Winter....

Like a true mid-westerner, born and raised in both blizzards and sweltering heat, I can't imagine living anywhere where it can't be 70 degrees one day and snowing the next.

I live for the drama, but also the symbolism in all the seasons.  As i'm sure you're all aware, i love a good life metaphor.

We all know that Fall is my most favorite. It's my oldest, sweetest friend. Fall is for homecomings. But it's winter that concerns me most today.

Winter is magical. Winter is for home. It's for cozy. It's for belonging to a place and people. Winter is for family and traditions and for the world feeling a little bit smaller.

People are kinder in the winter. They hold doors open, and shovel each other's sidewalks and chat about the snow and cold or whatever winter weather is happening. Let's face it, it's never the same and that's kind of why we love it. The holidays help. They center us and calibrate us to what's important.

Winter in quiet. I live life on full volume and in ALL CAPS, and winter provides a lovely opportunity to slow down and quiet down. To listen, to wait, to pay attention.

My best pal is preaching her first sermon on Sunday. I'm so excited. And it's happening in winter. I feel like winter is our season. It was in winter that she first rescued me from a car accdient and let me sleep on her couch. It was a funny set of circumstances that lead to me sleeping on her couch for a whole week, and wearing all her clothes and helping move her mom in the dead of winter in January. It's been winter where she's rescued my heart a billion times. It's where my family ornaments hang on and with theirs. It's where the kitchen feels cozy making Grandma's Pearl's sugar cookies. It's where millions of conversations and Saturdays were spent at the table. It's when we've sold mugs, and made handmade Christmas decorations that made a big church lobby feel like a throwback to Christmas' of a sweeter time. It's where a room full of women were challenged to find their joy and to keep choosing it. It's been in winter when we marched for all of the women that came before us and the women who walk with us.

I may not remember the specifics of what has all happened in our season but I do know how it makes me feel. Winter is significant always. Important things are birthed. foundations are laid. Seeds are planted so that when spring comes, life starts all over.


This is such a sweet time. I'm so thankful.

a work in progress...literally and figuratively.

I was 8 the first time I had a "good enough." Thought. It came on the heels of my dad asking me what he thought about him having a girlfriend. He asked it so casually as we were walking and I was so young that the implications of this question were almost lost on me.

Why wasn't my mom enough for him? why wasn't I? What was missing that home couldn't give him.

And, if I had to pick a defining moment from my life, that would surely top the list. But the thought kind of crept in like rolling fog, or frost, or the way sunsets so quickly, yet slowly go from brilliant yellows and pinks to dark blues and greys.

And then it just stayed. It hung around like cobwebs or fruit flies. Not life threatening but present enough to be annoying.

and I carried it with me. It manifested of course in a lot of different ways. When I was young, it was rule-following, and good grades and being so nice. Desperate to be good enough for my parents, for my friends, for my teachers...desperate to find be good enough to make them stay, to make them love me.

As I got a little older, my desire to please my parents lessened as I became more aware of their brokenness individually and together. The more I felt pitted against them, the more I searched for acceptance in my peer group. When being the nice girl wasn't working, i let go of my filter and said anything and everything that came into my head.

I discovered I was funny, but I also discovered that I could be incredibly mean, and while in my gut i knew that wasn't who I was, it was working.

but it only worked for a while. I went to college and realized that I wasn't as worldly and i thought. I was pretty innocent. My chastity certainly wasn't a badge of honor. So college chip away at it. Kissing boys, going further than I wanted but not too for, drinking too much, pretending that none of this bothered me. I fought a battle in my head, I wasn't wildly fond of being hungover, fighting the pressure of being or doing what people wanted to expected of me.

The truth is while some of it was fun, some of it wasn't. Some of it made me feel less than when i was shooting for good enough.

I never felt good enough. I don't think I feel good enough now, to be honest.

Then i moved to the cities. I was searching so passionately for a place to belong, that i did whatever people asked of me. This season was a bit trickier. It's easy to know that kissing boys you don't know and drinking too much to fit in is not a great choice, but volunteering, serving, being kind to people has it's own weird unhealthy underbelly.

I didn't know that i was slowly killing myself. I was slowly turning into a shell of who i was. The best parts of my gone because I was so willing to do whatever people wanted so they wouldn't leave.  So i would be good enough for them to stay...

and as you would expect from any story, things fall apart, the center cannot hold. You can juggle and say yes and do whatever until you cant. Something breaks.

And you find yourself on the kitchen floor begging for directions or a map or a way back to who you are, only to find that the truth is you're not good enough and you never were.

But because God is graceful, i don't have to be. I can simply be. If you can figure out who you are and what you're living for you don't have to keep reaching for "good enough"

I'll never be smart enough, love Jesus enough, be pretty enough, or skinny enough, by my standards or the world's for that matter, but I'm becoming more okay with that because I am loved. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, i am an image barer and is enough.

Jesus was good enough so because we weren't.

Nowadays i fall somewhere in the chill about life and freaked about my life. Every time someone else gets engaged has a baby, gets a boyfriend....has forward momentum, my good enough bullshit sneaks out.

Maybe I'll find a sweet boy to marry, Maybe i won't. But either way, my value is the same.

This story isn't sad. I was never assaulted, I have a good relationship with my parents,  my parents are still married for better or worse, I am loved, i have a job and a life that is lovely, but it's not without it's hiccups.

The pursuit for good enough could have led me down a very differnt path, but it didn't and for that i'm thankful.

Detours....

I spent the evening in St. Paul tonight, which was great because St. Paul recalibrates me and inspires me. And, if I'm honest, I've been in need of a little inspo, so I took the opportunity.

And that's where the first of many detours come in. First, I wanted to go to the new spyhouse, and I did, except that it's literally a closet and it was overrun by college kids who I can only assume by their disheveled appearances are either in the throes of finals or just super mega hipsters who don't shower and are next level organic.

And either could be true because I just read Into the Wild and maybe they did, too and they're all on some transcendental journey.  All millennial hipsters aside, it was too crowded for this 30 something private school teacher who was just there to work on some churchy things.  So, took a detour over to Ninas, which i love, but wasn't feeling it. So over the Wabasha Bridge, I went, to the ever faithful Amore Coffee.

This is where the real detour comes in. Normally, I just take the High Bridge to Amore but it's closed forever. (Not really, just for a bit. They're fixing it so people don't die, i think. Whatever it's inconvenient). This bridge issue forced a detour over the river and through the woods...actually it's probably more over the river and up a bluff? I don't know landforms, I'm just taking a guess. All i know is that it's poorly lit, windy, and basically something you'd see in a horror movie.  Needless to say, I was annoyed.

I finally arrived at Amore, got minimal work done for reasons that had nothing to do with the atmosphere or the detour, and then I headed back from whence I came.  This time going down the bluff...(i don't know, it just might be a hill, how do you know if it's a bluff?) But then right there, through a clearing in the trees were all the lights of the riverfront/downtown/cathedral/capitol. I AM OBSESSED WITH THE CITY AND IT'S SKYLINE.

It was beautiful and I had a stop and take it in for a second. I almost never go that way because the normally the bridge isn't under construction so I rarely get this view of the city.

And i'm smart enough to spot a life metaphor when I see one. My life has not gone as planned. I'm not married to a nice boy and i don't have kids. I'm not teaching in the inner city, Dangerous Minds style (oh, hey 90's throwback). i don't have precious little house in the city with hardwood floors and built-ins.

I don't know if that will actually ever happen. I've taken some detours and without them, I would not have this view of life, and people and Jesus.

Well, damn. In this time, (advent, duh). I think it's important to acknowledge that this is not the life God intended for us. So we wait, we prepare our hearts, for Jesus. In that waiting, we have expectant hearts which are met by a tiny baby. Not exactly what we wanted, but exactly what we need.

Our view needs to shift from our plans, our missteps, our expectations. We need to look through the clearing and see Jesus, coming on the horizon. A promise kept. A new path born which will lead to the cross.

Because of this baby, how will we choose to see this season? how will it change the way to see out lives?

I don't know, but i'm waiting to find out what this season has for me, and maybe you too if you're open to it.

Also: My advent playlist is so good.