The "Best Friend" Label

This may sound weird to some, but I have been hurt by girls more than guys. Sure guys have broken my heart, or have mistreated me, but I can get over that. Girls, on the other hand, fight dirty. They stab you when you're least expecting it, they gossip and talk behind your back, they do sneaky and sly things to undercut you and then act all innocent and nice to your face.  I have been "dumped" numerous times by girls that have called me their "best friend" sometimes for no particular reason. Girls are plain old mean. They don't need a reason to not like you, or act cold towards you - they just do, because they're girls.

Because of this reason, I have been tremendously careful not to throw around the "best friend" label. For some girls, they worry about saying the "L" word too quickly with their boyfriend - for me, it's the "BF" word that I worry about.

Best friends, to me, are not a dime a dozen. And they shouldn't be. If you have 10 so-called "best friends" then you have a problem. A best friend, to me, is someone to has proven themselves worthy of your trust, your time, your secrets, your laughter and have stood the test of time. Sure, maybe you click with your roommate or some girl you met in class, but just because someone is fun to hang out with does not make them your best friend.

This is my theory: Girls are so quick to call just about every friend they have, their best friend. Soon you see pictures with multiple girls with the hashtag as #bestie or #bestfriendforever and it hurts to see the person who called you their best friend labeling about 15 other girls their best friend too. And my message to you is: Be careful, you have no idea who you may be affecting.

Since we girls were little, we have had the "BFF" label shoved down our throats. There are friendship bracelets, necklaces with a heart broken in half, one for each best friend, friendship rings, BFF tattoos, BFF stickers, even friendship rocks for crying out loud. As a little girl, if you didn't get one of these things from your so-called "Best Friend" and the other girl did, your heart was shattered. I remember countless times coming across a letter or having that girl say straight to my face, "You are not my best friend anymore, so-and-so is." It's so elementary school, but that hurt is real, and believe or not - it still happens into our adulthood, just in different ways.

Be careful who you call your best friend. And if you tell them they are, make sure that feeling is mutual, and mean what you say. If you have a best friend then stick by them through thick and thin. Stop calling every other girl your best friend too or it undermines the meaning of "best friend". And for the love of God ladies, can we please stop gossiping behind our friends' backs?! Can we just get over ourselves and treat our own kind with respect and dignity and kindness?? Guys do enough to break our hearts or shoot us down, girls shouldn't have to do that to other girls too.

Thank you for reading my rant. Have a nice day everyone.

Dancing to a different beat

My 6-year-old niece loves to dance. She dances ballet, she dances jigs that look like a variation of Scottish clogging, she dances slow, she dances fast, and she dances to any type of music possible, even her own humming. For several minutes at a time, she gets lost in her own world as she hums her own tune and twirls, bends, and moves to her body's music. She creates a stage in her mind and she dances as if she were in the spotlight, blocking everyone and everything out.

One day I asked her, "Do you love to dance?"
She continued to dance and smiled, "Oh yes, I love to dance!"
"You should take dance lessons and perform, I think you would love it."
Then she thought about it a while, never stopping for a moment, always moving, tapping, twirling with the music in the background. She looked up at me, quite seriously, and said, "No, I don't think so. Then they would tell me what to dance and how to dance. I like to let my body move how it feels - I like to dance to my own beat."

Her comment stuck with me throughout the entire day. I began to think about my own childhood, in a general sense. Like most kids, I was taught to color inside the lines, to take piano lessons and only practice what the teacher assigned, to be good, behave, and be quiet if adults told you to. Children are so often told what to do and how to do it. While authority and guidance to a degree is obviously very important for a child's upbringing, we must also remember to never squash the creativeness out of them.

Why are we so set on telling children they can't sing loud in church, or they can't color the sky pink when the sky is supposed to be blue, or they can't understand something so we refuse to explain anything to them? Why are we so afraid children might get dirty digging in the dirt or sand, when it can easily be washed away, or they can't even run around in the back yard without shoes on because God forbid they might stub their toe? We all know that children aren't perfect and they all don't fit one mold. We also know, exploring and feeling things for themselves helps them learn and express themselves. So why are we as adults so set on taking that away from them?

In a way, my niece's comment was also helpful for my own life as an adult. I heard once that a writer can go to as many writing conferences and read as many books on writing as they want - but like my niece said, they are only telling you what to write and how to write it. It isn't until you let your heart and mind move and think for itself when you truly become a writer. I think I am so afraid to color outside the lines, or explore a little bit, or dance to my own beat that it is hindering me from finding out more about my own self. In a way, I am acting like my own parent or adult, constantly telling myself I can't, when I know I can.

If this seemed like a rant, I apologize. But if you take anything away from this post, at least remember this: We must all learn to dance to our own beat; not to the world's beat, not to another person's beat, but to our own intrinsic orchestra, beckoning us to move and bend with our heart's rhythm.

If my niece, Lily, were to plan my wedding...

Recently, I had a conversation with my four-year-old niece, Lily, about my wedding. Having small nieces proves to be a challenge when explaining to them the rules of engagements, weddings, marriage etc. Lily has asked me several times, "Did you already have the wedding?" or "But I thought you got married already!" She doesn't understand proposals or engagements. On Mother's Day, my dad was toasting to my mom and my older sisters who are also mothers, and Ella chimes in and says, "And Abby too! She's going to be a mother!" I quickly said I most certainly will NOT be a mother anytime soon. Through her explanation she thought that because I was getting married, I will also be a mother very soon as well.

So I had a bit of fun this weekend and asked Lily to "plan" my wedding. Here is what it would be like if she were to plan everything:

Colors: Pink - and lots of pink flowers too.
Food: Pizza
Hair: Up in a bun with a pink flower in it and a reaaalllly long veil.
Dress: Big and poofy like Cinderella's or Belle.
Ceremony: She specifically said "Lots of flowers and plants" and it would be in my hometown church.
Makeup: The more the merrier. Especially lots of eye makeup and bright red or pink lipstick.
Cake: Chocolate cake with lots of frosting. With more flowers on it, preferably pink.
Reception: Lots of dancing, pizza, and flowers. No kissing allowed.

Other details: There should be a "kids place" at the reception just for the kids to have fun, play games and hang out so the adults can have their own fun at the wedding. I should also make sure to have a good photographer that takes lots of pictures. The flower girls should wear tutus and flower headbands in their hair. Michael has to have a good haircut. And very specifically she said, "You and Michael have to sit across the table from each other so you can look into each other's eyes like you love each other very much."

Diamond in the Rough

             This past weekend was an eventful one. After two and a half years of dating a wonderful man, he proposed to me and we are now engaged! In the world of small towns and Facebook, this is probably not much of a secret to anyone who knows either of us. I have had to literally disable Facebook notifications from my iPhone because it has been a constant stream of comments, likes, posts, and tags. In today’s information world, not much is kept secret. I’m guessing you’d like to know how he proposed to me. And if you know me personally, you’d know anything that happens to me is an interesting and partially comical story.

                We began the day with a picnic at the interstate park in Taylor’s Falls. After our little picnic, he went to the car to grab something. He began with a clue and a letter that explained he wanted to do something nice for me every week leading up to our actual engagement to throw me off. Of course I bought the story without any hesitation. Since we began dating, he wrote me a letter every single month for two and a half years, and in each clue he had snippets of those letters guiding me through different stops along the hiking trail. Each stop meant a new clue and letter.

                Well by the time we started hiking, the sun came out and it was beginning to grow fairly warm. Luckily I had worn plenty of layers and I was stripping them off gradually, but Michael was still wearing his fleece zip-up. “Why don’t you take that off, it’s getting so hot out!” I said, since I could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “No, I’m fine. I’ll just leave it on.” Because little did I know, in the pocket of that jacket was the ring. I kept persisting that he should take it off, but he refused every time.

                As the walk progressed, he kept getting more and more sweaty. Finally, the last stop on the map was upon us. A year ago, we had carved our names in a tree at this park, but it wasn’t in a very obvious spot. In fact, it was in the middle of the woods and the last time we were there we didn’t bother to mark where it was. After not finding it for quite some time, I noticed Michael’s forehead was now dripping. I suggested we split up to find our tree.

                Later Michael told me he was praying like crazy that we would find it; otherwise he didn’t know what he was going to do. After searching alone, I found it, “Michael! Over here!” I yelled. He quickly ran over to me. We were standing there admiring our handiwork from a year ago when he said, “Look a deer!” I turned around. “Where?” I didn’t see a deer, and was disappointed, but when I turned around Michael was down on one knee with a ring box in his hand.

                You would think my first reaction was to cry or clasp my hand over my mouth. Instead, it was, “What are you doing!?” I was in so much shock I actually thought it was a joke. “Is this a joke!? What’s happening? What are you doing? Oh my Gosh! Are you joking?” Poor Michael was trying to say his planned speech, but I kept stammering like an idiot. “I’m trying to propose to you Abby! This is not a joke.” Then the tears came, but I still kept stammering. In between sobbing I said, “You – you grabbed the wrong hand! It’s this one!” I honestly can’t remember what he said. All I heard was that I was beautiful and amazing and “Abigail Luray Ingalls, will you marry me?”

                If anyone were to see this event take place, they would think I was a hysterical, crazy woman. Shortly after, I was sobbing and laughing at the same time. Also immediately after the crying and the kissing and the hugging waned, he quickly ripped off his fleece jacket, relieved to finally have some fresh air.

                As we walked hand in hand back to our original picnic spot, I admired the way the ring sparkled in the sun, still stunned and shocked that I am now an engaged woman with a fiancé instead of a boyfriend. 

But as I looked up at him, I knew in my heart he was the one I had been waiting for, and the only one I want to spend the rest of my days with. I can't wait to marry the love of my life and my best friend and I am so thankful and blessed that God brought him into my life. I love you Michael Roeller. 

The Pursuit

After traveling to several countries and having the honor to live in New Zealand for a year, I feel that I have been presented a gift; a relic along the seashore. This gift is the gift of perspective. To see and experience how other cultures live, how they live along side each other as citizens, humans, neighbors. My Americanized version of life has been taken a part and then reassembled with new eyes because of these different perspectives. 

You do realize there is an entire world out there right? Besides the one where you, reader, now comfortably sit in your easy chair with a pantry stocked full of food. The more you experience more of life, the world and other cultures - the more you realize you know nothing at all. The more you realize there's more to life than a comfortable house, job, chair etc. Life wasn't meant to be comfortable. 

However, being an American entails some sense of responsibility; to your country, to yourself as an individual, and to other Americans. Whether you know it or not, compared to many parts of the world, you are privileged to be an American. In the Declaration of Independence, there is a phrase that strikes me; "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

As an American, as a human being, you have the right to pursue Happiness. 

Pursue. Do you know what that word means? It means to follow, to strive, to gain, to chase, seek to attain or accomplish. But, many Americans chase or pursue that happiness in areas that always fail. Money, sex, power, success (by American standards), clothes, drugs, body image.... 

Let me tell you, I have looked into the eyes of beggars in Italy, poverty-stricken children in Mexico, the simplistic lives of school children in Thailand, laid back New Zealanders with small lives and little drive in life - and I have seen happiness. 

Some of the happiest people I have met do not have much. 

I met a Canadian in Thailand. He was on the back of an Elephant and so was I, and my family and I talked to him as the magnificent beast slowly walked around the most beautiful garden I had ever seen. He quit his comfortable job and was traveling the world.

I met a middle-aged woman who was kicked out of her home in her early teens, just because her parents didn't like her. She had the reading level of a first grader, couldn't drive, never had a career - but she worked with so much zeal, had an extremely compassionate heart and read the Bible every morning; slowly, articulately, word by word. Her face perpetually glowed with joy. 

I met a three-year-old girl on a busy Minneapolis street. With dirt smeared on her face and a messy hairdo she seemed like any other toddler; but her and her family were homeless. She lived and slept in a stroller in her little pink T-shirt. But when my sister and I brought her food in a couple of grocery bags, she ran to us screaming, laughing and smiling - overflowing with happiness and joy. 

I also met a CEO who gave up his dreams to become an artist and focused on business and marketing instead. He lived in an office, interacted little with his employees, and scolded his interns twice for not having the overhead light on over our desks. He had it all, in the worldly sense.

Our pursuit of happiness should never be to get to the highest level of success or to obtain materialistic things. In the end, those things matter little. Find what makes you happy, not content or comfortable, but rather fulfilled and joyful - and do it. Live always in the pursuit of something greater than yourself. 

Through the Silence

Spring is so dynamically sensory. After months of dead silence, bland white snow, dead trees, dark and dreary clouds - Spring creeps up on us and suddenly everything is alive. Green grass, budding trees, a palette of colorful flowers replaces the never ending piles of sludge and snow. Spring peepers, frogs, birds, crickets, cars splashing through puddles, rain and thunder replace the eerie stillness of winter. The sun pokes out, white puffy clouds that look like cars, dragons, and other miscellaneous things left to the imagination take the place of a monotonous gray sky.

Spring makes you smell, touch, feel, see, create - it refreshes you, rejuvenates you. Spring makes things anew. 

For me, Nature has always been a way for me to connect and reconnect with God. Growing up in a small town, with not much to do for entertainment, the outdoors became my movie theater, my classroom, my playground. I explored the woods, I climbed trees, I hunted and dug for frogs, tadpoles, worms, and turtles. I biked through wildflower lined back roads. I walked through cornfields and sunflower fields. I swam in rivers and lakes until sundown. 

G.K. Chesterton equated Nature and the world as the stage, life as the play, and humans as the actors. The stage is beautiful and perfect, but the actors move things, wreck things, say things out of line, or create props that shouldn't be there - we ruin this perfect thing that was created for us. 

However, I believe that as "actors" it is perfectly acceptable for us to explore this great big stage. Comedian and actor Louis C.K. once said, "'I'm bored' is a useless thing to say. I mean you live in a great, big, vast world that you've seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless, it goes on forever inwardly. Do you understand? The fact that you're alive is amazing, so you don't get to say 'I'm bored.'"

As spring has sprung here finally, this quote was a sobering thought for me. "I'm bored" is something that slips out of my mouth so frequently. But if we just take a moment to get out there and do something, even if we're alone in doing it, it's amazing what we can discover. 

With the birds chirping and the grass greening, and nobody to play with on a beautiful Saturday, I just couldn't let myself waste the warm, sunny day away even if I was alone in doing it. So I did something that I've never done in my life: I took a long walk... all by myself. For some reason, I hate taking walks by myself because I feel like people look at me and think I'm either A. a loner B. a loser or C. somebody who has no friends. 

But I pushed those thoughts aside and went anyway. I was becoming the exploring "actor" in the newly propped Spring stage. I explored a quiet little neighborhood where no cars passed me. A large black dog lied lazily on a front lawn; he peeked up at me as I passed by, too lazy to say hi or get up and bark. I looked at beautiful homes, secretly wishing I could own such a home someday. I walked to a park, sat on a bench and looked at the lake still covered in ice, like God's giant cup full of ice cubes and water. I walked by swamps, trees, a lazy brook, a pond. I whistled back to the Chickadees when no one was around me. The sun beat down and warmed my skin to the touch. 

I was utterly alone. But not once was I bored. Stuck going to school in a "city" for four years (anything over 10,000 is a city to me) I sometimes felt that that part of me who had such a relationship with the land and nature has slowly stripped away. I was becoming desensitized to the beauty of nature. In the city, the sound of waves or birds are muted by the never ending stream of cars. Stars are dim, hardly seen at all, or obstructed by buildings. "Lakes" in the city are barely clean enough to swim in and are surrounded by more cars, more buildings, and plenty of public beaches. You are never alone. You are constantly surrounded by the buzz of busy people and sound. sound. sound. 

Spring, a bit of silence, and my ability to push through being alone on a walk helped recreate and rebuild that relationship I once had with nature. I urge you, reader, to step out and explore what God has created - not man - even for a little while. See what you can hear, even through the silence. 

Flirting with God

The Midwest, particularly Minnesota and Wisconsin, has recently received a large dumping of snow. A blizzard. A whopping foot of damp, depressing, dismal snow.... and May is only a short 11 days away. 

Needless to say, like all the thousands of other Minnesotans and Wisconsinites, I am shaking my fists of rage at the blankets of white and the snow-laden trees screaming, "Where is spring!!?!?" 

Also needless to say, I have a poor, pessimistic attitude about all of this. I'm the type of person that is utterly romantic for white Christmases and snowy New Year's Eves, but then loathes and wishes the snow away as soon as January 2nd comes around. 

I hate snow. I hate how cold it is. I hate how I have to spend an extra 10 minutes scraping and wiping and sweeping the snow off my car. I hate that it takes me an hour to drive somewhere that should have taken me 20 minutes. I hate that I can't take a walk outside without loading on the boots, snow pants, coat, scarf, etc. etc. until you look like you are about to embark on an Antarctic expedition. 

So, 8 a.m. comes, my alarm wakes me up on a Friday morning, I take one look outside and I instantly want to go back to bed. I quick check my email in case my professor decided to have a heart and cancel class. He didn't. I begrudgingly brush my teeth, wash my face, put my clothes on and go about my usual morning routine. 

Let me interrupt my own story right here. I promise, it has something to do with the whole theme of this post, just keep reading. 

We hear so often, especially from the mouths of Christians, that "God loves you!" And they say it with a fake smile on their face and an annoyingly cheery attitude. When I'm in a bad mood or having a crappy time in my life, honestly that's the last thing I want to hear. I know God loves me, but what good does that do me for my bad mood right now? Go shine your sunshine attitude to someone who has rainbows coming out of their butt right now, and they'll gladly agree. 

Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree that God loves me and everyone very, very much. So much, in fact, that the human mind literally cannot comprehend it. But, c'mon! Give me some advice I can actually apply and use overly cheery Christian person! 

When a person loves another person, whether it's puppy love or the real thing, they flirt with them in different ways. I believe that God flirts with us. Not in a romantic, sexual way of course (who do you think I am!?), but more like a friendly smile, or a wink, or a nudge, or a joke to make you laugh. You can laugh, but I'm dead serious. God flirts with us! It might be to make us smile, or to make us laugh, or to just show us how much he loves us, or to soften that icy heart or attitude with a little harmless lovin'. 

So, God flirted with me today. I must say, I wasn't particularly flattered at first. It was like the type of flirting you receive from an unwanted specimen, so you roll your eyes and pretend like they didn't say or do those flirty gestures. I had such a sour attitude that I didn't want to receive it, therefore I denied the subtle "kiss" or "wink" from God. I put God in the friend zone today. 

As I am trudging through the Alaskan-like snow with my boots that I never want to see again for the next 6 months, I was just ticked. And I mean, ticked. I wanted spring, and I wanted it now! 

For some reason, right then, God decided to flirt with me. It started to snow... again. But this time, it was this fluffy, dreamy-like, soft snow. It fell on my cheeks like soft, little kisses. I literally said out loud (don't worry, nobody was around me) "Stop flirting with me God, I'm not in the mood." Then the clouds parted and the sun shone like a spotlight right on me. The sun made the snowflakes sparkle like a dazzling sunlit ocean, like dancing diamonds in the sky. It was like the parting of the clouds and the beam of sunlight, which lasted a whole 10 minutes this morning, was a giant radiant smile from God. 

Despite the unwanted snow and my horrible attitude, God's pestering flirting made me smile. It made me see the beauty in the snow instead of what should be in its place right now (green grass, budding trees, flowers). I cracked a smile right then and there, on my way to class, and I even looked up and gave God a subtle wink. Who says we can't flirt back? 

Shoe Boxes

               

 There is a song by my favorite singer and songwriter, Jack Johnson, with a line that describes the nostalgia of physically kept memories perfectly: “Our dreams… are made out of real things, like a shoe box of memories with sepia-toned lovin’.” Shoe boxes are made for more than a pair of brand new shoes.

Inspiration can come in many forms. For me, my inspiration to write seems to come from memories – whether they happened yesterday or ten years ago, or they are physical things like shoelaces, ticket stubs, and picture frames, or whether they live as a moment frozen in time within my mind.  I love to collect things. Things like a green pen, a broken piece of guitar, or an eraser with little notes written in pen all over the surface would mean nothing to the average person; but to me, they are pieces, fragments of memories long gone.

I have at least five different shoe boxes, each with their own purpose. One contains letters, pictures, and scraps from my year in New Zealand. One contains memories from grade school all the way up until high school. Another contains a few dried roses, letters, cards, and more, collected over a period of two and a half years with my boyfriend. A bigger shoe box contains most of my snow globes I have carefully collected over a span of ten years. And my fifth one is a miscellaneous collection from places, events, pictures from various people, scraps of paper with written notes; an arbitrary assortment of things.

I’d like to believe I inherited my habit of collecting and saving little things from both my mother and my grandmother. In this way, it has become somewhat of a tradition that keeps on spreading from generation to generation. When I think of tradition, Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof comes to my mind. Swaying his hips as his tassels swish at his sides, his arms raised up at his sides snapping to the beat, "Traditionnn! Tradition!" In many cases, tradition was and is like a fiddler on the roof in my life as well. It follows me wherever I go, its song reminds me of who I am, and even though there are days I want to bang on my roof and tell him to be quiet and go away, it is still there - through silence, through sad songs and songs of celebration.

My mom has saved cards from my five year old birthday, newspaper clippings from my fourth grade science fair, my sister’s cast from when she broke her ankle at one year old, even snippets of hair from her children’s first haircuts. My grandma Bonny, my mom’s mom, went so far as to reuse plastic Ziploc baggies, and she saved toys, blankets, and bonnets from her children’s childhood. 

My grandma clung to traditions. Big or small, she loved them. Things like making popcorn balls every autumn, watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman with Fresca and popcorn, wearing your best lipstick no matter how the day goes, and making oyster stew every Christmas are now woven with nostalgia into my life. Even during stretches of months where the patchwork quilt of my life was fraying at the seams, those threads of memories and tradition held the separate patches together. My grandma rubbed off on me in that way. If she were still alive, I could picture us watching re-runs of Touched by an Angel eating popcorn and sliced green apples, crying with a box of tissues in front of each of us.

I suppose I have a sixth shoe box, a metaphorical one where those memories that can’t be held or touched in the physical sense are packed carefully away. They are evoked by a song, a smell, a comment from a friend, and soon I am unpacking that shoe box once more to play over the memories in my head like a slow moving feature film.

Shoe boxes are indeed made for more than a brand new pair of shoes. They hold things, they cherish things, and they somehow keep memories alive despite the mismatched conglomeration of things strewn together in one, tiny, cardboard box. To the beholder, they are not just boxes of stuff or junk but rather, boxes full of people dear to them. And those things, those bits and pieces of memories are really just bits and pieces of dreams and people. 

Through the Thunder: Part II

For those that missed Part I: Through the Thunder: Part I

There is something so therapeutic about food sometimes. After a long process of cooking, baking, and stirring, you can finally sit down surrounded by those you love and enjoy wonderful, flavorful food. It warms you, it leaves a sweet or savory aftertaste, it makes you smile, it sustains you.

While Elijah waited for an answer from God, he ate, drank and slept. So I tried it out. Two days ago, I decided I was hungry. I ordered a warm fresh bagel with honey walnut cream cheese, a giant cup of hot black coffee and a small bag of carrots. Unusual combination, I know, but I craved those foods so I gave into them. Sometimes I believe cravings are God's doing, they come from somewhere inside of you and they say, "Eat me! You know you want to enjoy me!" So why deny God? God said eat a bagel. So I did.

I brought it back to my room, savoring every warm therapeutic bite and sip of my whole wheat bagel and coffee. I stood up to look out the window, chewing every bite slowly. I was thinking that the sleeping process of my Elijah experiment should come up next, as a nap sounded really nice about then, when I turned around and found something on my desk.

On Easter Sunday, my grandma handed out little wooden crosses with a pin on it, so I could pin it to my clothes as a brooch or my bag as a reminder I guess. We thanked her politely and I thought nothing of it. I chucked the wooden cross, disinterested, into my sister's purse next to me. I forgot about it 5 minutes later.

My sister, without me noticing, must have taken the cross out and put it on the desk in my room at some point - and here it was, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, suddenly lying before me as I chewed my God-given bagel.

And a miraculous thing happened. I heard a small, faint, voice, like an inkling. From somewhere - within me? from outside of me? But it was distinct. "Carry your cross and follow me."

I looked around, skeptical. I exhaled out of my nose in a sort of laugh. Am I going crazy? I didn't dare touch the little wooden cross. I ignored the request for the rest of the day and night. I think I wanted to make sure that voice was still there in the back of my mind by the end of the day. And it was.

So the next morning, before I walked out the door for class, I eyed up that little wooden cross once more and put it in my pocket. "Okay God, I'm listening, even if it is weird or crazy. I am carrying my cross. Show me what's next." I said, and walked out the door.

I'd like to say that God did miraculous things and I saw visions. But that's not what happened. I will tell you this though; I am now on day two of carrying the cross. At first I actually, seriously, felt self-conscious, like I had a tattoo on my forehead and everybody could see. Now I feel weird if I go out the door without it. 

This is also what happened. I finally know the meaning of, "You will seek me and find me if you seek me with all your heart." Because the entire day, I could not stop looking for God. It was as if I expected to bump into him around a corner, or see him suddenly at lunch time. When you are actively seeking out God - you will find Him. I found him in a lot of little things, and a few big things too. It was almost creepy, seriously it was. It was like I was having mini conversations with God through other people or situations throughout the day. 

In my night class, my professor opened the class by saying this, "I never, ever do devotions before class. But something is telling me to share these verses with you today." And he shared Matthew 6:25-34. 

I got an email reply from someone in the publishing industry who said she would love to meet up with me to connect and talk about getting into the publishing industry as a career. 

I got another email from a job I applied to months ago, saying I made it to the next process. 

I had a stranger smile at me, and I smiled back. 

I somehow finished my homework, blogged, and published a children's chapter book all in a matter of two days. While taking care of my very sick boyfriend, might I add. 

God is in the details. I truly believe that. I'd like to think that this part of my Elijah Experiment is the journey or walking part. So I'll continue to carry my cross, and see where else God takes me. 

(Stay tuned for Part III) 

Through the Thunder: Part I

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship." 

-Louisa May Alcott 

When my sister and I were little, we played in the woods behind our house. We dreamed up these great adventures beneath the trees. A fallen tree over a pond suddenly became a bridge over hot lava; a fort made of sticks became our tee-pee. We were pirates, gypsies, sailors, lumberjacks and damsels in distress. Out in our woods, we could be anything.  

Billie and I wanted a tree house more than anything. Our grandpa, who lived next door at the time, is a woodworker and he helped us gather scraps and boards and we set out to build a tree house. It turned out to be more like a tiny platform with a small ladder built between some small birch trees, but it was the best tree house we ever had. 

While building it, board by board, I found this triangular scrap of wood and we nailed it to one of the trees. It swiveled and turned which ever way you'd like, and soon it became a helm, and the tree house became a pirate ship. 

We would spend hours in our pirate ship, steering and searching for land, anchoring ashore to find gold and jewels, shooting off canons into the water. We lived within our imagination as soon as we stepped aboard our ship. Nothing could touch us; we were invincible. 

As we grew older, our tree house became like a fortress to me. I would run out there to think, to talk to God, to cry or scream or jump for joy at something that had happened in my life. I would go to be utterly alone, to separate myself from the world and everybody in it for just a little while. 

Recently, something happened at home that made me run. I don't know why, but my first instinct was to run, to get away, to stop the people and voices shouting at me, questioning me, pressuring me. So I did, I just ran. I ran in a T-shirt and boots. I trudged through snow. Twigs slashed at my tear- stained cheeks. I ran until I reached my ship, grown over with lichen and moss, parts of wood chipping off at the edges.

I climbed aboard. I sat on a stump made into a stool, sized for a 6-year-old. And as the storms and waves crashed around me, I screamed into the thunder up at God. I kicked at the starboard, I threw sticks and fistfuls of dirt and snow at the port. "What do you want from me God!?" I screamed aloud, my voice heard only by the trees. "Why can't you just tell me!? Why can't you just tell me what to do?! What do you want from me!?" Over and over, I screamed these questions into the allusive sky.

And I heard nothing. Though my heart longed for and wished for something, anything, I heard nothing but the sound of my echo and my heavy breathing. God was not in the storm. His voice did not break through the thunder or the waves of turmoil crashing around me. God was silent.

I stopped screaming. I was angry that God didn't answer me. After weeks and months of praying for something, he still did not answer me. I calmed my breath, I tied my boots, I wiped my tears, and I waited.

And I'm still waiting.

Today I was reminded of the story of Elijah in the Old Testament. He was afraid, so afraid in fact that he wanted to die. He gave up, fell asleep, and God sent an angel to wake him up. "Wake up and eat and drink something!" So Elijah did. He ate, drank, slept, and waited. Finally he got up and traveled, tired of waiting I presume. He walked for 40 days and nights until he reached a mountain and he went into a cave. While he was sleeping he thought he heard a voice, "What are you doing here Elijah?" So he told Him, "These people want to kill me." God said, "Go outside and wait, for God is about to pass by.

A great and powerful wind passed by - but God was not in the storm.
An enormous earthquake passed by - but God was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a great fire - but God was not in the fire.

But after the fire..... came but a still, small voice. A whisper, which said again, "What are you doing here Elijah?" And Elijah answered. And this time, God told him what to do.

So, because I have no other answers, and because I am afraid and terrified like Elijah was, am doing what Elijah did. I will eat and drink and sleep and go about my usual day. I will walk and go places and learn things until I find my cave. And there I will wait for the storms, and earthquakes, and other voices, to pass, until I can hear that still, small, whisper. 

Down the Rabbit Hole

“So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.” 

― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass 




A professor once told me about a student he had in class only a few years ago. The student suddenly looked up over the top of his laptop and said, "You know? I believe our culture and generation today has lost their ability to wonder." And I believe that to be true. 

I have a bit of a confession to make: I am borderline obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. I bought an antique Alice in Wonderland book for $20 at an antique store and I am in love with everything about it. If you take the protective sleeve off, the cover is this rich green with beautifully etched designs on the front and the spine of the hardcover. The pages smell like a spice cupboard mixed with wood chips, and are filled with beautiful original illustrations. 

I bought the complete collection of Lewis Carroll at Barnes & Noble for only $7 and it sits on my nightstand next to my Alice in Wonderland mug. The old paperback book I have of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass has pages falling out and the cover ripping off. 

But what I love most about Alice and her absurd adventures is her ability to wonder, imagine, and to be curious. 

I feel so lost in a world where people go through their day and life without stopping to look, or ask, or wonder in awe about something. With all this amazing, profound technology surrounding us we use it and never stop to think - how did this happen? How did we get to a place where we can talk to our phones and this thing called Siri talks back to us!?

We are becoming like the man in the story and short film, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. It takes place during the Civil War and he is about to be hanged. It isn't until he stands at the edge of the bridge about to have his life ended, that he suddenly notices the little things. The beautiful day, the sun rising, the birds chirping, the leaves, the sand, the way the water moved in the river below, the way the trees danced in the breeze. It isn't until something threatening happens to us, or something is about to be taken away from us, when we stand in wonder at the beauty around us. 

Alice began her big adventure by following something completely out of the ordinary: A talking white rabbit wearing a waist coat and a pocket watch. What would have happened if Alice saw that and thought to herself, "Hm, that's strange!" but then went on with her studies and didn't follow her sense of curiosity. Or what would have happened if Alice was too busy texting and and scrolling through her Facebook news feed to even notice this marvelous, extraordinary sight? She would have never gone to Wonderland, there never would have been this big adventure, and the rest of the book would have been about her boring book with no pictures and her mute cat Dinah. 


Take my nieces, or kids in general. They ask questions. Lots of them. You answer one question and you think, "Great, that's done with!" but no, they have to ask, "But, why?" One time my niece asked after driving by a cemetery what all those stones were out there. "They're graves, it's where people's bodies get buried after they die," her mother said.

"But why do we bury people after they die?"

"Well, we've been doing that for a very long time and we need to get rid of the body after they die somehow."

"But... why?"

And the conversation went on like this for quite sometime. I'm not sure if it got anywhere, but she asks some very great questions. Kids also are not afraid to dream and imagine great, big, absurd, silly things. My niece believes that when she gets to heaven her skin will be indigo, because that's her favorite color. Who knows, maybe she's right. She also thinks the other side of the lake is a whole other country with people who dress differently and speak a different language than us.

We have lost our ability to wonder. We have become desensitized and numbed to every day miracles happening all around us.

Have you ever wondered, I mean truly wondered about why we get hiccups? Or why we have to close our eyes when we sneeze? Or how the birds just know when to come back or go away during the change of seasons and where to go? Or why we started in the first place to color our cheese orange, because it sure as heck isn't naturally that way!

I believe we need to step out of our go-go-go reality for a little bit each day, and step into Wonderland. Because if we lose our ability to wonder... that will truly be a terrifying and awful reality.

What gets you up in the morning?

This morning, I groggily swung my legs over the side of my bed and planted them on the floor after my alarm disturbed me from my sleep. I turned my fan off, looked at my disheveled curly hair and half-shut eyes still crusty from sleep in my mirror and shrugged, "Let's go," I whispered to my reflection - and my day began. 

My professor for my 9 a.m. class is always very cheerful. Whether it's the coffee, or the eagerness to learn and teach, I don't know - but I've never had a bad class with him, and I've taken a handful of his classes throughout my four years here. 

It's a small class, only 12 of us, so we have the chance to truly discuss concepts, themes, and emotions in the stories, novels and poems we're reading. This morning, as we settled in our uncomfortable desks, he passed his gaze throughout the room, looked each of us directly in the eyes and asked this question: "What gets you up in the morning?" 

I was taken aback. I hadn't expected a question like this, we were supposed to be discussing the Civil War and Emily Dickinson! One girl shared that she got up in the mornings because of the possibility to learn something, even something small, every day. Another man, looking equally, if not more disheveled than me, said, "Coffee" we all laughed and then his tone changed as he said, "I get up because I want to make something of my life. I don't want to be a failure." 

One by one, the students of my class shared what gets them up in the morning. I, however, sat silent. My wheels were turning, I had never been asked a question like this before. I found myself truly asking this question, I mean really, why do I get up every morning? What keeps me going? Do I have a purpose for getting out of bed? 

I thought back to this morning: I got out of  bed because my alarm told me I had to. I got out of bed because I had a class I couldn't be late for. I got dressed and put on my makeup because I wanted to look like I put at least some effort into the day. I put on my backpack, grabbed some coffee and a bagel, and ate and drank because I was hungry. 

But I did these things without thinking. I was just doing, doing, doing, simply because I had to. I was suddenly shocked to realize I had been living my days for the past however many months with no purpose. I realize I'm not going to wake up every morning feeling like Audrey Hepburn or Mother Theresa, but if I'm going to disturb my dreams and get out of my comfortable bed, it's surely got to be for a reason! 

It would be easy, or maybe even hypocritical, to say the simple "Christian" answer. I pictured myself saying it with my hair tied back in a bun, wearing a turtleneck, in a chipper voice, "My love of God gets me up in the morning!" But the truth is.... do we even think about God when we get up? I sure don't! The only mention of God in the morning is when my alarm goes off and I say, "Oh God, I'm so tired, just five more minutes please!?"

But the fact that I'm still alive and breathing this morning, is a miracle. God could have chosen to take my life last night in my dreams, who knows. So maybe I don't have a concrete, black and white answer to what gets me up in the morning, and so what? For me, it's a string of little things, little purposes. 

I get up to see my boyfriend, because I love him and I love spending time with him. I get up to laugh and grab breakfast or lunch with my friends. I get up to celebrate the sunshine or the birds or maybe just the fact that a zit miraculously disappeared overnight. I get up to do something, learn something - even if my day consists of reading a few pages of a book or finishing one assignment, it's at least something that I have fulfilled. I get up to push one more day ahead, push one more day toward some goal, large or small, one day at a time. 

Because life isn't lived by the year, or the months - it's lived in the days and the hours. So what gets you up in the morning? 

Scars of healing

Though the rash and the scabs have healed over from my bout of shingles I had only a few weeks ago, there are small flower-shaped scars, like hydrangeas, in their place. When my shingles were at their worst, even wearing a simple cotton T-shirt hurt because it rubbed against my raw, tender rash. Fabric became like lemon juice on a paper cut, or rubbing your eye after cutting up a jalapeno. Something so simple and harmless, like a cotton T-shirt, rubbed wrongly at my most tender and achy parts. 

For a class, I have to read a bunch of books by modern Christian authors. It's a class on non-fiction Christian narratives, and I can say now halfway through the semester, that I have never had a class touch me so deeply in my four years here at this University. 

Have you ever had a book  or a story touch you in your innermost part? The spot inside you that is tender and raw, that is only half-healed but not quite there yet. Reading Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott was like re-opening those hydrangea-shaped scars on my side. 

I couldn't relate to her life even remotely. She had grown up in a home that hated Christianity, she was an alcoholic, she did drugs, she had had an abortion and almost got another one until deep despair took over her and she had her son, Sam, instead - her treasured, kindhearted, son who she almost threw away. But it wasn't that suddenly a bolt of lightning from the heavens struck her or that she had this huge "God moment" and BAM her life did a 180, but rather that her story was raw, real, and spoke of true human struggles, even after you become a Christian. 

I sat in on a group once that was sharing their testimonies, as if sharing all the bad things in their lives would suddenly turn people over to Jesus.

“My father left my mother when I was a child. I never knew him, and I don’t have the desire to know him,” one guy shared with head hung in dramatic reverence to his story. “I grew up in a broken home, my mom had to take care of five children on her own, and I so eagerly gave up on God that I was left with a distaste for anyone who labeled themselves ‘Christians’.”

That man shared his story as if getting to Jesus, or understanding Jesus, was easy. It was chronological and it was what I like to call a “lost and found” story: First I was lost, and then I was found. First I was broken, and then I was healed. First I was bad, and then I was good. But I struggled to fit in the in between bits; to me, a person didn't just suddenly change who they were entirely. You can’t just go from broken to fixed with the snap of a finger. I think things like healing take a lot of time and pain and a lot of other messy junk that nobody wants to talk about. Even after you’re glued back together, you can still see the cracks from the once broken places. Even after you've healed from a wound, or shingles, or surgery, the scars are still there to remind us. 

Jesus was radical in his days wasn't he? I mean he talked to women prostitutes and hung out with the drunkards and the money-hungry tax collectors who cheated and swindled innocent people out of their hard earned money. He touched lepers and diseased people and blind, poor, crippled, people. Jesus hung out with the losers, the scum of the earth, the people who nobody ever in their right minds wanted to be associated with. So tell me, why do we as the body of Christ, as Christians, act so high and mighty all the time and think way too often that we are better than others? We look down on the gays, on the people with HIV and AIDS and STD's, the woman who had a baby out of wedlock, the prostitutes, the alcoholics, the druggies, the abandoned, instead of actually for ONCE doing what Christ himself commanded of us - to show those people LOVE and to treat them with at least their smallest, most basic right: to look them in the eyes and see them as a human being with struggles and problems and sins just like you and I. 

I'm not telling you as a Christian to go out and start accepting everything now, but I firmly believe that God created and loves each and every one of us. He loves you just as much as he loves that homosexual. He loves you just as much as he loves that 16-year-old pregnant girl. He loves you just as much as he loves that divorced woman struggling with feelings of betrayal. So what makes you so special? Are you suddenly special because you slapped a Jesus fish on your bumper and you wear W.W.J.D around your wrist? Don't become like the Pharisees who focused on the things that make us look good, and the things that separate us from other human beings, (Matthew 23:23-24). And never forget, that we are all sinners. We all make mistakes. We all have problems and short-comings. And we all need the love of Christ. A person, no matter the size of their sin or struggle, no matter who they are or where they've been, still has the chance to enter the kingdom of God. 

Maybe they just need some healing to take place. Maybe someone just needs somebody, anybody, to reach out to them for once and just listen without passing judgment. Or for someone to see their scars as something real, instead of passing over or ignoring them. Because scars may be signs of hurt, pain, or struggle - but scars are also signs of healing. 

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

(From an old journal entry I wrote last summer. Written at sunset by the end of my dock.)

The late August sunset stretches her long arms out onto the water, into the sky, across my face. Her warmth is weakening, becoming less strong than it was in the July heat. There is a crispness in the air - almost bitter - that wasn't there before. A season will soon end... a new one shall soon begin. 

Life has a way of sneaking up on you doesn't it? We groan and complain for a new season, but  suddenly it is here without even realizing it. And in another fleeting moment - it vanishes once again. My mother always tells me, "Don't wish for tomorrow, for tomorrow never comes." 

How many tomorrows are we going to ask for? Long for? Wish for? We look too much to the future to what could be and not what is. Our lives are but fleeting moments. Like the dew in  the morning, like the smoke of a blown out candle. 

And now, the August sun has gone to bed, tucked tightly in its sheets of clouds. The sly west wind whispers in my ear and dances in my hair, "Come play!" the wind beckons, "come play before my bitter brother, the North wind comes out to spite you." I turn my face toward its direction and smile, "Tomorrow, wind, tomorrow I will play," and her reply was but a faint whisper. 

I wish I had the courage to live today not tomorrow. There is a person deep within my soul that longs to come out and live her dreams. Travel the world. Meet interesting people with stories to tell and write about. But.... 

But, graduation, financial worries, and marriage is looming in the near future. Money is needed if one wants to travel the world. Commitment and unselfishness and sharing dreams comes with marriage. And my writing? It is sitting passively in the pages of a journal, unknown and untouched by the world. 

Dusk is upon me and goosebumps are creeping onto the surface of my skin. As I stare out into the calm water of this lake and the darkening sky, a realization has made its way into my mind: My life has become nothing but a string of tomorrows. 

Tomorrow I will write a novel. Tomorrow I will pursue my dreams. Tomorrow I will travel to here and there. Tomorrow. 

But tomorrow never comes. Today is the time; the time to do what I need and want to do. Today is the day.  

Third Time's a Charm

Here I sit, nearly 11 at night and I have rummaged through every last memory box, picture album, and old forgotten journals. I am nostalgic in the worst way. I look back on many things in my past and think to myself, "How wonderful things were back then." Especially now, a senior in college about to graduate in May with no job lined up and no clue what to do with my future, parts of my past seem pretty great right about now. 

Third time's a charm for me. I began a blog on Wordpress a couple of years ago. I had to do it for a class, but I kept up with it and people loved it. About three months ago I was going through this phase where I thought about absolutely nothing other than my future career. It consumed me. So I deleted everything off that blog and began a new blog on Social Media, thinking only of my future employers of course. 

It bombed. Actually, it would have been quite good. I got 100 views in the first day I started it. But I became stressed - about my future, my job, my life, and more. So much so that as a 21-year-old I got shingles (which the doctor said was related to stress), I had four canker sores in my mouth at one time, had the worst stress-related acne breakout I ever had, and even lost a few pounds - all within a matter of a couple months. So needless to say, I didn't have the energy or time to put into that second blog as I had hoped. 

Now, I have finally come to the reasons why I truly want to blog, and the reasons why the other two bombed. 

1. I wrote for other people - not myself. Yes, sometimes I wrote stuff I liked, but I had to do it, writing felt like a chore sometimes rather than something I have always been in love with. 

2. I told my followers when I would publish a new post. You read any good blogger and most of the time they'll tell you to have a certain day or days to post a new blog. But again, I felt guilty for missing my own deadline I created for myself that I just eventually gave up. So now, instead of writing when I have to, I'm going to write when I want to. 

3. I had a strict subject to follow. Again, most blogs obviously have a theme or specific topic of choice which they follow - which is great! But I felt restricted by those subjects sometimes and my creativity bubble would burst. Now, not only will I write when I want but also what I want. 


So there you have it. A little taste of this blog. I love to write about everyday ordinary things that become extraordinary in my life. I will write about heartache, or laughter, or pens, or shoelaces, or summer, or the way the waves sound as they lap against the shore. I will about whatever comes into my heart. Enjoy