, they re-write the failures, they help you spin your unlucky, hard stuff in a way that helps see how  Jesus is doing the hard work to reclaim and redeem your story in a way that shows you and the world that God holds all of us, safely and securely.

Today, I'm thankful for the people in my life who don't have to love me, who know how to show me that the world doesn't get to win, that they're in the trenches with me, if i stop long enough to look.

We're not related. Nope, we come from different places and decades, but if family is measured in love....well, then i guess we are.

Sometimes when i think about how much i rely on people to exist daily for literally everything. I feel ashamed, and guilty and like i'm weak.

But i think that the type of community that Jesus talks about. The type of community that we long for in our hearts, looks very clearly like that. The type of thing where we are so connected that the love and relationship and together is so normal to us, but so strange from the outside.

It's the kind of thing where other people don't understand it, but kind of want the exact same thing,

Isn't that want we all want? To belong somewhere, to love people in a way that makes you go out of your way to make sure they know, even in the smallest way, that you are so loved and cared for. That someone sees you, and believes in you.

and will literally and figuratively grab your hand.

It's a funny thing to walk out a haze of doubt, and fear and hurt, and know quite how to recover or do it right. how to make it right.
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The truth is, though, we can't make it right. Grace and forgiveness? that's not us. It's Jesus working in us and nothing we can get to on our own.

I'm overwhelmed by  grace and forgiveness that is extended to me. Too often.  i feel undeserving and guilty instead of grateful and thankful that love looks like this.

love looks like so many things i take for granted on the regular. I'm thankful for the eyes that eventually  see the truth, but all too often i see after i feel like i've done irreversible damage.

I don't know how to better understand grace, i'm just glad that it is offered to me as freely as a hello from a friend.

Is there life out there?

I will always be the first to say that it takes me a minute to learn big life things. It's a lot of learning the hard way, even after I've gotten wise words from people who have been there....i just forge my own trial, and everyone who loves me kind of shakes their head.

The older I get, though, the more I realize that my life kind of resembles country music lyrics.  My mama and daddy are usually right, broken hearts find a way to heal, beer is good, God is great, life's a dance and there really is something about your favorite pair of blue jeans.

I've spend hours upon hours trying to into words what it feels like to get the rug pulled out from under you. To get your heart broken in away that it changes the way you see life and people and Jesus. The kind of reset that requires bringing you to your knees in the most humble way. The heart bearing kind where you feel like it's hard to breathe.

I've been trying to find the words to explain what it feels when when the broken heart is yours and when it's someone you love. To have to watch as they struggle and break and know that you can't fix it.

That kind of hard gets into your guts, it give it everything it has you feel like you have nothing left to give. No fight left in you. And you don't.

We can't do life alone. We're not supposed to. Jesus has this way of showing up in the strangest ways at the strangest times.

I've talked about this being a season in my life, and in many of my people's lives, of becoming. The wilderness into the promise land, the arriving at a newer, better you.

But really, i think it's about overcoming. The resilience you find when you know that people are praying for you, or will bring you coffee when you really need, who will hug you even when huggin' isn't there thing. People who get up on shaky ladders or spend all day with you because you don't to be alone. When they listen to you talk and cry about the same thing. When they offer advice that you don't take right away.

The come wade into the waters of your storm without a second thought.  The people that quietly remind you that not everyone sucks, that you're strong and brave and worth all the effort. They often the people who make getting out of bed a little less shitty. They can't change our circumstances but they can be reminders that Jesus is mighty. His love is strong and we are never alone.

It's often so hard, for me anyway, to see the forest through the trees. To find God's goodness in the trenches, but it's, more often than not, the very place where his the most obviously present.
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This has been the winter of our discontent for many of us. We've stared at the broken pieces our lives and wondered how they'd ever fit back together again. How our heart would ever pump hard and full.

and there are people that grab the pieces and start putting things together again. A beautiful mosaic fit together by the glue that is formed when you say to the important things. It's what love looks like. Messy, off centered, and sparkly flecks some so small you'd miss them if you didn't know what you're looking at.

It's what happens when you say yes to small things like packing boxes, or dinner, or just sitting and being okay with not knowing what to say. Its in those moments when we find out strength.

I've learned that spring is always right around the corner. The hurt get smaller, your heart beats stronger, your will eventually stand on your own feet again, and if you need to hold someones hand sometimes, it's okay.

I'm so thankful for the people who let me hold their hands when i'm scared or weak or broken. When i look back at my life, i will always be thankful for the times that i got my hands dirty for the people mattered. The times when i said yes when it mattered, even when it was awkward or scary.

Because i've met jesus in ways i would have never otherwise. To understand the feeling do being willing do to almost anything to make someone's pain go away. To want to make them see how much love is in the world....that kind of feeling....that doesn't come from anywhere else except the holy spirit.

We need reminders that God's near and most often they come in the form of people.

I'm redefining this season as one of becoming but also overcoming. Because Love Wins. every time.

I will  always be grateful to the people who have let me see them without their shell, and who haven't run away when i've lost my shit too many times to count.

this life is so hard, but after every winter comes spring...and it's good to know that there is life out there....beyond the brokenness you currently feel.  The things we're overcoming are writing such a beautifully complicated gut wrenching story about who God is and the restoration and love that's possible in even the deepest valleys.