Things we should have said

I swore at my sister today. In an angry text. My thumbs shot over those four keys with wreckless certainty. It wasn't until hours later that I thought about what I had said. REALLY thought about it. And I was left with the heaviest sinking feeling. What if those were the last words I ever said to my sister? What if, (Lord forbid) something happened to one of us and we never had the chance to say our "I'm sorry"s? It would be like erasing all the years of laughing, and screaming, and playing with Barbies. All the arguing, and chess games, and late nights spent in twin beds seeing who could name the most Harry Potter characters, the things only a sister can possibly understand...gone. Replaced by a single horrible set of words. We so often take for granted the fact that the people we love know how we feel. Do we say it enough? I know I don't. I don't look at my sister and tell her I love her. We say it in passing as one leaves the other, but I never pause and say it with full force. I sometimes think it as I watch her make my nephews laugh. Their little up-turned faces are such clear reflections of hers. And I tell them daily. I never hesitate to squeeze them close to me and tell them they are perfect. That they are beautiful, wonderful, amazing creations and I love them endlessly. The same is true for many adults in my life, so what is it that I find so difficult to say? And perhaps more than that, what would their reaction to such a declaration be? Why are we so programmed to deny that we are special? We were uniquely created from the act of loving. What could possibly make us more remarkable and worthy of love? Man-made insecurities creep in and tell us we should care what other people think of us and we should keep our feelings hidden. Showing our true feelings makes us vulnerable and vulnerability is seen as weakness. Being vulnerable though...it is the most courageous thing you can do. Being vulnerable means you are brave enough to let yourself be known. We so rarely say what we mean. Or what we think. Or what we feel. And we should, every day. Because we never expect the last conversation to be the last...but one day it will be.

In these quiet moments, these little wonders...

There are days like today, when I get lost in the quiet moments. All of the lights and televisions and telephones turned off, skies gray, and no one but the wind to keep me company. I very rarely allow myself the excruciating luxury of silence and stillness. I prefer to fill my days with rabble and rumbles and gravelly voices. With music and madness and the trumpeting sound of children at play. It is easier that way, to be surrounded by the outwardly loud. It stops me from listening too closely to the thundering shudder of my own heart beat. Or the nasally whisper of breath dancing in and out of my lungs. They always cause me to wonder at the sheer absurdity of my own being: I am here. And there are so many things I will never understand, my own willful and wistful thoughts not least of all. I've given up so much of me in pursuit of so many things...

But in these quiet moments, I can hear God more clearly. I feel His urging and reassurance like the gentle leading of a friend. My constant stream of endless worries are silenced, if only momentarily, and I am ushered into the embrace of a loving Father who knows my faults and fears. It is comforting in a way I cannot describe, but it is also terrifying. You see, when I allow myself to hear Jesus loudly, I am forced to accept that He is asking me to be different. To go where I may not be comfortable. To push myself outside of what I know and what I am used to. I feel a yearning so deep, so foreign, and so uniquely perfect that it must be divine. I know that I am called to do more. To be more. And I am promising now, in this quiet moment, to acquiesce. I will give up the things I am being asked to give up, but I will do so knowing that I do not walk this road alone. This past weekend, I heard someone speak about the dead sea. That it is dead because it is the lowest point on earth, so while the Jordan River flows into it, nothing can flow out of it. I do not want to be a dead sea. I want to give more of myself, to constantly have an outward flow. And while so much can be said about living for yourself, I am happy my life has never been my own. I am a garbled collection (a patchwork, so to speak) of the people and places; the dying dreams and unspoken wishes; the countless lapses in judgement and sleepy smiles; the roaring laughter and the feather light tear drops; they have been poured into me every single day of my life. Stories and paths that intersect, weave, tangle, separate...they have grown me. And I never want to stop growing.

There are those that believe differently that I do, that the voice inside is their conscience or perhaps their soul. I believe it is my maker and my savior. The difference, though, matters not. We all have the little voice inside of us. It will comfort and calm us. It will tear us down and then rebuild us. And when we are at our lowest, in a valley or the depths of a dead sea, it will direct us where we need to go. We need only stop our incessant cacophonous running and hear it.

Dedicated to...you.

"Dedicated to everyone who wonders if I'm writing about them.

I am."

I saw this quote on Pinterest and I was immediately in love with it. It's true, after all. But then I really began to think about it...I wonder how often I have told the stories of other people in my writing? Laid out facts about their lives the way I saw them. I've stolen bits and pieces of other people and wrapped them up in pretty words. I've made them mine because I witnessed them. They've woven in and out of my own, but were their stories mine to tell?

I write a lot about the human condition: Loneliness. Loss. Love. The silence between heartbeats. The things we should have said. And I write a lot about people. I know people. I've always had this innate ability to sense someone's character...I feel as though I know them before they let me. It's intrusive and unfair. But this is how I was made.

How are we made? 

It's in me to wonder this. Instinctively, out of the blue. Why are some of us hardwired to wonder and wander and always, always, always be consumed? It's in my blood to never be satisfied. Which, I suppose, is why I write outside myself. I could tell you every emotion I've ever felt--the overflowing happiness, the deep, roiling passion, the bitter and solid emptiness--but would it cause you to know me any better? Would it make you understand? I can promise you it wouldn't. I am in a constant state of flux. Everything is tenuous. As soon as I find the words for my feelings, they've already changed twice. This is who I am and I'm used to it. Instead of boring you with myself, I'll write about you. You; the nameless, faceless vestiges of my sanity. I can see inside you. I know about numbers and the counting. The tiny scratches on your inner thigh. Scars that line the insides of upper arms. Little white pills  wrapped in cellophane. Stolen kisses on a race car bed. Broken Christmas lights. Selfishness hiding behind sweet words. The way you pause before you kiss her. Dark circles hidden under too much makeup. Wondering if you settled. That hidden playlist. 

40°46′31.48″N 73°58′28.59″W. The way she never looks at you, not really, not the way I did. The way I do. 13 different people. Stories not my own. So if ever you wonder if I'm writing about you....rest assured, I am.

Oh, we dreamed of life.

Heavy.

Everything about this morning is heavy. 

I woke up with tears leaking out of the corners of my still-closed eyelids. Aren't dreams supposed to be pleasant and warm? Comforting? Kindred? Otherwise, aren't they nightmares? What if they're neither? 

I didn't dream she was alive and well. She was still gone. But maybe that dream would have been easier to deal with...her absence is so ingrained in me that I think even in my sleeping state, I would have known I was dreaming. And it would have been nice to see her face. I miss it so much, so very much more than I ever thought possible. Pictures are lovely things, but they can only go so far in capturing a person. One dimension distortion almost feels inappropriate; like staring at a ghost.

I dreamed that I was going through her old vanity the way I did when I was a child. Pulling out lipsticks that I wish I remembered the exact name of, gently sniffing the perfumed powder I loved to feel between my fingertips. That scent haunts me. To this day, whenever I'm in a new department store, I will undoubtedly wander around the fragrance department absently searching for it. I never mean to wind up there, but I always do.

I pulled out her hairbrush. Ran the soft bristles over the skin of my arm. Still felt the same little-girl wonder I always felt about her hair. So abundant and midnight shadow dark. Always perfectly placed. I reached farther into the drawer and came back with a folded piece of paper. I unfolded it and read. It was a note to us, her family. It contained $35. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it was something about using the money in case anything ever happened to her. And it said she loved us..."Bigger than the moon and farther than the stars." It felt so unbelievably real. Not because the amount of money holds any significance, it doesn't. Not because she had ever said those words, she hadn't. Not because it was written in her handwriting. It may well have been, but I don't consciously know what her script looked like. I wish I did. No, I believe it felt so real to me because it is something I have wished for and wanted for the last 4 years. It seems like such a small and trivial thing, but I would love to have something she had written. A letter. A memo. A grocery list. Some little piece of paper her hands had touched. I cried tears of joy in my dream. And then an over-full bladder caused the pitbull laying next to me to whine loud enough to bring me back to reality. It was the rudest awakening. Harsher than the streaming sunlight in my sleep filled eyes, my hope filled heart broke.

I don't know where to go with the rest of my day. If I'm being honest, the rest of my life. There is so much I wish I could talk to her about. I feel like she knew me best. Her skinny arms always enveloped me more fully than anyone else. I miss that sense of safety. Everything feels precariously balanced, like a gust from either direction will send me toppling. I'm still trying to become that person she believed I would be. Something. Someone. And I don't know how. I want to be happy. I want to be fulfilled. I believe it's possible, but I'm constantly feeling shoved into obligations. I'm stuck in this weird in-between...an adult, but stunted. When did I become this scared person? I used to have so much fight. I want her to hold me and tell me I'm beautiful again. Just one more time. Because maybe then, I could face a world that so often makes me feel so ugly inside.

1.

My soul is weak
But I am strong
in You
I come before You
Broken
Deaf though I am
I hear You now
Choirs and choruses
Saving me
Singing me home
Wrapped up in a lullaby
And buried in belief
I am wicked
Weakened
Resurrect this spirit
Make me whole
Wreck me
Create me new
These damaged hands
Clinging to Your truth
Falling in love for the first time
Absolute
Unyielding
Boundaries undefined
Wild and reckless
Wings no longer clipped
A promise of the heart
And soul
A taste of immortality
I am only human
But because I have You
That is enough

Aurora, Colorado.

***I've been sitting on this post for a few days...ping ponging back and forth about whether or not I should post this publicly or keep it set to private. I wrote in a state of sleep deprivation and deep sadness. I know I'm long overdue for a blog and I have a poem I wrote in church today that I could post, but these are the thoughts that keep niggling in the back of my head. So here it goes...***

Maybe I shouldn't be blogging about this. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should leave it to those better informed. More judicial. Less emotional. The last thing I would ever want to be is disrespectful of the deceased or those mourning. So maybe I should just go back to sleep. But I can't.
There's a hurricane inside me and it's stirring up broken pieces of things I wish were forgotten. 
I remember watching the news in October of 1998 and hearing about a 21 year old named Matthew who was beaten, tortured, robbed, and left for dead. I remember being so sad and confused. I remember asking why anyone would do something like that and being told that at 10 years old, I was too young to understand. 
Some months later in April of 1999, I remember hearing on the radio about two high school seniors named Eric and Dylan who killed 12 of their classmates and one of their teachers. I remember being scared to go to school the next day. I remember asking who would do such a thing, and being told again that it isn't something an 11 year old can understand.
A few years later, packed into a classroom with 70 of my peers and 3 teachers, I watched in horror as thousands lost their lives in the middle of  lower Manhattan on a September morning. We held each other's hands as silent tears poured down our faces and we asked our teachers what it all meant, what would make people do something as terrible as this. We were 13 and 14 years old, we could do algebra and read Shakespeare, surely we could understand the reasons behind this. But they refused to give us any and told us to speak to our parents about it. 
Several years after that, at 19 years old, I read on the internet about an English major in Virginia who took the lives of 32 people on campus. Shocked and heart broken as I was, I didn't ask a single question. Because I knew, finally, I would never understand these acts of malice and it had nothing, nothing at all, to do with my age.
There are always all these analysts and experts and pundits and lobbyists all over the tv after a tragedy. They blame this video game or that mental illness or demand stricter laws. They toss around big words and try to make sense of the situation. They plaster images of the "shooter" or "perpetrator" or "assailant" everywhere. They inundate us with their history of instability or extremist beliefs. They vilify. They make it easy to place blame. Despite all of that, I've come to believe that it would be better placed on the reflection we see in the mirror. Do not misunderstand me, I know that each one of us is responsible for our own actions. I know that the majority of people on this planet find the thought of harming another soul in anyway to be completely abhorrent. I know that. But I also know that most of us are too busy, too wrapped up in our own pain to notice the hurt of others. How  often do we walk around with our eyes down, fingers glued to a keypad, earbuds in, oblivious to all but ourselves? There is a brokenness in the world. It is deep and vast and dark. It is also inside each of us. It is the reason why we hate the sinner instead of the sin. I know because I am as guilty of it as anyone else. I am reactionary. I hear about 12 people being murdered and 50 others being injured at a theater and I immediately reach for anger and outrage. But I am learning to fight my nature. Because I have to. Because it is what Jesus has asked of me. 


"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" Matthew 6:14-15


"And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. " Mark 11:25


I know that there will be those who criticize me, saying that I have no right to preach about forgiveness in these situations because I am not directly involved. "How would you feel if it was your family member or friend?" I would hurt. I would mourn. But I hope with all that I am that I would still come to the same conclusion: we have more hatred and fear than the world should hold. We are sorely in need of love and acceptance. I will pray for peace over those left behind. I will pray that the Lord take the souls of the departed. Alex Sullivan. Jessica Ghawi. Matthew McQuinn. Micayla Medec.  John Larimer. A.J. Boick. Gordon Cowden. Veronica Moser-Sullivan. Jonathon Blunk. Jesse Childress. Alex Teves. Rebecca Wingo. And I will pray that He forgives the shooter, James Holmes. 
Instead of asking questions about the whys and hows, I am working on letting go of my bitterness and anger. Because I believe that God has a plan more infinite than any one of us can comprehend. And to those that question what I would do if it was my loved one murdered...I ask you, what would you do if James Holmes was yours?

Honestly. Insanely. Deeply. Ferociously.

I was listening to this song today. Just another sad love song and there are a million others exactly like it. I listen to them everyday, and sometimes they make me think and feel things. Strong things. True things. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes, they're just words given a rhythm and set to music. Just words. They don't make me pause. But today, listening to this song, for some reason...I paused. It caught me so off guard. One second I was washing dishes, not really paying any attention, and the next I'm sitting at my kitchen table writing this. It feels like it was written for me, this song. And in some weird cosmic way, maybe it was. Maybe it was written about some other girl somewhere, but maybe also so I could hear it. And pause.


I'm pausing. 


I used to be so sure about love. Knew that I had been in love and knew exactly what it was. What it feels like to love. Most of the time, I still think I do. What I have become unsure of is whether or not I've ever been loved. Really loved. Honestly. Insanely. Deeply. I've never felt loved like that, not by anyone outside of my immediate family, but I believe I could. I believe it exists. It's what all the poets write about, and what every musician sings about, and it is what a soldier fights for. It's why we breathe. And it is the reason we associate our most vital organ, the very core of our being, our hearts, with it. Because our love defines us. It is not something you settle for.


I am always settling.


I settle for no credit (even though credit isn't the point...) for the things that I do. I settle for selfish, inconsiderate friends (not all of them...) who consistently put me last. I settle for being told I am inadequate (sometimes, by myself...) and I settle for believing it. I deserve more. But I settle. Over and over again. So I suppose this is a promise to myself;  I won't settle when it comes to things I love. Not anymore. I deserve to chase my passions. I'm going to throw everything I have into doing this whole writing thing, because I love it. Ferociously, I love it. And instead of accepting the love I convince myself I deserve, I'm going to work on believing I deserve better. Because I do. I deserve to be loved. Honestly. Insanely. Deeply. Ferociously. And so do you.


We deserve to be loved.

OKAY! I hear You. I hear ALL of you. I'm going to make an honest go of it. Really, truly. okay.

She

She's a teal haired beauty
Gypsy soul
Carries leaving in her bones
Friday night scene-stealer
Rolling Stone
Always somewhere new to roam
So she runs
Like heaven itself is chasing her
Jesus, hot on her heels
And she steals
Mostly kisses
Sometimes hearts
She leaves them broken on the side of the road
She knows the devil loves to dance
And she'll gladly take her turn
Gives lessons on things she refuses to learn
Blazes trails through cities
Just to watch as they burn
And in turn
She'll plant a field full of wild flowers
Rebellion blood boils in her veins
A free spirit, chained
And oceans roil in her womb
Filled by fists
Friendships
Final words
She tastes of chaos and serenity
And whole worlds are present
In her battlefield eyes
Enough space to swim for eternity
In those midnight skies
Californian by way of Neverland
Citizen of nowhere
Chew you up, spit you out
Leave you discarded
She had it decided before you even started
Skinned knees
Tanned skin
And a rhythm in her toes
She was made for the places no else knows

Special thanks to my muse, the ever-stunning Miss Melissa-Anne de Obaldia. And to Jesialex Photography for the use of her AMAZING photo. Be sure to check out her page; she's doing a series this summer of girls with out-of-the-ordinary hair coloring and every shot is beautiful!

I am still...

Feeling so unbelievably inspired right now, but the words won't stick. They're rushing through my brain a million miles a second and I can't grasp them. I think I'm sleep deprived. I'm stutter stuck. The air outside is the kind that tastes of stories and whirs with life. It is as heavy as electricity and as light as forever. It dances. I smell victories in the breeze and I am reminded of what it felt like to be young. I am still young. But there is added gravity with each passing year and I'm struck by the distinct feeling that 24 is a 10,000 years from 23. And 25 is only 20 million heartbeats away (give or take...). I miss being carefree. Top down, driving way too fast down a dirt road, hands up, hair loose, heart open. I pay too much attention to stop signs now. When did I discover speed limits? I am still racing towards nothing. Staring into darkness, I know the barren fields are there, behind this house. Knee high by the fourth of July, and I am always running wild through them. Daffodil pollen coats the inside of my nostrils and I am home. Bold enough to grow wherever there are roots. I want this. I am still wanting him. Bonfire smoke is in the wind. I am blazing like the embers, dying while I'm trying not to burn out. Trees with fingers like corpse hands gloved with green reaching up and out and away. I know the feeling all too well. We were children here. When did we grow so far apart? I am still finding out where I fit. So much more than mere memory, cotton candy sticky sweet somethings. Stumbling through the alley in the dark. Baseball diamond strip tag. Sleeping bags on top of the school. Rolling down a hill in a green plastic tube, singing "I WILL SURVIVE" at the top of our lungs. The air is restless. I am still.

Real friends are the type of people who will fly across the country for no other reason than to share a few moments with you. They are exceedingly rare. And they can make all the difference in life.

Sunny day girl

While the Michigan air is still crisp, the summer sun is returning. Warm and light on my skin, it makes me miss your fingertips. It's the same sun I fell in love under. Has it really been 3 years? I wish we had taken pictures. Captured moments in more than just memory. I wish I'd let you know my friends. I wish I'd let you know me. Sometimes, I wonder if you exist outside the confines of that time bubble...sometimes, your face still dances across my eyelids in the middle of night and makes me wonder upon waking if it wasn't all just a dream anyway. I am always someone's secret. But this isn't about you. Not anymore. It's about me. Isn't it always? I'm not who I was, and I'm trying to reconcile that. There are days when I still feel like that sunny day girl...brighter, softer, newer...but so much has changed since then. I am the transitive property; still trying to figure out how to connect A to C, while perpetually hunting down my connective letter, B. My resolve is weak. I stop looking before I even start. But I'm learning not to question happiness. To let it come and go as it pleases. To smile, but only when I mean it. To cry, even when there are more important things to do. I still get lost in the mud and the muck on occasion, but I don't live there anymore. I'm working on loving this mess of me. 10 fingers, 10 toes. And wasn't that always the point?

Shakabuku and I

This past Sunday, one of my pastors challenged everyone to share their stories, their Shakabuku moments. This is something I've been dancing around doing for a while now, always finding some reason or other why I shouldn't or didn't need to, but as I sat there I was struck by a strong sensation of hypocrisy. Here I am, this "changed" person who knows that no man may judge me, as my judgement lies wholly in the hands of God, and yet...and yet I am STILL terrified of being judged. Of being thought "different". The truth is, I am different. We all are. And I shouldn't be ashamed of my story, messy though it is, it is also beautiful. It is the road to my salvation. So, here it goes...(note: There are clickable words throughout this blog. So many people/things/events have impacted me greatly, I tried to make more information about each one easily accessible for those who would like to know more.)

For most of my life, I did not believe in God. Truth be told, I was combative and many times outright hostile to those within the church. Growing up, my parents never made us go to church, never force fed us religion. That being said, we had plenty of family members who did. They would seize every opportunity to tell me that I should be saved. And being from Southwest Michigan, I also had a fair few friends (and their parents) who felt the same. Every experience I ever had with Christians and religion taught me that I was the problem with the world. The way I thought, the way I dressed, the things I believed. In every interaction I had with them, I felt judged and outcast. I had read the Bible (I've also read the dictionary, an almanac, and an encyclopedia...I'm just curious!) and felt that these people who claimed to follow it where nothing like what they ought to be. I made the generalization that Christians were hypocritical, closed minded, judgemental, conservative, assholes. And this caused a great rift in my life; I was on one side with the liberals and the homosexuals and, a million miles away, perpetually looking down their noses, were the Christians. And Rush Limbaugh. Things came to a head my freshman year of college. By this time, depression had been building in me since as long as I could remember. I had been doing something known as ‘cutting’ for around 2 years, and while that dulled the internal pain I was feeling for a time, it was beginning to not be enough. I was in a pit so vast that even the brightest beams of sunlight (my friends and family members) couldn’t pierce the murkiness that surrounded me. I very seriously began to contemplate suicide. So seriously in fact, that I had picked out a day, a place, and means by which to carry out the act. Having resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t long for this world, an eerie sort of peace settled over me. All of the “not good enough”s and the “not pretty enough”s and the “never going to be enough”s that had constantly nagged and gnawed and clawed around inside me seemed to revel in the glory of having won. They danced around my brain and sang themselves into my heart. One day, about a week away from what would have been my last day, I was wasting time between classes on the then –popular website, MySpace. As is the way of social networking sites, one click led to another and I found myself on the To Write Love on Her Arms page. I had never heard of TWLOHA, but the name intrigued me so I started to look around. I came to find out that it was a non-profit organization whose mission was to bring hope to, and shed light on, the diseases of depression, self-mutilation, and addiction. Interest peaked, I decided to read their blog. Therein, I found the story (if you click no other link in this blog, click that one.) that had started it all. It was about a young woman named Renee who suffered from all of the aforementioned issues and how a small group of friends, some she hardly knew, banded together to help her heal, give her hope, and ultimately get her help. In that moment, reading that story, something began to shift. I found solace, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had found hope. The blog had been written by a man named Jamie Tworkowski. His words - his beautiful, simple, soulful words – made me want to live. In that blog, and many others Jamie writes, he mentioned God. He also mentioned Donald Miller and his book “Blue Like Jazz”, and since I was entirely too uncomfortable with the notion of God outright, I settled for reading some Don Miller. Reading "Blue Like Jazz" (which has since been made into a movie, one that I helped fund and am quite proud of. I believe with my whole heart that you should see it.) was a life altering, view changing experience. And thus began my realization that not all of Christianity was a group of closed minded, extreme conservatives who would look down on me and judge me. I began, however slowly, to want to believe.

Fast forward almost exactly two years later to the fall of 2008. I was still in college and still not a believer. In the two years that had passed, I had done a lot of reading and a lot of soul searching. And still, I did not actively believe in God. However, my emotional state was a complete 180 from where it had been; I was relatively happy. I struggled on some days, fought fingertips that still twitched for razorblades. But at the end of the day, all I needed to do was go re-read one of Jamie’s blogs or write one of my own to feel renewed and uplifted. Back in 2007, I had started reading the Twilight series (go ahead, laugh it up!) and had gotten pretty involved in the fan community. In October of 2008, I ended up winning a trip to see the entire cast of the first movie at an MTV event in California called ‘Spoilers’. At the time, my best friend Sarah was living in Los Angeles doing Youth With a Mission. The plan was for me to stay with her on base and for her to be my plus one at the event. So many wonderful things came out of my time under the California sun; I got to see celebrities, made some truly great friends, became a vegetarian, saw the ocean for the first time…but nothing comes close to what happened in a small classroom, surrounded by strangers. One morning while I was there, Sarah asked me to come to worship with her. Uncomfortable with the idea, but not wanting to seem rude, I agreed. It wasn’t my first encounter with worship, but it was the first I ever enjoyed. The songs they sung felt so vibrant and real. It was as though they were having a conversation with God and I was shocked to find that I wanted to do the same. Seemingly out of nowhere, I felt a change in my heart. It literally took my breath away. Suddenly, I knew God was real. I began to cry unstoppable tears. I was prayed over by Sarah and some of her friends, and body shaking, eyes pouring, nose running, I accepted Jesus into my heart on that day. 

Another two and half years sprinted past with nothing much to mark them aside from the constant internal battle I felt within myself. I had to come find that what I had thought to be the biggest hurdle, believing that God was real, was only just the beginning. I still felt that I was on the outside of Christianity looking in, and the people on the inside would never accept me. I allowed myself to fall back into the familiar pattern of self-doubt and ridicule. “If Jesus is real and He was perfect and without sin”, I’d say to myself, “how could He ever love a mess like you?”. I allowed my belief and the hunger inside of me to know Jesus to be quieted by my fears that if He did know me, He would look down on me and judge me as unfit. I put my faith on the back burner. Until March 3, 2011. On that day, I watched as a moment of pure elation turned into a deep sorrow that I will carry for the rest of my days. After scoring the game winning basket in overtime to cap off a perfect 20-0 season, Wes Leonard , my brother's friend and teammate, collapsed and suffered from sudden cardiac arrest. Losing Wes broke my heart in far reaching and complex ways, many of which I am only just beginning to realize and deal with. On that day and the ones that followed, I was forced to see many of the people I care the most for suffer without being able to do a thing to ease their pain. Wes' passing left a hole in me. It was a hole with gnawing edges; constantly threatening to widen until it engulfed me entirely. I sank into a deep sadness and nothing I did seemed to draw me out. And then, some months later, I picked up a Bible that had been given to my father by a customer of his. I flipped it open to Matthew and the second verse I read was Matthew 5:4. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.". Reading those words sparked something within me, an ache I have never experienced before. I wanted to truly know God. Though I had never before felt welcome or comfortable in a church, on September 11, 2011, I decided to go with Sarah and her parents Tami and Joe. Walking into Lakeshore Vineyard Church felt like coming home. I knew no one aside from the three people I went with, and yet felt as though I was among friends.
The initial feeling of ease faded quickly. Even though I felt friendly towards everyone at LVC, I still felt separate. I was hiding who I really was, out of fear of being ostracized. So while I loved Sunday services, I still felt as though I was missing something. Tami had been trying for years to get me to come to an Alpha, and I had always had some excuse not to: I have class, I have to work, I don’t have the gas money…and this time was no different. “I can’t”, I told her, “my boss golfs on Wednesday nights and there is no one else that can run the store.” So Alpha started up without me, and I still felt empty. Before what would have been the second week, my boss came up to me and said “By the way, golf is ending this week and I think I want to join a bowling league. If I do that, I would need you to work Thursday nights instead of Wednesday nights. Does that work for you?” As it turns out, it worked out for me very well. I started going to Alpha and found that I enjoyed it immensely. I learned answers to questions that I didn’t even know I had. I listened to the stories of the people in my small group, and I came to realize that I wasn’t alone. As the weeks went on, I began to open up and truly feel not only accepted, but loved. However, it wasn’t until the group went on a weekend away, that my heart completely changed. I learned so much not only about Jesus and faith, but about myself. I realized that God did know me, that He always had, and that He would love me regardless. In Him, I was beautiful and perfect and worthy of all things. I decided to be baptized and have spent every day since seeking to live my life for the Lord.

I believe Jesus has always been after my heart. Actually, I believe He is after everyone's. Looking back, I have come to realize that even in the moments I felt most alone, I never was. He was there. At times waiting patiently, others loudly knocking, but never far from my door. I think if you find yourself reading this, He is asking you to pay attention. You do not need to feel broken. Or worthless. Or less than. Or alone. The enemy is real and these are the lies he would have you believe. God is something bigger. There are many a line that Donald Miller has written that I adore, but none that I have found truer than this: “...to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people...That is why God tells us so many times to love each other." Allow me to tell you: You are beautiful. You are worthy. You were made to dance, and laugh, and grow old secure in the knowledge that your life has meaning. You are here for a reason and you are valuable. Don't be afraid to share your story because you never know who may need to hear it. And remember, whether I know you very well or not at all, I love you. Jesus loves you. Hope, healing and salvation are real...if only you are willing to open your eyes and your heart enough to let them in.

Blue Like Jazz the Movie hits theaters on April 13!

Reading this book changed the course of my life. Watching this movie could change the course of yours. More to come soon!