notes on california 1

our easter experience began with the unexpected blessing of sharing it with two of my dear friends, kate and hannah, and hannah's boyfriend todd. it was such a gift for us to worship with these friends so dear to us, standing together in an outdoor amphitheatre with thousands of others who had gathered to celebrate God's victory over sin and death in the resurrection joy of jesus. we clapped our hands, danced our feet, and raised our hands heavenward in one great worship collective.

and worship, we did. our lead pastor, todd proctor, has a gift for leading people to the feet of jesus in this way. we sang songs of celebration and joy and freedom, and we honored God for who he is.

but we worshipped through more than mere song. rock harbor artists, in the way only they can do, created a symbolic offering of dance and rhythm to communicate the fall and redemption of man, and the power of this visual story caused tears to drop down my cheeks.

then a young man named rudy stood on the stage and told the story of his many years' struggle with cancer, spinal meningitis, and hearing loss with sign language and the help of our teaching pastor, mike erre. after signing his story for us with the help of mike's voice to tell it, rudy took the microphone into his own hands and offered his final words with a muted voice so precious and vulnerable that tears coursed down my cheeks once more.

hearing rudy's voice, then receiving mike's message about our need for the compassion of jesus, and then singing a song that praises God as the defender of the weak and the comfort of those in need . . . all of this made me feel i had come home. i realized that i am indeed already on the path God has laid out before me. i saw yet again that this jar of clay that is my life is a mere vessel to receive the infilling of God's own Spirit to accomplish his own purposes: the binding up of the brokenhearted, the setting free of those held captive, the restoring of sight to the blind.

i felt in a flash that the work of this journey has already been accomplished, that as i stood there in orange county on that sunday, a part of this body collective, one mere worker in the fields of harvest, one mere learner along the road, i am already home.

a physical step in the westerly direction

hello, friends.

this afternoon marks the official start to our spring break holiday. today kirk and i are checking in and choosing seats, doing laundry, arranging for a 4 a.m. taxi cab, calling our friend who watches the kitties, packing bags, tidying up, and saying goodbye to solomon and diva. we're headed for california in the early morning. it is a trip that lasts a week and is yet another exercise in faith.

we planned this trip the week we started thinking california was a distinct possibility. realizing that august would come quite soon, that july would only afford us the possibility of a quick weekend whirlwind trip, if any at all, to secure a place and leave deposits, suddenly it struck us that spring break was fast approaching and our only real chance to do advanced legwork in the direction of california.

so we hopped online and hemmed and hawed at the $430 price for each airline ticket. then we looked at one another, reconsidered our options to go exploring and making connections on the west coast anytime soon, and ultimately clicked to purchase. then we went about making plans.

usually our visits to california are filled with fun and anything goes. this time, it has a more serious, productive feel. we've secured our application interviews for the isf program, back-to-back interviews on tuesday morning. we have plans to scout around in old town pasadena one day, fullerton and historic orange on another, getting a feel for the rental housing market in the areas we prefer. we'll visit my old church, which may become kirk's new one. we'll think on possibilities for employment, and perhaps make connections there.

on the whole, we'll be evaluating this experience in the light of living there, not just visiting, not just passing a fun-filled holiday.

we've never attempted something like this together before. when kirk and i dated, we traveled a lot, but one or the other of us usually visited the other person in their native land, where they already lived. there was already a homebase established, too, when i moved here to marry kirk. and though we've traveled many other places together, it has always been a matter of striking out together as tourists, visitors, explorers, scavengers, nomads.

but this trip? on this trip we're descending as beginning creators together, creating something new from scratch. because even though so-cal is my hometown and the prospect of moving there makes me feel i'm coming home, it has not been my home for two years now. my home has been here in winter park, with kirkum and our two cats. and so, in the coming months, we'll be exploring how to create a new home, secure for ourselves new jobs, approach a new season of training, develop a relationship with a new but well-loved church, and forge into nurturing new relationships, developing a new sense of community together.

thank goodness that it will not all be brand-new. thank goodness for the love and care and community of already long-established relationships that we'll enter into with great intentionality and overwhelming thankfulness. thank goodness at least one of us will know how to pretty much get us anywhere we want to go and will know about how much time it will take to get there every time. thank goodness the school we're hoping to attend is where i have worked and completed my undergrad, so that the environment is already known in many ways. and thank goodness that so-cal will feel like an old familiar in many ways even for kirk, thanks to the many visits he's already taken there on behalf of his life with me.

but still. we are feeling the stretch of faith that incarnates fear and trembling and constant self-reminding that we are not in this alone. when we really stop and think about all this, we realize just how big a feat it is. gathering up all we own and striking out for a new land makes us feel like abraham. looking out at the wide expanse of employment possibilities to meet our daily needs and future hopes makes us feel like moses and the israelites in the wilderness, looking to heaven for manna and quail to come raining on down. and anticipating our hopes to nurture community around ourselves in new, life-giving ways makes us hope for something like the experience of the early christians, whose love and affection for one another brought continual fellowship and generosity of spirit among one and all.

we truly hope and pray that God will show up and not leave us abandoned in all this exploration, that he will make his plans for us plain. some days i have greater faith in this than others. but new steps forward like this one serve to increase my faith because, in its own way, it's like holding up one side of a continual conversation. i wonder what God will say when it's his turn to share some thoughts?

in the mail

today my ISF application made it into the mail and now charts its course across the country to meet the ready hands of my grad admissions counselor.

i must say, it is a relief to have completed this part of the giant marathon we are running to explore the possibility of california in our future, as this application ended up being quite a bit more intensive than i anticipated it would be. it took quite a bit out of me, and parts of it made me sad.

this is because in addition to the four-page application and the three 1000+ word essays that ISF requests of all its applicants (and which were an absolute and complete joy to write), i also needed to include three essays that expounded in great detail some parts of my life that are not so easy to remember. they are parts of my life that i hold close to my heart. they are significant to my journey. they have formed a large part of who i am today, but for the reasons of forging me through fires of grief and pain and darkness and questions.

one essay in particular required entering into years of dark memories and striving for a particular direction in my life that i believed God wanted and the eventual toppling of that effort to the ground. it was a long essay that shared details and dates, efforts and failings, biblical passages and explanations of understanding, expressions of healing and expectations and hopes for the future. it was really, really hard.

this one essay alone was enough to take me out for an entire week. it came on top of the already difficult realization that God has much purifying he wants to do in me, and the shame i could encounter merely by facing the black sins of my heart in that place was doubled by these old places of memory that served to land me in deeper seats of shame.

i am glad i took the time i needed to breathe in the aftermath of writing those three extra essays. when the time came for me to compose the standard 1000-word essays for ISF, essays that asked me to share about my spiritual journey, the significant developments therein, the places in which i find myself growing today, essays that asked me to share what i understand spiritual formation to be, what soul care means to me, and the ministerial goals and interests that now inform my life . . . i had the energy and wherewithal to write them from the fullest places i could find inside, instead of the exhausted, broken place i landed after pouring myself into the other essays. i am glad i honored both sides of my story, the pain-filled side and the hope-filled side, so that the fullness of me could shine out in the best way it knew how.

and now, on wings of prayers, i pray those pages go forth on my behalf in God's grace and truth and love to meet the plans he has for me, whether those plans materialize in the way i have been hoping they will or not. it is a scary and quite vulnerable place in which to stand, but i cannot desire to be standing anyplace else.

a more perfect union

i am posting below one of the most inspired speeches i have ever heard uttered in my lifetime. it is a long speech, clocking in at 38 minutes, but one inspired on every level we could possibly hope for a presidential candidate's speech to be inspired.

this speech by barack obama evidences his gracious manner, his genuine respect for all human beings, his ability to think deeply and critically and originally and thoughtfully on complex concerns, his understanding of what it means and what it will take for a people to become united through what they share instead of divided for what they don't share, and his continued conviction that hope in our nation is worth fighting fiercely for.

and while some of barack obama's opponents will continue to say that he knows how to craft and deliver pretty speeches but lacks the ability and experience to act or to lead, i will say three things.

first, that thoughtful and thorough and originally penned speeches like this one indicate a man who truly knows how to think critically and form beliefs about appropriate responses to difficult issues. there are no simple sound bytes here; these are long and thoughtful ideas strung together into a weighty message that overwhelmingly delivers real substance. frankly, it makes the former college honors writing instructor in me swoon with amazement and pride.

second, i echo michelle obama's own conviction that a long line of years spent working on the south side streets of chicago as a civil rights activist gives a man more experience and hard skills and leadership opportunity than years spent reading bills and submitting votes in washington. i have long wondered why this experience goes unacknowledged by his critics, when it demonstrates firsthand that he not only knows how to bring about real change for real people but also how to lead and to act decisively and with passion.

and third, i offer the words of his former colleague at the university of chicago, whose surprising phone call with barack obama gave him deeper insight into the kind of leader obama will be as president: that he is someone who wants to understand both sides of an issue before opening his mouth or deciding his own mind about it, someone who is humble enough to ask questions, and someone who will surround himself with people skilled in the necessary areas. i cannot imagine a finer candidate to be our next president of the united states of america.

note: text version of this speech is available here.

a first big step

today i mailed off my reference forms for the isf program to each of my three references, after having secured their agreement to write these references over this last week. it was a huge step, and i felt little nervous pricklies in my stomach as i drove them to the post office and then dropped them in the box, saying a little prayer as they went whooshing down the shoot. they are now out of my hands and into the gracious hands of others. it is an act of trust.

before i mailed them, i spent quite a bit of time composing cover letters for each one. the one going to my dear, dear friend was easy. she's been in my life for going on 12 years and is providing the character reference and an additional personal letter of affirmation for me. but the letters going to my pastor and employer references took more time. it's been almost two years since i've been in touch with either of them, and a lot has happened in that time. i've developed more into the person i'm meant to be. i've taken more concrete steps in the direction of my calling. i needed to share this growth with them in a way that felt authentic but not overwhelming. i also needed to share how my interactions in the spheres in which they've known me have served to shepherd me deeper into this journey, and where some divergences have happened since the time i've spent with them.

so it was no easy task, and i took care in writing both of them. when i was finished, i felt a clearness inside of my heart and mind, like they had formed a closer union through that process. this is where i see how much writing is still a part of me and always will be; it's how i make sense of my world and my journey and most fully convey it to others. it felt so good to share more of that world and that journey with these special individuals today. and now that those letters and forms have been mailed, this process has officially begun.

the battle between faith and sight

so basically, i'm just going to come right out and tell you that kirk and i believe God is moving us to california. to orange county. in august. to enroll in the spiritual formation and soul care program at isf. to be trained to offer what God created us to offer. to bring that to those embarking into deep soul journeys there. to join with those already at work in these fields of harvest there, and perhaps, just perhaps, to create something new, with them, together.

on that thursday when so much crazy conversation happened with tammy in her comment space, when my heart had been uncovered so that only the bald truth of it remained, when i was shaken into seeing how God can blow the roof off expectations and create new rooms of possibility, kirk was having his own kind of day with God. i won't share the details here because it is his own story to have and to hold, but it is enough to relay that it was soul-shaking and penetrating in its own right for him, too.

that night, as we were preparing for bed, i looked over at kirk and said, "what if God is going to move us back to california to take the isf program?" this is something that has been on our radar screen for a couple years and which we've looked into more deeply a couple different times, always feeling the time just has never been quite right, quite yet, even though it has always been near and dear to our hearts. but maybe, just maybe, with all that has been ripening inside of us now, the time for isf had now, also, become ripe.

and then, on a bit of a whim, i said, "and what if afterward, he wants to do something crazy, like have us purchase a house that can be used for spiritual direction for people?" then i steamrolled this crazy notion forward even more and said, "we could use each room in the house as an office space for each spiritual director who works there, and people can make appointments to come sit with them and process through their journey and what God is trying to work out in them. and i could work there, and maybe sarah could work there, and maybe my other friend sara could work there, and maybe even you could, too!"

it was a crazy idea.

but it started to grip me. i could see the house. it kinda looked like this on the outside. and in my mind, i could see an open room directly inside the front door that could be used as a reception space. with three or four rooms going off to the side and down the hallway that could be used as offices for the spiritual directors. with a kitchen and dining room gathering space in the middle. and with an upstairs that, just perhaps, could be used for administration.

and then i made the connection back to all tammy had said earlier that very same day about non-profits. and how i had felt so resistant to that idea when i first considered it, but how energizing it now felt to imagine running a place like this, where i could cast and uphold the vision but also be working one-on-one with individual people in their unique spiritual journeys each and every day, too.

so then i kind of freaked out. something that had been an off-the-cuff, just-stumbled-into-my-brain idea had already, in the span of just a few minutes, crystallized into an entire plan for a house plopped down into orange county, california, complete with a detailed exterior and interior, with all kinds of rooms and spaces and all variety of achingly beautiful, imaginative, soulful, caring, loving, deeply spiritual people moving around on the inside.

i didn't quite know what to do with all this, so i did the only obvious thing i knew how to do. i prayed. "lord, you know all that is transpiring here, and all that has been transpiring, within both of our hearts and in all these conversations happening all over the place. i don't know what to do with what you've made my heart to offer. but here we are with these thoughts of california and isf again, and now this crazy idea about a house. is it possible for you to . . . confirm . . . any of this?"

i know sometimes God just doesn't work that way. sometimes God doesn't tell his people where he is taking them. he didn't tell abraham. he didn't tell moses. he just said go to a place i will show you. just keep walking in darkness, and i will get you there.

so i knew asking him to confirm these thoughts was kinda risky. and i told him i knew that. i told him he could do anything he wanted with us. he could choose to keep us in darkness until the last possible moment, when suddenly a stone would appear in the water for us to step on just before we would have landed ourselves in the deep to drown.

but i also knew that sometimes he does confirm. not always, but sometimes. so i asked it in a small voice. knowing he knows just how little i trust myself these days to have any idea about what is going on. knowing he knows that i'm full of second-guessing and discouragement at my own ability to discern his actual voice, instead of just my own. so, yes. in all that, this tiny-voiced prayer: "if you want to, God, would you . . . confirm . . . any of this?"

well.

the next day, kirk sent me a link to a beautiful memoriam and poem written by david whyte in honor of the late john o'donohue, whose poem i had recently quoted here for my beautiful soul friend, kirsten. on the day kirk sent the link, there was an announcement at the bottom of the page about a poetry contest hosted by an organization called spiritual directors international. at first, i clicked on the advertisement because i was thinking about the beautiful poem kirsten had just shared with all of us, and i wanted to see if her poem would qualify to enter. unfortunately, it didn't, but pretty soon i was clicking around on their website and found a page discussing the question, "what is christian spiritual direction?"

just about every single explanation given on that page in response to this question resonated with a place so deep within me that i felt like my soul was swimming up from deep waters to make actual, living contact with my heart. the response was just that physical. i felt like every single part of my core being had found its true home.

that's general signpost number one.

later that day, i got an e-mail from terri. she had been following the conversation in tammy's comment thread on the previous day, and she wanted to share with me privately that she sees in me something of a care pastor or spiritual director. she was wondering, had i ever looked into any spiritual direction programs?

well, yes. in fact, i had. isf, to be exact. and funny you should mention . . .

that was general signpost number two.

it seemed pretty clear God was showing up and showing off to me that day. he was making his way through my prayer. he was affirming that this is indeed the path of my heart. he was putting a little arrow-pointer on the road saying, "keep going this way."

so i said okay. i will, God.

but i still went to bed that night with questions. what about that house idea . . . ? did God want to show up and show off for that, too? or would that be too much to ask, on top of everything he'd already just done?

so i decided to talk to him about it. "lord, you are God. you can do all that you want. i will keep walking in this direction, and you can use it however you want. but as far as this house idea goes . . . is it your idea, or just another one of those bizarre, newfangled ones kirk and i are prone to having from time to time? might you also want to . . . confirm . . . your thoughts on this thought, too?"

and then i went to sleep.

the next day, kirk and i decided to check out a catholic retreat center in town that we had just learned offers training in spiritual direction. (this was one of the discoveries i had made on that spiritual director website the day before.) even though it was saturday and we likely wouldn't be able to find anyone to talk to that day, we wanted to take another step. just to see what we might see.

the visit was brief. we walked around a bit, saw a thomas merton retreat going on, discovered a really cool tree, and then left. we had a feeling it wasn't the right place for us, but it felt good to take some kind of concrete step in the right direction.

but then, as we were driving around, we found ourselves in a pretty commercial area of town, crowded with big-box stores like target and bed, bath, and beyond and linens 'n things and borders. all the commercialism felt like it started to crowd close around, and i started to feel really, really funky as we were driving along. it kinda felt like all the air was being sucked out of the car and out of me. i started slumping down in my seat. when kirk asked what was wrong, i could barely communicate. basically, it felt like the energy of God was being displaced for the energy of his enemy.

needless to say, kirk turned the car toward home. as soon as we walked in the door, i went straight for the bedroom, laid face-down on the bed, covered my head with my arm, and began to cry. i started praying out loud to God by myself in the room, telling him that i didn't know what was wrong or why i was crying. i just kept saying that over and over. i didn't know what was wrong or why i was crying. but i couldn't stop crying, and i couldn't stop feeling like something was wrong.

kirk came in the room and started talking to me. it took him a moment to realize i was crying. but when he did, he came close and let me rest my head on his chest, and he asked if i could tell him what was wrong. i shook my head, tears still streaming. i really didn't know what was wrong.

"well, can you try to talk about it?" he asked.

and then a torrent of words i had no idea were inside me began pouring out of my mouth. what makes us think this house idea could ever happen? what makes us think we could try to buy a house in the middle of orange county, california, of all places, one of the most expensive places to try to buy a home? what makes us think we could ever know how to fundraise the money for some kind of project like that? nobody even knows what spiritual direction even is, so how could they want to give money to help create something like that? and what makes us think we could run that house on donations, just letting people pay whatever they're able to pay, anonymously, when they come to meet with someone? how are we going to pay salaries to spiritual directors on that kind of setup? what me, fundraise? what me, run something like this? how are we supposed to even let people know that we're there to offer them some kind of service like this, that they don't even know they might need? we're there to just love on them? we're there to walk with them through their journeys? what the heck does that even mean? and how the heck could any of this ever happen? and who am i to think i can do any of it, even the most itty-bitty parts? i have nothing. nothing.

and then kirk just said quietly, "maybe that's because it's exactly the kind of thing God can do. it's the kind of thing that lets him do it all, just like he does best."

which only made me cry even harder because i knew what he said was true. and that perhaps it was the exact reason we should keep walking in this direction. suddenly i was confronted with the thought, perhaps this is God showing up to answer my specific prayer. is this house idea yours, God? yes, christianne, because it's something only i can do. (but even in that moment, and even still, i've still been asking the question, doubting that i know for sure. and that's okay.)

basically, i felt in that moment that i had absolutely nothing to offer except my heart. and maybe a little business training on the side. but pretty much, just my heart. i had no resources. i had no spiritual formation training. i had no house. i had no manpower. i had no fundraising experience. i had no grant-writing skills. i had no contacts. and i was all the way in florida, far away from the place i thought all this was meant to be. i guess you could say that i also had no idea . . . how this would happen, i mean.

but you know what that also means, don't you? it means it would have to be all God. every single last bit of it. it would have to come about through the vehicle of prayer and the vast provision of his resources, plucked out of heaven and handed down to earth. and that scared the crap out of me. even though i've trusted him with many things before, this has got to be requiring of me -- of both of us, actually -- the most ruthless trust of all.

but we've said yes. we have no idea how any of this will come about and every idea of what is required. we need to apply for the spiritual formation program at isf (which in and of itself is going to be no easy feat), and we need to get accepted. we need to finish our degree programs here. we need to find a place to live in the orange county area, and we need to find jobs to support ourselves once we're there. we need to do all this while still living in florida. then we need to move ourselves from florida to california, which will cost a lot of money and, what's more, be quite a life-shift for kirk, who has lived in florida his entire life. we need to get student loans for the spiritual formation program, while student loan funding is on a bit of a downturn right now. and we need to, eventually, determine whether anything is really meant to be pursued when it comes to this house idea, and then uncover all the appropriate needs related to moving in that direction.

it's a lot. right now we are walking by faith, not sight, and we keep doing this because we cannot shake that God is in it. we wake up every day and ask each other how california feels that day. we ask each other at noon, when we see each other for lunch. we ask each other at home, when our days have come to an end. and we ask each other in bed, before we close our eyes for sleep. how does california feel today? how does isf feel today? how does the house idea feel today? how does moving feel today? how does finding work in los angeles feel today? all of which ultimately means, is God still confirming it in your spirit?

and the answer has always been yes.

possibility rises

the next thing that happened felt like a detour. i went back to tammy's comment space and saw that she had left more stories at the doorstep of our conversation. these stories, though, related to how God could perhaps use me in a non-profit capacity, given my business training.

she shared about a place she knew that serves as a care shelter for unwed mothers in unexpected pregnancies. she shared about another place that takes in people with emotional issues and drug and alcohol additions. she shared about another home that shelters battered women. she said a business degree could really come in handy for starting a non-profit like this, and how there are always people out there looking to donate to good causes to get them started and maintained.

then nate chimed in and said there was no doubt in his mind that i was meant for ministry. to have someone call that out so definitively after knowing me just a short while now, all i could do was whisper in my heart of hearts a quiet "really?"

i'll be honest (as i was honest with tammy) and say that i felt really, really resistant to this non-profit notion. none of the instances she shared felt like something specifically for me. and after my experiences in business school so far, i have become pretty closed to anything that will take me away from the front lines. i don't want to be cloistered away in an office, relied upon for my organizational leadership and administrative capacities, even though i have those to offer. i want to minister to people's needs, not be preoccupied with paperwork and making something go.

i remembered a vision God gave me about three years ago when kirk and i were dating. we were praying together on the phone one night, and i became so aware in that moment that God was going to use us in ministry, both together and individually. and then i saw a picture in my mind of an oxford flat. i was sitting on the hardwood floor in the front entrance area, and light was streaming through the window. there were about three or four women there with me, kneeling and sitting cross-legged and generally feeling forsaken and broken-hearted.

in this instance, i could tell that flat was being used as a place of ministry during the day, a refuge of sorts for the lost and disillusioned, those who go missed and broken and unheard, who need a place to cry and be heard and held and covered in prayer.

i called it a ministry of mercy. and i have wondered in the years since then if God ever means to bring it to fruition. i still don't know the answer to that question, but he at least used that moment of vision to instruct me in the ways of my heart, a heart of compassion and mercy and gentleness and grace and acceptance and love, whatever the ultimate uses he has for it. and i have carried the truth of those things, and the hope for something like what was contained in that vision, close and quiet in my heart ever since, pondering it, turning it over, asking God what he intends. my movement toward business school to create something that helps people help each other was my way of stepping even closer to him with that question i've been holding there.

it really helped to hear tammy's response to my concerns of starting anything formal. she hearkened back to the story of the starbucks girl, saying that eventually that woman needed people around her to bring about the church God eventually started. she needed praise and worship people, someone to handle the financials, an associate pastor, a building plan . . . and that God never called her to function in all those roles. he had called her to love and pray for people.

tammy said the thing is, God gave this woman the vision. he did not give it to the office people, the praise and worship team, or any other part of the church. the whole administration fell under her umbrella of God's vision. and this is where having administrative training could be an asset, even though a person's particular calling and gifting can stand apart from that.

that really gave me something to think about. i could see what she meant, the difference between having an asset and using that asset in a sole capacity. i felt the door to such a notion open up a little bit, making way for possibility.

finding jesus in me

after the semi-catastrophic day i spent with kirsten, i knew i would need to sit with God again in that place, ask him what he had to say about all this confusion and confession. but it seemed like the hardest thing possible to get to. i had two full days at the start of the next week that could have provided the quiet reflection with God that all this likely needed. but i avoided it on the first day, and also got caught up in all those food plans and preparations i told you about that completely wiped me out for the next day or so.

but eventually, a week ago thursday (what is it with thursdays??), God showed back up on the scene and began pushing some new pieces of the puzzle around.

but first, let me back up.

on that previous wednesday morning, i read a comment my friend tammy wrote to a friend on her blog. she said, "an emotional death is as frightening and as deadly as a physical death, and that is why we need real people who rescue the broken." totally off the cuff, i responded to her by saying how much those two statements meant to me, and how they were just the words i needed in that moment.

you see, kirk and i have been walking a semi-dark path before God for some time now. he felt God calling him to something more a number of years ago and took some pretty drastic steps to render himself completely open to whatever that was. i did the same last summer. and here we are, some time later, still trying to find our way to what that something is. the way has begun to seem so dark, and we both have begun to feel so discouraged.

when i read tammy's words, i felt my heart quicken. i felt such an identification with this need, and yet, as i told tammy, i feel at such a loss sometimes in this world to do anything about it. in fact, i have been feeling discouraged about my heart's desire to love people in these places because it seems such an ethereal desire and sometimes quite unexplainable in the world, much less possible to find a place i fit. aren't there people in the world with real physical needs who are just trying to survive and live to see the next day? what makes me think ministering to people on a heart level is anywhere near as important as that? isn't that such a first-world, twenty-first-century way of existing in the world? isn't having concerns about the heart a somewhat high-level privilege many people in the world never get? why should i think it's so important when some people are dying for lack of food and water?

it helped to hear someone else voice that emotional deaths are just as frightening and deadly as physical deaths. it felt good to find kinship with others who value these same things. it made me feel less alone and, to be truthful, less freakish.

so what happened first on thursday, the next day, was that tammy picked up my comment and talked back. she said she perceived my heart's desire was for ministry and that she would be sad if the world was deprived of my heart for hurting people. and then she began to tell me stories.

she told me one story about a friend who desperately sought God in a similar way, who had a heart for people, just to love them and bring them and their needs before God in prayer. so she started by visiting a coffee shop, each and every day. she began to make friends there. then this little band of friends grew . . . and grew . . . and grew . . . and today she is pastoring a church. wow.

this story totally floored me because it told me that God can do so much with so little, with something that starts with just a burning desire and an ability to see a need. the other reason it moved me so that i was losing my breath and crying all at the same time is that it bundled up exactly what i desire, too: to love on people's hearts and carry them to jesus because he is working his way through them. i really felt like this story of the starbucks girl was partly my story, a girl with a heart and not much else, starting somewhere and just letting herself be used for love of God and people.

and so i told tammy that this had brought tears to my eyes. i told her that she was saying things to me that i've been afraid to say to myself, particularly about my heart for ministry. i told her about being in business school and just not having the heart to run a company. i told her that i do have the heart, however, to sit with people for hours while they speak the truth of their hearts, or try to learn how to speak the truth of their hearts, or just try to listen to what their hearts are even trying to say. i could do this for hours and hours and hours, never tiring or even feeling the time passing. and then to wrap those lovely, beautiful hearts up in the love that is Christ, to embrace them with the embrace that is Christ, to offer a radical love and acceptance of them that is my love and acceptance of them but, even more, is how Christ loves and accepts them. exactly. as. they. are. with. the. truth. of. their. hearts. but that i feel so lost on how to even get to a place like this, to find a place that exists for me to do this, to find a place where i belong.

after all of this, i went to lay on my bed. it was around nine o'clock in the morning. kirk was home that morning with me, so i crawled into his arms and began to tell him what i felt was happening in me, starting with that conversation between me and kirsten and landing me at that morning, with tammy's ability to see me and share stories that i sincerely needed to hear. i told kirk that i felt my heart becoming stripped of everything else in there except this burning, pulsating desire to love people and receive them where they are, to offer them the grace that jesus offers, a grace that flies in the face of the lies and turmoil we otherwise carry with us each and every day of our lives.

pretty soon, i was blubbering all over the place. i felt like all i had was this bleeding heart to offer up to God, that i was holding it in my hand and raising it up to him with nothing, absolutely nothing else to give.

and what's amazing is what God offered me back in return. he helped me see in that moment that my bleeding heart is really his bleeding heart, the image of God placed in me. he told me it was beating so hard for these things and those people because his heart beats so hard for these things and those people. he told me that love was there because he put that love there when he made me. he told me that, really, this is what i have to offer the world because it's what he has to offer the world, and because it's what he made me for. it's what i have to offer, but it's really him i have to offer.

this completely floored me. i felt like i had stepped onto holy ground. and that's just the beginning of how things began to move that day . . .

how it started

how do i begin to tell you what is going on with me? the past four days have been a roller coaster, to say the least. i feel the focus of my life shifting due north, to a place called home. and i want to tell you this story, but i feel so bereft of words and energy. all that i have has been pulled full-stop out of me through the course of these few days.

but i will try.

it began a week ago thursday, when kirsten was here. we've taken to calling this day of our visit "that thursday" because God shocked both of our systems that day.

for me, it began with an unassuming saunter into the front room after a thwarted attempt to take a nap. kirsten was sitting at the table in the quiet, organizing her digital photos on her computer. i sat down and promptly began what i can only call a spontaneous, surprising, unanticipated, unknown-even-to-me confession.

i told her that i had put my business idea on a high shelf about two months ago, that i'd left it there ever since, that i've been afraid to even think about it, much less talk about it, even much less take it back down, that just thinking about it brings me so much shame and pain. i told her that i have no idea what i'm doing with my life or what God wants from me. i told her that all i know is that i love people's hearts so much that it hurts, that all i want to do is sit with people where they are, helping them discover what that place even is and what God has for them there, that this is what fills my heart so full.

and then i confessed something even i didn't know until that moment: that i care more about being with people in these scared and overgrown places than i care about writing words. which basically means that if i had to choose between writing books and articles for the rest of my life or sitting with people in their deep heart places, petitioning the Holy Spirit for discernment and asking for his dispensation of grace through the whole of it, all i would say in return to that ultimatum is, tell me where those people are.

it was a big admission.

by this time, i was crying huge tears, blubbering all over the place. and my beautiful kirsten friend did the most inspired thing she could have possibly done in that moment. she simply asked, "can i pray for you?" so she prayed, and i prayed. tiny words to a big God.

like i said, this is where it consciously began, just over a week ago. (even though i know it's been percolating a long time more than that.) but i think that's a sufficient tidbit to get us started for now, because sharing the rest of the story is still going to take a lot out of me. i hope you'll be patient with me as i try.

Yes We Can

No matter your politics, this video is worth watching. A gorgeous rendering of a speech that inspires and music and rhythm that makes goose pimples run up and down your arms. You can read the full text of the lyrics by clicking here.

Running time approximately 4 1/2 minutes.

A Beginner's Thoughts on Politics

Last night, Kirk and I previewed a DVD copy of a movie he'll be promoting this month and next. The film is called Article VI. It's about the interplay of faith and politics. You can check out the trailer here or here. (Personally, I find the trailer a little raw, and it certainly can't be faulted for not sparking controversy -- but perhaps that is its intention.)

The film is a documentary, not intended to promote any particular view or any particular candidate, even though the filmmaker is a Mormon. It's intended as a conversation starter. For instance, how has religion historically impacted politics? How is it impacting the '08 election? Should our religious beliefs dictate our voting behavior?

I'll be frank: it is at times difficult to watch this movie. Filmed in documentary style, it includes live footage of rallies, picketing protests, personal interviews, and religious extremists. Many of these extremists are evangelical Christians that I would not personally want to associate with. At one point, I had to ask Kirk to pause the film because the hatred spewing out of the eyes and mouths and swaggers of people standing on street corners wearing Jesus shirts and waving their Bibles became too much. My eyes could not help welling over with tears. These demonstrations and extreme views that preclude love really must grieve the heart of Jesus.

But I think the extremism of the film is effective. (And to be fair, it eventually moves into providing a more balanced view of evangelicals and the central questions in general.) At least for me, the movie was effective because it got me thinking about my own perspective on humanity and freedom and what America is founded upon. Is America a Christian nation, founded upon Christianity and with an obligation to stay that way, as so many of these demonstrators insisted, or is it founded upon free religious expression for all? I think the latter.

Hugh Hewitt, in a scene where he is interviewed on the film, seemed to say it best: "America is not a Christian country. It is a country that is predominantly populated by Christians. It takes its value system from Christianity. Its great civic religion is very much out of the laws of Moses and the teachings of Jesus Christ. There's no one that can deny that. . . . We are not a Christian republic in the sense that Iran is an Islamic republic. We do not have a Christian version of Sharia that is informing our laws. We have a constitutional order, as it has been from the beginning and as it ought to remain."

This post is not intended as a teaser promotion of the film, though you can choose to see it if you like. (It releases in theatres, with a simultaneous DVD release, on January 15.) This post is also not intended as a blanket statement of my political views. Far from it. I am so far from determining what those are that I would not presume to profess them here. And finally, this post is not intended as an exhortation for how I think other people should vote or believe, politically or in faith matters. I am the last person who would try to say -- or even desire to say -- what I think people should think or do with regards to their vote this year.

Rather, I'm writing this to express what the film stirred up in me and how that impacted my day today and my trajectory toward thinking about this election.

I'm sure you've heard about Hillary's surprising upstage of Barack Obama in New Hampshire this week. This morning, perhaps because of last night's film viewing, I began sifting through some of the articles and op-ed pieces about what happened. I watched the footage of Hillary's emotional response to a coffee shop interview question that likely won her the New Hampshire vote. And then I checked out Barack Obama's website.

I've got to say, I was impressed. Not only did I like the straightforward simplicity of how I could go about learning about him and his positions on the major issues, but I was heartened by his notion of America being a place we all live and make better together. I was inspired by his humble background and his work on the streets of Chicago, where he wasn't afraid to work hard and get his hands dirty in order to see real change happen. He really is a people's man, and I must say I like that in a presidential hopeful. It also says something about the personal political views beginning to form in me that I got teary-eyed twice when I previewed this short introductory video to his history and candidacy. In the end, I wondered if people feel about Barack Obama now the way people felt about John F. Kennedy when he came out of nowhere and took the presidential vote back in 1960.

Personally, I've got a long way to go in working out my political views. I'm registered Republican but have long wondered why this has become the predominant Christian party line if God really cares as much about social justice and compassion as the Bible indicates He does. (And it indicates that He does -- a lot.) I've wondered if I will ultimately vote Democrat in this election, and if I will eventually change parties altogether.

In order to do that, though, I need to learn. So today I finally got started. I went out and purchased the two books so far published by Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father. And I got goosebumps again just reading what feel like incredibly honest words in the introductions to both books. For instance, he says in his biography that one reason he loved working in state politics for a big industrical state like Illinois was because "one sees every day the face of a nation in constant conversation: inner-city mothers and corn bean farmers, immigrant day laborers alongside suburban investment bankers -- all jostling to be heard, all ready to tell their stories." Yes, that reference to everyday people's stories really got to me. I'm pretty sure anyone following this blog knows why. I loved that he seemed to be saying he understands the value of every human being's story and life.

I don't know how I'll vote this year, and I don't know what party line I'll ultimately take. But it's the first election I've ever really cared about, ever really wanted to understand, and so I'm glad at least for the baby steps I'm taking toward a political sensibility (albeit very much a beginner's sensibility) for my life.

The Spiral Staircase

After spending this past week busy with family and friends -- coffee with Kate (twice!), Joan of Arcadia episode fests with Mom, helping to decorate the family Christmas tree, silliness with You Tube videos with my brother and his fiancee, a blessedly full eight-hour day of conversation with Sara, Christmas at Mom's and Christmas at Dad's, plus introducing Kirk to my 30-plus-member extended family on Christmas night -- Kirk and I set off in my dad's truck this afternoon for a little bit of "us" time. Which led us promptly to our local Borders bookstore. (Of course.)

Kirk intended to pick up a few DVDs since they were having a 3-for-2 sale, but he didn't find what he was looking for. I intended to pick up the classic text on boundaries, since they've been on my mind of late and I think I'm moving into a new season of reestablishing more of them in my life. But along the way, I also picked up a book I didn't expect to find. It's called The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, by Karen Armstrong.

I've seen Karen Armstrong's books around the bookstores for many years, and especially noticed them when I was managing a Barnes & Noble a handful of years ago. She's a guru on comparative religion, with books like A History of God and Islam: A Short History to her credit. For some reason, I have always shied away from her books, and I think this is because I have often confused her for Elaine Pagels, who writes often on the gnostic gospels and whom I therefore have not had much interest in reading.

But when I saw about seven copies of The Spiral Staircase on the shelf today, I picked it up. (As a former bookstore manager, I know seven copies of one book -- in paperback, no less -- equals something probably important, given how limited bookstore shelf space actually is.) I was intrigued by the subtitle's reference to the author's climb out of darkness, which was obviously spiritual in nature, given that the book was in the general religion section. But what specific kind of darkness, I wondered?

Then I read the back of the book, which shared that Armstrong entered a convent at age seventeen in 1962, eager to meet God . . . and left after seven years. The story contained in this book was about her journey into life once outside the convent walls, though it was a journey fraught with difficulty, disillusionment, confusion, illness, and pain. And yet, by the subtitle's promise, it was a journey out of darkness into light.

I sat down on a leather chair and began to read the preface, and I was hooked. She speaks disarmingly about her decision to enter the convent, about what she thought she would find and why she wanted to find it, and about the political tensions of the day, both within and without the Catholic church. Her words carry weight. And her willingness to share with boldness and honesty about the road she has walked, facing even the errors and the pain dead-on, sparing nothing, moved me.

Now I own the book and have just finished the preface. This feels like an important book in my life, in much the same way that Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk was important in my life several years ago. I am not exactly sure why this is so, but part of it may have to do with how one learns to have perspective about one's life. For instance, Armstrong shares in the preface that after writing her first book, Through the Narrow Gate, about those seven difficult years she spent as a nun, she published a second book about her first years outside the convent called Beginning the World that she now considers a mistake, saying, "It was far too soon to write about those years. . . . I was certainly not ready to see this phase of my life in perspective." The Spiral Staircase is her attempt to retell that story.

I guess what I love about finding this book is not just the chance to hear her story, which I find intensely interesting, but also how she learned to take a new perspective of her life as she grew through it, even sharing near the end of her preface that "we should probably all pause to confront our past from time to time, because it changes its meaning as our circumstances alter." Fascinating. And somehow laced with grace.

I Just Unsubscribed from All My Business Blogs

As I shared in my Bloglines review post, I've been using Bloglines to keep up with favorite blogs and new blogs, and to weed out blogs I discovered I didn't actually want to follow. I shared, too, that it didn't take long to unsubscribe from the nonstop strings of news feeds because keeping up with them made me feel like I was in constant hyperventilation mode. And just today, after four weeks of letting the posts in my business blog category pile up, one on top of the other so that they were chock full to overflowing, I finally went through and unsubscribed from each and every one of them.

Man, does that feel like an amazing, declarative act.

More and more these days, I'm gaining clarity that leaving full-time work in June was not so much about answering a call to business as it was about embracing the way God made me: with a heart that cares for people and their journeys through life with God. I've been wondering in recent weeks if it's actually a call to ministry I answered without knowing it. (And just saying "call to ministry" feels weird, because it's not as though I ever see myself becoming a pastor or a missionary or holding some specific church role someday.)

I continue not to know where all of this is heading or where I will end up, and I'm okay with that. It's enough for me to have a firmer grasp on who I am and what's important to me, flowing out of the way God made me, and to keep going along for the ride, trusting that each and every part of this journey will play an important role in the stops ahead. Somehow, business school will be important, whether in an obvious or not-so-obvious way. Somehow, my work on SC will have been important, whether it comes to see the light of day or not. Somehow, God is leading me along somewhere, whether I get to know the destination spots in advance or not. And all of that is okay by me these days. I'm content with the not-knowing, knowing that this is all still leading me somewhere good and right and real.

But none of that means I have to keep up with the world of business through business blogs and continued subscriptions to Inc., Fast Company, and Fortune magazines. I know enough now to know this much: that world just isn't for me. What freedom such knowing brings. What relief.

Pages and Pages and Pages

Whew! I just finished a research paper for my negotiation and deal-making class that marks the final paper in a long string of papers this month. We wrote five memos based on face-to-face negotiations conducted in class, this research paper, and an additional paper that analyzed the negotiation techniques utilized by a real-life negotiator that we interviewed. In just three and a half weeks, I churned out close to 60 pages total in work for this class!

It feels good, though, to have endured the discipline of so many written assignments . . . though I confess that I'm longing for the refreshment that more soulish writing brings. (And on that score I'm pleased to share that I've moved into "active mode" on my book project, which is a huge triumph for the month, and perhaps even the whole year!)

I have more thoughts I'd love to share, but right now this tired girl is heading to bed . . . !

Burned Out, Baby

I have been trying, since we got back from Georgia a week and a half ago, to get back in the swing of life. This doesn't seem to be working so well. After a full night's rest, I get up and go to school for a few hours. Then I come home and go to sleep for another three to four hours. I wake up feeling so, so tired. My eyes hurt on their backsides. I feel a long, dull headache across my forehead and into my sinus area. I have no energy for homework. I have no energy for blogging. I have no energy for doing much of anything.

At first I thought I was recovering from the holiday trip. Being away from home always takes more out of me than you might expect, as I'm quite a homebody and also an introvert. So when I came home and slept for four hours each afternoon last week, I figured it was due to my body and soul's need to recover quiet and inward focus after five days spent out of my usual, comfortable space.

But then the weekend came and I spent most of it, too, in bed. That this excessive need for naptime and sluggish feel to my body has only continued well into this week has given me no small cause for concern. What is going on??

The author and poet David Whyte writes in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea about learning the antidote for exhaustion. It is not rest, as we might think. It is wholeheartedness.

I've been thinking on this notion the past few days, as the reality of my exhaustion has dawned on me. Why am I exhausted? I am committed to less external activity than I have been in years. I do not work; I have no children. I go to school for a couple hours each day, and that is it.

Perhaps what is going on is the slow dawn of my soul upon the truth of itself. Business is not the world my soul was meant to inhabit. I am in business school because of obedience, not deep desire.

My realization last month of redirecting everything toward soul care has had the consequent effect of turning my heart even further away from the business world I currently abide. I feel fiercely protective of what SC is meant to be, fiercely loyal to those it is meant to serve, and fiercely antagonistic against any route of life that would oppose what it is meant to open up, the room it is meant to help create in someone's heart. Unfortunately, the propensity of the world in which I find myself right now feels truly opposed to this nature. Business school does not nurture the soul or honor the space it needs, much less respect that it even exists.

But here I am: learning business. It is strange, I know, as so many friends and family are still keen to tell me that business school is the last place they ever thought they'd find me. And perhaps what I am feeling now are the lingering fingerprints on my soul from a daily reality that is not my true home. Perhaps what I lack right now is wholeheartedness.

Take Me Back Into Memory

For those of you who followed along in my (very long!) post a couple days ago about my spiritual wanderings and how they eventually landed me in new territory with my business and my writing in the last two weeks, you know that, in the end, I agreed to embark upon a journey into a long-time-coming book. You also know that the writing of this book will be a journey I can't take alone; somehow, I will be getting it written and eventually finished with God's help.

This is a good thing, as shortly after committing myself to this process, I realized that I'm about to write about a ten-year period of my life for which I have no record. Meaning, journals. I've kept journals my whole life, with a diary or a bound journal or even a spiral-bound writing notebook always nearby, on my nightstand or in my purse, in order to record my days, my private thoughts, or my prayers . . . except not for this ten-year period, at least not in any substantial form.

I very clearly remember the first few days of my shift into this journey I'm supposed to now write about -- the first few days of realizing my spiritual life, and therefore the future trajectory of my life in total, was about to change. When this realization hit me, I stopped journalling on purpose, and I did this for two reasons. First, because what was happening was so massive that I couldn't begin to try putting it into words, even for myself, even for a sustaining prayer. And second, because a large part of what was being accomplished in me through that shift had to do with doing less, in order to learn how to just be. Part of doing less included a full-stop on words. (I've shared a bit about this full-stop period here.)

So, no words. Just one very long season of growth and paying attention, only without writing anything down. Very weird, and very hard. Especially now, as I sit staring at a computer screen, hoping to write a book about what happened in that whole length of time and why it even happened in the first place.

Day 3 of this venture found me starting a new Word document. I titled it "One Girl's Drum," just a working title for now, as I need something to call it through this writing period and also need to make it more real by giving it a real name. I put a header on the document that includes the title, the page number, and my name.

And then I sat there. And sat there. You writers know what I'm talking about. Besides not now writing for instant publication (meaning, for this blog space, which always gets the creativity flowing without a problem, ever), I was also having to learn a new method to my madness: writing in conjunction with the Supreme Being of the Universe. No pressure there, of course.

After sitting for about five minutes, I gave up and shuffled off to bed. I crawled into bed, discouraged, and let Kirk wrap his arms around me. I told him I had no idea how this was going to happen or how it would work. He reminded me of a line from a combination of verses I claimed for myself a couple of years ago: "I am the Lord's handmaiden, created to will and work according to His good pleasure."

When he reminded me of this part about being the Lord's handmaiden, it was then easier for me to go to God in prayer. I found myself sitting at His feet, and He was seated on His throne. I was wearing a cream linen peasant dress, and my hair was long around me. I stared up at Him and adored His face. And eventually, I spoke.

"I'm scared," I told Him. "And I need Your help. This all just seems so big, everything You've done, and I don't remember all of it. Will You help me through this?"

He smiled at me, His eyes so full of the love they always hold. My mind went back to those initial days of the journey, which are so familiar to me and which therefore I know will be hard to capture fittingly in words. My mind then moved to a couple random moments in time, until it landed upon a very specific memory I had forgotten about. A key moment. A closely cherished one.

"Oh," I breathed. "I had forgotten about that." I sat with the memory for a moment, remembering its specialness to me, its specialness to me and Jesus. I offered up thanks that it had happened. And I realized what had just taken place: we had begun working together. He was giving me a place to start. "Okay, I can do that," I said. "I will start there."

The next morning, I got up and sat with the memory again, trying to go back into it. I could recall only bits and snatches. This surprised me, given how profoundly moving a moment it had been, how crucial it was to the foundation, how I'd even shared it with a few different close friends since then. You would think the telling of it would have branded it into my memory that much further.

This is the point at which I realized I had no records from that period of my life. This realization scared me, and I knew that I needed God again, so I opened my Bible. Mine is an ESV Journaling Bible, meaning it has ruled lines along the outside edges of the pages for you to journal your thoughts and notes as you read. I am reading my way through the psalms and journaling prayers in the margin after each day's reading, so I opened up to the next psalm. I read it aloud a couple of times and then plunged directly into the prayer bubbling up in my heart:

We are on this journey together, are we not, Lord? I really got a sense of that last night when I was scared of stepping out into this unknown land of writing a book. I really felt I could come to You, could tell You I was scared and that I wanted to run to other comforts that are not the true Comfort: You.

Kirk was good to remind me that I am the LORD's handmaiden, and so I sat at Your feet, just worshipping and adoring You. I felt so vulnerable in that place, all my controls over life slipping away, yet in that slipping still indicating they are there.

We sat together in that place, and we communicated with few words. You reminded me of that time You met me in the wood by the river in the mountains, how we sat togther in safety, how that was my first time ever imagining myself with You in my mind, in an image.

Please remind me, Jesus, what was spoken in that place between us and how it formed that moment of my journey. It was pivotal, I know, and yet I do not remember the particulars. Remember that I had stopped journalling? This is where my memory fails me and makes me afraid to write. Do I have any true memories left? Can You teach me about my memories as we write these chapters together? I'm so scared because this means that it is so much more out of my control. Help me, Father, in the way You want me helped. Amen.

So this, now, is my prayer: that He would take me back into memory, restore to me the images and words that made up all the important days that have preceded my coming to this moment, the specifics of the times I can't remember. I've never asked God to restore to me my memory before. This is wholly new, and this is where I do know now, for sure, that we indeed are writing this book, Him and me, together.

Wanna Take a Survey?

I've created the first in a series of market surveys for my new business, and I'd love for you to participate!

If you are a woman and are willing to answer 10 short questions on an anonymous web survey, please e-mail me at christianne118 [at] gmail [dot] com, and I will include you in the group that receives the survey link. You can also leave a comment here, so long as you leave a way for me to contact you.

Thank you in advance!

Disconnected from My Heart

Pre-note: You'll want to tuck in for this one, 'cause it's gonna be long. The words for this post have been forming in an ever-growing, wordless orb for some time now, and it took sleeplessness tonight to help me see what those words were in order to bring them to the light. I hope you're able to find my deep heart somewhere in these words, and that you're still here with me at the end of this long story.

Before I was single in my twenties, I was married. I've shared tiny mentions of this here and there in the history of this blog, but not many details. I'm not going to share many details about it here, either, except to say that it wasn't until I was single in my twenties that I got to explore what it really meant to be a girl. It wasn't until I was doing my own thing, learning my own path, that I started truly nurturing and tending to the soft and feminine places inside my spirit. And it felt so wonderful once I did.

I remember shopping -- really shopping -- for myself in that place for the very first time. It was April 2005. I had been single for a year and a half, and I had just quit my job at a local non-profit without the promise of a new job lined up, even though it seemed like a pretty done deal that I'd be going back to teach at the college honors program. Still, there was about a week's worth of time between my leaving the old job and finding out that I'd gotten the new one. But even without that certainty nailed down, I had a peacefulness inside me that said it would be okay to move forward, away from the non-profit, without anything else in store. It was that feminine heart in me, learning to trust in God's deeply personal love for me. And then, of course, He proved that I could indeed trust Him, because the job came through.

So, back to the shopping story. When I got news of the job, I decided it was time for new adornment. I had looked into my closet and found all kinds of professional clothing -- in blacks, greys, and tans. No color! And I realized for the first time that I'd never really kept vibrant colors in my wardrobe before. When I turned my mind back to working at the college, this time as a single girl learning to make her own way in the world, I knew that I wanted to do it in color. And I wanted to do it with my own brand of femininity.

Off I went to the mall by myself. What I bought was truly lovely. There were pastels in pinks, creams, purples, light blues, and turquoise. There were girlie-colored corduroy pants and a dashing pair of sapphire pants that tied with a cream-and-sapphire sash. There were all sorts of fabrics and styles, from sheer material and velvet to baby-doll eyelet and lace piping. There was even a pair of pink velvet pants! (My personal favorite.)

It was heavenly. Eventually I found shoes to match the styles -- a pair in light brown with pink stitching and a cute bow, a cream pair to match my corduroys, some summer sandals with thin white straps and a burst of turquoise and maroon and fuschia flowers mashed together, a pair of brown peasant shoes, and more -- and gave myself permission to splurge for another shopping excursion just two months later.

It was the first time I'd ever treated myself to such luxury, and I felt like a feminine queen every single day of that year. Somehow, when I made the move to do this, it felt very important that I was doing it. And when I shared about it with Kirk (he and I had just begun corresponding via e-mail a few weeks prior, still in the very early stages of our relationship), I so appreciated his response back to me in that moment: "God is lavishing His love on you in this place. You are reclaiming your feminine heart."

And it's true. I was. I was remembering that I was a girl, and that God had made me beautiful. This is what He had been teaching me in deep places all through the major season of my healing from the divorce, in the quiet corners of my home and the new spaces I was learning to inhabit in the world. For me, all of this experience with the clothes was tacked on top, having so much to do with showing on the outside everything that was healing and being transformed in me on the inside. I was connecting with my feminine heart for the first time in forever, and I wanted that to show up in the way I adorned myself. I wanted to feel the adornment of loveliness all over me. And I did, for that entire year.

Proof of pink velvet pants.

The other thing that happened in that year is that I connected more deeply with my free and creative spirit, and ultimately my writer's heart. I traded in a future life of academia for a life of expansiveness and expressiveness and freedom. My heart was truly being set free.

Fast forward one year from that first shopping experience, and you will find me preparing to leave California to make a new life in Florida with Kirk. In this memory, I've been engaged three months, and our wedding is in about two weeks. I'm purging my little guesthouse studio of everything that will not fit in the back of my Volkswagen Jetta or the ten cardboard boxes I am shipping across the country.

With my life on overdrive to close out a job, a life, and a single girl's home for a cross-country move, an overseas wedding, and a new life with my sweet, I've gained about ten pounds. The velvet pink pants no longer hang loose and fashionable on my form. The cream corduroy pants feel a bit tight, as do the purple ones. The sheer, layered, multicolored blouse that matches my sapphire pants seems worn, having lost its luster over the course of many wearings this past year.

So I pack all my feminine adornments in a box that I donate to a girl going on a mission trip, a girl raising money through a weekend garage sale that's happening in two days. I give her all my beautiful things, knowing I will never see them again once she drives away. (I still cannot believe I did this.)

Fast-forward another month and you will find me home from our honeymoon and another five pounds heavier. (Europe for a celebratory three weeks will do that to you!) The clothes I did bring with me to Florida no longer fit so well, either, and they are nowhere near the prettiness factor I had going on before. This is not how I wanted to start my life as Kirk's new wife. This, I'm thinking, is when I should be feeling at the height of my femininity. But I wasn't. And when I went to work for the publisher soon after that, I spent $500 on black and grey and brown suits instead of flowy pink and purple and textured things. I've already shared in a previous post my issues with body image. And now that I'm no longer working today, I feel shopping for girlie clothes is a luxury I just cannot afford to indulge.

I miss my feminine self.

On top of that, I miss my creative self. You may or may not remember that I went through a quiet wordlessness for a couple weeks recently. I didn't understand what it was about for a while, but it has all slowly begun to come together. Let me share more about that now.

During that couple-weeks period, I was delving deeper into some beautiful and amazing new blogs I'd discovered through a series of connections. Each new discovery led to yet another, and soon I had a good list going of women whose hearts and talents and creativity and spirits I immediately recognized and came to love, even though I'd never met them nor worked up the courage to say hi and introduce myself.

One girl in particular arrested my attention in this process, and I spent a couple afternoons combing through her entire blog archive, thirsty to keep reading her story and watching her transformation from social worker to full-time artist unfold with each new page-click.

Here is what I think happened through all that. I think that discovering these lovely new ladies, and especially traversing the deep landscape of one particular girl's release into full creativity, ignited something in me that had long been dormant, and that is my own creative and feminine heart. My writing heart. My girlie heart. The one I had discovered and nurtured into being during that season of singleness. The one I now realized I had left back home in California in so many ways, with all of the touchpoints that reminded me through my daily routine who I was and who I was becoming each new day.

Kirk and I have shared numerous conversations in the past few weeks about all this as I've been walking through it and trying to make sense of it, and those conversations have been full of tears and revelations and laughter and sadness and hope. I'm able to look back over this year and see how many times I have chosen, in fear, to rely on my own strength and resources as the source of my life and hope, instead of the promises and proofs of God's provision or the strength that Kirk has to offer. As has so often been the story of my life, I've gone self-reliant, and in the consequence have slowly closed off my heart to many things . . . especially to its longing to run free and explore and trust and laugh and smile and dream.

In the past couple days, it seems God is trying to get even more personal with me. (What, He hasn't gotten personal enough already?!) In all kinds of places, I keep bumping up against this question: "Will I let God romance me?" I'm sitting here, every time I hear the question, and I'm thinking, "That requires trust and vulnerability." In all honesty, I'm not sure I'm ready to give that to Him. But I can see that He's persisting. He keeps asking the question. He keeps meeting me in places where I begin to let my mind wander into what that might look like, how that might feel, how it could maybe happen, for me to trust and be free and let Him romance me at an even deeper level than He has before. I'm sad to say that I keep evading Him within about two minutes of pondering the question every time.

But here I am, at 3:00 in the morning, writing it all down. Getting back in touch with my heart. Sharing it with you. Perhaps you will pray for me.

Post-note: If you want to visit any of the lovely new blogs I've found that I mentioned above, you're more than welcome to join me in lurking! I'm working up the courage to say hello. Anyday now, I'm sure it will happen. Maybe that day will be today! But in the meantime, here are the links for you to enjoy right along with me . . .

Boho Girl

Kelly Rae

Self Taught Girl

Andrea Superhero

Dancing Mermaid

Inspired Today By . . .

This lady. Or should I say, this First Lady.

Kirk found a great article in Newsweek today that tells a fantastic story about what moves Maria Shriver, and it in turn moves me. Shriver's heartbeat in this article basically boils down what I'm passionate about and working toward in 450 words. I'm going to tack the printed page above the desk in my studio space . . . once the studio space is finished, of course.

To top it off, through the article I also learned of a women's conference that takes place annually in Long Beach, California, not far from my old stomping grounds. Someday, perhaps even as soon as next year, I'd love to attend.

The cool thing about the conference this year, though, is that it takes place on October 23. Which is, um, today. Great timing, to have learned of it on the same day that it's running! It was fun checking out the website while knowing thousands of women are there right now, enjoying all that the day has to offer.

Two other cool things I learned about the conference . . .

The first is that the conference is hosting a live luncheon webcast in about 20 minutes. Naturally, I'm tuning in. It will feel like I'm really there!

And the second is that I found a forum where women are responding to the question, "What do you do to make a difference?" In the response thread titled "Support, encourage, challenge, and inspire women," I read the following stories:

"I facilitate women's bible studies. Whenever a group of women get together to grow, learn & encourage each other magic happens. We laugh a lot, cry some, pray, eat, discuss families, careers and connect on levels unimaginable. At the end of our time together we have collectively gathered strength from each other until we meet again next week. We know that no matter how much life happens in between we have sister friends that we can count on."

"In the 12 step fellowship of NA there is a womans conference that is held in different parts of the US every other year. We get upwards of 5 thousand chicks praying in one room at one time there. The energy is so uplifting and so positive it moves me even today."

"I recently created and started teaching a class for older women who want to go back to school for their degrees. (I was 52 when I graduated from UCLA a couple of years ago.) Mature students (who are mostly women) face different challenges than younger students. We may have less energy but we've got life experience and focus in our favor. While working full-time and carrying a full load of classes, I had to find ways to work smarter, not harder. These strategies and general information on the California community college and university system are what I share in my classes. Although my degree was FAR more than a career move. It changed how I view the world…but it also changed how I view myself. It gave me a sense of what I'm capable of achieving. It was also an amazing journey - one that I wouldn't trade for any amount of money! It's exciting to encourage (and help equip) other women to take the plunge too!"

Wow. Women are amazing, aren't they? I just love their energy, their creativity, their giving nature, all of it. (If you are a woman, then this means YOU!)

Oh, Crap.

So, I'm working on my first-ever proforma income statement for my business, right? For the past couple days, this means that I've been up to my ears in numbers and projections and "what if?" scenarios, and me and the Excel formula calculator have become really close friends.

This being the case, I could say the "oh, crap" factor hit me when I began to really dig down into it. After all, this pretty baby requires monthly snapshots of the entire first year of operations, which means on a monthly basis accounting for figures that run the gamut from gross sales to the cost of goods sold, from salaries and benefits to payroll taxes, from marketing and advertising to legal and accounting fees, from rent and utilities and telephone expenses to postage and shipping fees, from website maintenance to travel expenses, and much, much more. Not only that, but then it requires projecting how those dollars will change in years 2 and 3, assuming growth accelerates.

Completing this spreadsheet, in other words, is onerous and tricky and not a little intimidating. So I repeat: I could say the "oh, crap" factor hit me when I got my head in the game, when I finally realized the width and depth and breadth of the actual undertaking, but that wasn't what honestly did it.

I could say, then, that it happened when the essential nature of this process finally dawned on me. When you start plugging in numbers for what you think you'll need to operate the business for your projected growth in year 2 -- even if you'll really grow -- only to find out that your projected gross profit from sales doesn't even range within shouting distance of your projected expenses to manage that growth, you finally get it. You get it so much that you drop to your knees in great reverence and awe for being required to complete this process, and you thank God for the insanely compressed month of late hours and early mornings He provided for you to do it.

There is no way, and I mean no way, someone can hold the potential expenses and growth hopes for their business in their head and then just go out and "wing it" and expect to be successful. It's just not gonna happen. No way. Not even for the simplest business model. Working on this project made me really, finally get this. Like, seriously. Whoa.

But that's not what did it, either.

I could say, then, that I hit the "oh, crap" ceiling when I realized my business model actually facilitates exponential growth that makes sales accelerate almost of their own accord as early as the fifth month we are in business. I could say that setting goals for how this internal growth would self-generate and then setting very modest goals for new, outside business we drum up on a monthly basis allowed for me to create, out of my own head, a very complex Excel formula to represent this growth, and that my genius in doing so blew me away.

That wasn't it, either, though it came close. :)

No, what finally did it wasn't so much creating the tricky formula but applying the formula to the actual spreadsheet to get dollar amounts. It may have amazed me last night when I applied the formula to the first year of operations, but I skyrocketed through the roof this afternoon when I applied it to years 2 and 3. Especially when the number staring back at me from the gross sales calculator for year 3 had not six figures in it but seven. That's right, seven figures. If my predictions for this formula are accurate, and because they are modest I have reason to believe they are, my humble little business will hit $3.3 million in gross sales by its third year of existence. This may sound like nothing to huge tech companies like Facebook or Google, but for a young woman starting out on her own with an idea nobody's ever heard of before, it scared the bajeebies out of me.

You can join me in saying it now: "Oh, crap." It might even help you to repeat it several times out loud, with your hand covering your mouth as you stare at your husband with wide, disbelieving eyes and a completely humbled and frightened heart.

Oh, crap.