lupita nyong'o

Quite a few conversations this week with friends who fear aging, pregnancy, and changes in their physical beauty. Mulling through scripture and asking the Lord for wisdom - if anything is revealed, I'll be sure to share. However, this Oscar winning lady nailed my current perspective.

Start with your heart ladies. Tune it to seek grace, use God's strength, and to share every gift you've been given.  

those fading blues.

January started with three friends on vacation at the Rose Bowl parade and ready for a Spartan victory.

February began with a car full of my cousin and her college friends - excited to spend Saturday night in cozy gray chairs of Riverview.

March rolled in with late night Lansing tunes, icy parking lots, short rest, and 1100+ high school students excited about pursuing health careers and eager to compete for their gold medals (very much like lions).

This month holds thirty one days of work hours and to-do lists - best friend's birthdays and college basketball games. It shouldn't vary far from the other March months I've lived,

but tonight the even sky whispered something different.

The evening orange was not quick to turn to night time blue - it was not eager to leave. It seemed very much like a reminder, asking me to hold today with just as much care as tomorrow.

January's practice was making exercise a priority.
February asked for consistency in prayers.
March holds something undetermined to me - but it feels full and light all at the same time. It feels just like I'm settling into some kind of fruitful rhythm.

Excited to unfold God's provision this month. Grateful to be a part of the gospel's growth and definition of blessings in "loving the unlovable and comforting the sorrowful" (The One Thing Christians Should Stop Saying).

Grateful for depth, for committment, and for God's beautiful ways of revealing His truths.

on answered prayers.

Answers to past prayers are often missed in the lists of our most recent prayers. This weekend paved the way to a reminder of a prayer whispered three years ago and some unexpected time (had to cancel a trip to Memphis) to rest in what the Lord has provided.  I write filled with so much gratitude.

Last night we were shoulder to shoulder around a kitchen island with cars loaded and coats still on - lost in the blessing of another Saturday evening together. We are a small group of newer friends who share hearts for Saturday night church and fellowship. I can't move forward in this post without acknowledging the timeliness of the Lord's hand that has woven me into the mix of these beautifully independent souls. 

Our conversation often leads to how we've been using our gift of singleness and what relationships the Lord has been bringing into our lives. Andy Stanley's sermon from 2011 was referenced (The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating) and friends quoted words I'd been blessed to hear over 3 years ago. 

The same link was sent my way in 2011- in the midst of a season of my walk that didn't have anything to give & didn't feel worthy of receiving. A month later, after my departure from the city I had called home for 11 months, I decided to switch from my "Back Roads" play list to this Andy Stanley's wisdom.

In order to follow the rest of this post, I recommend starting the series: "The Right Person Myth" and know that the take home from this message was:  "Becoming the person who the person you are looking for is looking for is hard. But it is not as hard as getting married and being unprepared. Think about a couple of things you can do this week to become that person—the right person."

What I was leaving was a punctured wound seeping with lack of closure. What I saw myself driving towards was my historical legalistic self - uncertain of how I would walk in the Spirit. It was dark, deep, and not a place I thought my 23 year old mind would ever be. As Andy's voice carried me through another 60 miles of Texas highways I kept thinking, "I'm not sure I would know how to become the person someone else is looking for." I also thought, "Even if I did become that person, I was not worthy of having that person."

Knowing this was nothing my God writes in His gospel of Jesus Christ, knowing full well that this was not rooted in truth - my tear splashed prayers on that open road asked God to change my heart. I asked Him BOLDLY for thoughts that actually rooted for my heart and for thoughts that rooted for the possibility of having a person to marry someday. I finished by asking Him for clarity on where I could practice this act of "becoming" ...

In the last 20 minutes, Andy digs into 1 Corinthians 13 and starts talking about patience. He reminds listeners that love is patient and it never pressures, gives as much time and space as the other person needs.  When I heard this, I knew this was my starting point. To become "the person" it started with patience - and this patience needed to be practice with myself first so it could overflow into my relationships with others.

It's been a muddy, tough, confrontational, three years. It's also been a grace filled, deep in light, baptized in the Spirit, rich in wisdom, saturated in truth three years. I couldn't give God a timeline; but I could ask Him for time, acknowledge the work He has done in His time, and walk intentionally with the time that he gave me.

The art of "becoming" is a forever adventure of leaning in and trusting. So today, I''m grateful for this answered prayer of patience. I'm hopeful that I'm closer to being the "person" and humbled daily that the best action I can take is to pray. Pray that (in the Lord's time) I am becoming the woman who the man the Lord wants me to marry is looking for. 

And pray that someday, the practice of patience leads to another answered prayer in my walk - and in yours.

(*Take a look at the prayers you've written in your typed entries/journals/notes over the years. You'll be incredibly encouraged in all the ways the Lord has answered. If you don't currently write down your prayers, do it. I'll even buy you paper and a special pen.)

Winter has a best friend.

Scripture saturates its reader with details.  It speaks about the white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and that the King and his friends took drinks from what seems like an abundance of different gold vessels. (Esther 1)

It reads that heaven is filled with twelves; twelve gates, twelve angels, and inscriptions of the twelve tribes on the gates. by the way - each gate was a pearl - yes, a beautiful white, blemish free, found inside a slimy deep sea creature pearl. (Revelations 21)

This heart is quenched with the most minute moment of each day. It loves the details. From 10 am work breaks from designing orientation documents to memorizing the sidewalk cracks on my runs - each little nugget satisfies my heart with a peace I hadn't noticed until this month. Winter makes things obvious and forces thinking.

Winter hosts dormant and hibernating ways. It covers with blankets of the purest heavenly white colors and exposes the smallest branches. That bareness and discomfort make a heart restless. Who likes being exposed or stuck in these dead details? Most are so quick to want to melt it, to push it aside, and make piles of it. I start my countdown to days of longer sunshine a sweet lemonade, forgetting that I am in this season - and that there is purpose here.

Winter and growth are best friends. Each snowflake is hand painted and that my focus should be on that magnificent miracle - not "how quick can I get this nasty uncomfortable stuff out of the way?" Neglecting the idea that there is so much love in those piles of hand painted details.

Winter embraces bar stools and conversation or hot beverages and cozy chair journal entries. It freezes things and forces the eye to take a careful look.  It takes its sweet time and falls softly. Winter dances with blue skies and rests with gray ones. Winter paints God's sovereignty and asks us for to be exposed and vulnerable so we can move into the next season with room.

Room for growth. Room for courage. Room for new details.