The Miniscule and Miraculous

This has been a long week.

A long, tiring, trying week that attempted to knock me down, but by God's grace, I'm standing at the end of it. Clearing out the debris after the storm, so to speak.

The past week was a battle for me. I got down on the vastness of this new life, how much I'm not used to, the areas of the city I still haven't explored, and even venturing out to stop and see some apartments, hitting me with reality that it's more of a process than I expected. That I have to concentrate on location, safety, distance around the city to various places, all the while keeping it within a reasonable budget.

Over last weekend and through the early part of the week I was also hit with a lot of lies, lies I knew as soon as they broke into my brain they weren't true. I knew these were falsities, weak attempts to take me down, but I admit they were hard to shake. They settled into the soil of my mind and worked their way beneath the surface, and I began questioning everything about my journey these past few months, began wondering how I was here and blue thoughts shrouding the surface of the sun. And I began to think of all my favorite spots in Wisconsin- Port Washington, Lake Michigan in all of its shades and settings, all the ball fields I knew like the lines on my face- and of my family and how distant we really were. It doesn't help that I still don't have a church or life group to get settled in, to learn and grow and fellowship. All I know is that the days drew long and listless, and I cried out to Jesus to get my eyes off of myself and move them to Him. Because He was my true source of comfort, even while my heart flailed and searched in every corner to show me something familiar and soothing.

I know I should have asked for prayer request to help get me through my mind and the rough adjustment to falling back to earth as my "honeymoon phase" came to a close. But I couldn't bring myself to share, and I kept grasping at the small blessings God gave me throughout each day. To see the glass half full takes more belief and faith than to go about the pessimistic way of thinking. It's a good life, and I know that in the big scheme of things I am where God wants me. He has a bigger purpose for me than I can see, though I desperately long to have my reasons for being in this position in life revealed to me. But I was reminded a few times this week that some secrets are the Lord's and He will reveal the mysterious to me when He knows the time is right. And all I can do is take small steps, one step at a time, and tenderly go about each moment reveling in its breath and all I have then is enough for me.

Why is it so easy to focus on the futile, depressing thoughts that appear for only a few moments when the rest of the time is free and full of color? Why can we not see the microscopic blessings that float around us all day and turn our attention so quickly to the tragic that rolls in for a few moments and breezes back out the way it came? To see what is before us requires strength and perseverance, and an abundance of trust to let light into our hearts.

I am going to make it a point to find the beauty in the day. To savor the small things, examine up close the tiny tricks of light that play across creation and be thankful, fully invested in gratitude and throw up my insecurities into the air to come down and shatter in crystal shards across the ground, freeing me to be in favor of the miniscule and miraculous.

 

Light come softly to those who let their eyes lean into the sky.

Stagnant Stretch of Words

I'm stalled. Stuck, so sick of pounding my fingers against the keyboard and getting nothing but incoherent letters and punctuation, run-ons and ramblings. If I even get that fortunate. Lately, it's mostly my mind slipping into such a wake of despondence with sentence after sentence that is jumbled in my mind but lodged inside, refusing to slip to paper.

How many times I have come to coffee shops, soaked in the interior and marveled at the curve of wooden tables, string of lights and stirring atmosphere, quiet murmurs of other patrons. How many times I've nestled into a corner and hunched over my laptop, eager to savor the sanity rolling over me as I cling to the familiar I have in an unknown city- coffee and words. I find the music that sets the tone of my mind, take that first sweet sip of espresso and bid my mind to open to the world writing itself inside me.

And I wait, an uncomfortable fidgeting blooms along the flowerbox of my heart... weeds springing up to trample the flowers of fiction. They take a tight hold, and the color of creative writing dulls and drains into the soil, stagnant and helpless at my feet.

Where is my lifeline? Where is the consistency that has always kept me sane? I don't know why this is occurring, why my writing eludes me and why I'm left grasping in the dark to tie down a few errant thoughts that don't dig deep enough to form a foundation. Why am I consistently staring at page after page of white? I know what I need to do, what I need to write, and in my tentative heart the embers continue to smolder. Still the sprockets of my soul spin and whir along, pushing me forward. I scrape at the sky hoping to pull down a stream of sentences that fall to my flowerbox, once again breathing life, renewing waters to the well of words within.

Lights still shimmer, caffeine still swims through my system. My eyes are wide with hidden hope. I promise myself that these words will come, the scenes will rise and stories unfold. I keep my eyes to the horizon, hold my hand to shade the sun and squint to see the storm swirling in the distance, bringing the downpour.

Outer Rim

This morning is an adventure morning. I woke up early, unable to fall back to sleep, and pondered my day. My roommate is driving me around more of the city this afternoon, but until then, I have time on my hands. So I decided to do a little exploring to find a new coffee shop I hadn't tried yet, in an area I hadn't stopped. Pulling out my laptop, I looked around the wonder web and found a few places and wrote their addresses on a piece of paper. I got in my car, headed towards the general vicinity of one of them and made my way into the correct parking lot.

This place is called Revocup, an Ethiopian café specializing in pure brewing methods and close knit, community feel. They're working with their home country to provide for the people and creating  sustainability. This is a place where older groups gather to catch up on the week and chatter on about the news. I'm in a little corner at the front, sitting in some striped cushion chair, coffee and cinnamon scone close by. It's a very welcoming and nurturing place- cozy and full.

I'm hoping to get here and clear my mind and put to words all the thoughts tangled in me. Maybe work a little on my Bible study, even write a few paragraphs in my story.

I bring up the Bible study, find a section to begin and type. About four sentences. And then I'm frozen. I've run into a few road blocks. First, everything I want to describe or say resonates with my life in Wisconsin. I keep trying to think present tense about the quiet, beautiful gifts of God and my brain stalls. Here in Kansas City, I can't relate to what was so full inside me a few weeks ago. Everything that comes to mind doesn't mesh with my mood. However I want to encourage comes from my memory of Wisconsin and the life I used to live.

When I think up the emotions and settings of my story, I'm at a loss because I'm thrust into the unknown, dropped in the middle of the ocean and expected to find my way to shore. How can I begin to create anything when my canvas is muddled and I'm seeking somewhere I feel familiar?

Words. Where are they? Where is my heart that is the stream from which they flow? If this is where I'm supposed to be, how come I can't feel it? I move my words and mind to stitch together, to find my place and pursue what constantly eludes.

They days are consistently cloudy and gray. On the Kansas side, there's a tint of yellow across the fields. I don't know why, maybe to match the corn? But it illuminates an eerie feel, a wide continuous vastness that has no end but filled with space to imagine.

If I were home, my brook of connections and wisdom would be overflowing. But I'm not. I'm in the middle of that yellow field, hazy silhouette, face shrouded.

This chair is comfortable and the chatter of more patrons keeps the buzz ablaze in this coffee shop. The people around me are all familiar with one another. They smile and wish good tidings to the days to come. Bodies and skin, all tethered together and warm, blood veins and palpable connection.

Everyone knows someone. And I am far along the outer rim.

This is where I am to be for the duration. Lost in the disappearance of my stories and on the search to one day claim them.

Inexplicable Hope

How are you feeling? Full of an inexplicable hope lifting inside of you?

That's how I woke up this morning. The color yellow, soft and buttercream, painting the walls of my heart. For no definitive reason except that I saw the sun taking its time to rise into the sky, slowly stripping off the covers of clouds and dress in robin's egg blue and rose-blushing pink.

This is my first full week of work, and I will say that I miss the two snow days last week- makes time go by much more quickly! But it's good at the office, I really like the people in the building and connect with those in my department. If I get up to get some water, I walk right into staring at the sea of seats across the road in Kauffman Stadium. I don't think I'll ever get used to that view.

And I've finally started writing this week! My editor gave me a few stories for online features and I quickly jumped on the appropriate steps of journalism, sending emails to request interviews, spending time on the phone with coaches, huddle leaders and athletes and piecing together sentences that hit the heart of what needs to be conveyed to readers. My first one turned out quite well (in my opinion), with minor edits and mostly getting to know their formatting. It should be uploaded and published on the website tomorrow!

So there is a brief update on this week. Let us keep our clear eyes lifted towards the sky, searching the silver linings to draw a life we find worth living. Let's keep up the expectancy and soar into the weekend!

Stalled

Emptiness. Bottle seeping, sloshing water over the mouth. Still tides, new moon nights held black against a lightless sky.

And there is where the poetics end.

My brain is stalled at the moment. I don't really know what else to update on. There hasn't been any major happenings lately. It's been a little over a week since coming to KC, and while it seems like I've been here a lot longer than just a week, it's also a realization, again, that I'm not going home and this is only week one in a very long series of weeks to come.

Work consisted of two snow days and coming in late for the other three. I have three emails in my inbox, all welcomes and announcements. No voicemails, no folders, no words yet in writing. But it was a good first week, and once we all get used to each other, I'm going to like my job. Once I actually get to writing stories, I'm going to love it. First week in the history books. Let us rejoice that I know how to get to and from the office, as well!

I guess I'll make this really short, because while there are many oceans swimming through my mind and crashing to the shores of my heart, I cannot quite find the words to accurately vocalize them. So I'll just put up a quote by one of my favorite musicians, Justin Vernon:

And at once I knew, I was not magnificent.
Bon Iver, "Holocene"


There you go. Stalled poetics, taken at the mouth of another's words, heard by another's sound. Make today beautiful. Find your peaceful place and remember how we all yearn for something bright and bigger than our own infinite hopes.

More Snow, More Substance

More snow.

Still soothing, still beautiful and reminiscent of home. But it now reminds me of my restlessness. I want all this KC living to feel natural. I want to know how to do my job. I want to not have to rely on others to show me where to get gas and how to get on the freeway. I want to find my own place to live but I'm only familiar with a large block of area where I've been staying.

Last night I missed my family. It's a lot lonelier going from chaos and noise to silence and subdued. I Face Timed with my parents and brother and I saw their faces, heard the noise and watched them go about their nightly routine that I was involved in so naturally less than a week ago. Let's be honest, it's only been five days since I've been gone, but it was one of those moments last night as I sat in my room and watched the activity on the other side of the screen when I realized I wasn't going back.

I'm not going back. I'm either stuck in place or forced to move forward. I am planting seeds in mid winter, no sign of growth, only brittle fingers burrowing into earth to swipe soil over the new holes, hope and blind faith.

What then, am I hoping for with this transition and new life I live? Am I hoping to make a difference at FCA and impact people with my writing? Certainly. Am I hoping I can find a new church where I can get involved and they can peel away the layers of my soul? Yes. Am I hoping to find my niche, to find friends who can dream with me and encourage me like they did back home? My heart cries its agreement.

There is that restlessness inside me again, scratching at me with dull claws. What do I want? So I chose to move, but it wasn't a choice made 100% enthusiastically. What do I want from this new world? A chance to breathe? To see a familiar face? If I'm out at the grocery store or visiting a church, my eyes scan over the throngs of people, watching to see someone I know.

They are all faces I don't recognize, strangers I've never seen before.

I get notes from wonderful people back home telling me they are happy for me and can't wait to see what is in store for me, what God reveals next. I am thankful for their confidence. I guess I can't see past where I am at this very moment. My vision doesn't stretch far. I see where I have come, and I see a muddle of footprints in the blinding snow. I take one tiny, tentative step after another. It's as far as I can walk. It's as far as I allow my heart to be.

Restless, though silent.

Somehow, the two go together, twisting to combine into something that's bigger than I can see. The sun will still rise, snow will still fall. And I will continue to venture forward and anticipate that each new day will bloom something with substance.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore... Oh, Wait...

Snow flurries.

In the midst of a neverending winter that began in November, I wouldn't think a single flake more would make me smile.

But it does. This snow comes in Kansas, 660 miles southwest of my home.

It is my first morning in an unknown land. In the span of a month and a half, I've gone through multiple interviews, writing and editing assignments, a flight to Kansas City, being offered a job and uprooting my life two and a half weeks later to drive to a new place for a new life.

I don't know anyone, and honestly, my brain is still spinning. I almost don't even know how I got here.

Almost. In truth, though, I do. I am Abraham, going to a land unfamiliar a familiar God has shown me. I should have been a bit more careful what I prayed for.

2013 was a bit of a stuffy, stilted year for me. My beloved coffee shop closed down and I went to work at a new one, where I didn't feel I fit from day one. Going to Nicaragua was the best part of the year and did so much to my heart, but I can't even begin to explain the frustration of having to be back. Home, surrounded by the people who have loved and cared for me all my life, home to the familiar and comfortable.

I wanted to go. Back to Nicaragua. To Colorado and work at Compassion. Even to Nashville to work with some ministry there. I felt like my heart was pulling from my chest to GO and help God's people, to love and live my life in service to others, but I was restrained by my place in life here. It figuratively was me running into a wall over and over.

And that's when I took note of my desire. Ministry. Perhaps I couldn't firmly describe it before. Perhaps it's always been there inside of me, wriggling with anticipation for the day it would finally be discovered.

After Nicaragua, I realized I wanted to do more and acknowledged it head on. I wanted to help people, I wanted to impact people, and I wanted to shine God's light in every corner my heart swept over. The more I worked at the coffee shop, the more frustrated I became. For months I struggled whether I needed to shift my perspective and see coffee as my calling as I once did, while a small voice inside me whispered I may be made to move on. The world loomed large, and God was at work all around it. Where was I to fit in according to His plan?

And so I soldiered on, working while everything within me cried for more. My canvas was a basecoat of gray, and while I was grateful for the life I lived and the people around me, each day I brushed shades of black and white and mixed up blasé portraits. I was not vibrant. My colors had bled and built up a resilience at anything bright.

It got to be too much one day in November and I knew I needed to do something crazy. I wanted to leave the coffee shop. My family supported me and suggested I begin looking for other jobs first before I left. Problem was, nothing they suggested appealed to me. I looked back on the path I've been on, and I saw how God took care of me, and how He provided for me always at the right time and exactly how I needed. Deep inside me, I knew that He would remain true to this pattern. I knew He would show me the next step.

I'd been doing a Bible study with my friend Lynn, and one of the things God was teaching me was about belief. My belief. First, who did I truly believe God to be? Powerful? All knowing? In control? Able to do immeasurably more? Second, if God is who He says He is, do I truly believe Him to be all of the above?

Over the weeks, His voice echoed through me... Bigger than. Brighter still. Believe Me. I looked back on my life and watched His faithfulness appear over and over again like a picture show in my heart, and I came to the point of believing if I stepped out in faith, He would walk with me. So I gave my notice to the coffee shop, finished out my term and drove away on my last shift with a feather-filled heart and a smile that kept shining on my face.

My first week officially off of work... and God came through. Again. In ways unexpected. A job opportunity presented itself to me at a local church doing administrative work and helping grow their coffee ministry. It would have been part time, but it offered me the chance to grow in the ministry I had been in for 2 1/2 years. Within a day, I was online thinking of places to freelance for, trying to boost my writing resume, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes came to mind. I thought it would be a great organization to write for, so I went to their website to see how to go about inquiring about it and found they had a full time opening for a content writer. I don't know if it was my newfound confidence in life and God's hand in it or a short term high of freedom from work, but I figured, "Why not?" I applied, just because I was throwing stars up in the sky to see where they would land.

A day later FCA emailed and asked for writing samples, and the day after that they wanted to set up a phone interview. At the same time, the church wanted me to come in for an interview.

The next week I went to the church to talk about the position, and they offered me the job. So there was one path open, blue skies and sunshine. I had time to pray and think about it, so I did. I had the FCA phone interview a few days later, and that went well, too. They wanted to move forward and give me some writing and editing assignments. I completed those, and kept praying God would shut doors so my decision would be clear.

He kept doors open.

Throughout the weeks that followed, I imagined myself in two different lives. I saw myself at the church position, gathering people in for open mic nights and serving coffee while trying to find opportunities to write for other publications. Then I thought of myself at FCA, in Kansas City, writing. Honestly, I couldn't see it. I thought I more related to the coffee ministry aspect since that's been on my heart more recently. While I had said to God I'd go anywhere He wanted me to, I never figured on Kansas City and it seemed foreign and not what I had in mind. Yes, FCA was a huge part of my development in high school and college, but athletics was a long time ago for me and I was washed up, surging towards the shore of art and coffee.

But writing has been pulsing through my softest spaces and always in my heart's longing.

Kansas City kept calling. I was set on the church and didn't want to deal with the discomfort of disruption in life, though I kept craving more. I didn't think this could be part of the plan. But I kept telling myself over and over FCA would be a great opportunity, and I'd be a fool to not want it. The interview process kept going, and it came to the point where they wanted to fly me down for a face to face interview. I agreed, because I needed to see it through for whatever reason. But the whole week before leaving, something inside me just didn't want to go, said I would be fine at the church. I wanted to cancel, hoped the weather would do it for me. Not to happen. On the coldest day of decades, I boarded a flight and went down to Kansas City, met with staff and clicked with them and the city. It felt very natural and easy, and as I looked around at the landscape, it had that Midwest feel to it I needed. I flew back that evening, wondering what God was doing.

That was a Monday. On Thursday I flew to Arizona with my mom and sister to visit family. On Friday, as I browsed the shelves of my favorite second hand bookstore in Tucson, my phone rang with FCA Magazine's editor on the other line. There, in the poetry section surrounded by words, he told me they'd be offering the position pending a background check. Well. This was happening, whether I fully wanted it to or not. I enjoyed a beautiful weekend with family, and on Monday after clearing security, I found a voicemail from the editor again. I called him back with fifteen minutes until boarding, at an airport café grabbing an iced caramel latte where he told me the background check came back already and officially offered me the position of content writer. I brilliantly responded, "Wow, that was fast," and followed with rambling about being at the airport about to board and can I please have a few days to pray and think it over?  He agreed, and on the flight I discussed it with my mom. As turbulence grew over the Rockies, so did the turmoil inside me. Could I leave my family? They've been everything to me for 28 years, and I've never been more than 7 miles away. To move to another city was one thing; to another state a completely out of the ordinary matter! Being at the church would be comfortable and known, and I could do a good job at helping the people, but when I stepped back and looked at my faith journey, I knew it would be the FCA job lining up to grow me and pull me away from all I knew and place my trust wholly on God.

There was that voice again, prodding me. Bigger than. Brighter still. Believe Me. Did I believe God to take care of me, to take my talents and mold them together for a purpose beyond my imagining? Could I go, and go in assurance?

I've taken the road less traveled over the years. I've dared God to be big in my own timid ways. This time, I needed to take the biggest leap yet.

I called back the editor. I pushed the air from my lungs and said yes. I jumped and landed in my car just 2 1/2 weeks later, driving through cornfield-framed highways, watching the signs for Kansas City and wondering over and over what I was doing.

Exactly what I'm supposed to be.


So here I am, staring at the snow in a place foreign to my Wisconsin eyes. Do I know where I'm heading here? No. Do I know who's making sure it call gets sorted and carried out? Yes.

I am a stranger to these streets. But the snow swirls, tucking tight between blades of frozen grass. I may be away from everyone I love, but I'm surrounded by God who loves me best.

Like the snow that's fallen to its new home, I, too, will find sweet space to land.