Author: Caroline

When I'm not riding in the backseat of my Grandpa's restored vintage car "Mable," I'm doing other things like... rising to most adventure occasions my husband proposes / chasing our toddler around Brooklyn / enjoying neighbors, strangers, and friends / making countless trips to the laundromat / writing for various publications and for personal reflection / loving and serving our local church / cleaning the bathroom / hosting small and big crowds in our home / meeting up with a friend for coffee / thinking Vocation is my strange frenemy. Though I have worked and existed in many stations/places, I am convinced that each day has good work to be done and that I am equipped and prepared to do that good work. This blog explores the tension and the intersection of a constant vocational call - to good work, neighbor love, and living in the kingdom come. My favorite things are coffee and creating and laughing (preferably with company). I love to listen to sermons and read biographies and make tea before going to bed.

keep your heart young

 

Just do it.
No, seriously, just keep your heart young.

Today, I’m celebrating so many things:
Dia de Independencia with my Honduran family and friends,
Iowa State football (expected) victory
my Dad’s birthday
tailgating with friends and family
the changing colors of falling leaves
coffee
pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting
bike rides
mo-peds
cardinal red and gold

And, I’m remembering all the ways Jesus encouraged the disciples to be like children – to blurt things out and come to Him messy, injured, and out of breath. Children are precocious little bugars, but they don’t mess around with pretense. And I think this is why they can delight in the wonderful, little things and be so transparent about their tantrums. They’ve got nothing to hide – and they’ll tell it like it really is.

This is a young heart. And I’d like to keep mine that way.

 

Posted on by Caroline 2

joy: a moral obligation

Given the opportunity to experience joy, are we morally obligated to take advantage?

My cousin Vince sent me a text in the hours between night and morning – just a little note about he and his new college friends wrestling with the idea of joy.

It’s something I’ve been in the middle of pondering for a couple days and reading his text in partial wakefulness brought it into clearer view – what do we do when joy is on the other side of an open door?

Open Doors
Open Doors (Photo credit: *Fede*)

“Taste and see that the Lord is good,” from Psalm 34:8 and “Delight in the Lord and He will give the desires of your heart,” from Psalm 37:4 both imply action before experience. A person can read these verses a hundred times, recite them with monk-like stoicism and meditate on them with scholarly reverence. But, there is a threshold implied in the command, for tasting and seeing happen only with open mouth and eyes.

Something must be eaten to be tasted, no?
Something must be experienced before it is pronounced delightful, no?

What do these open doors to joy look like and how many have I walked by?

It’s crazy how relentless God is to pursue us with opportunities to experience Him. He doesn’t give up when I pass by an open door marked “FOR YOUR JOY” with a foolish hope that there is something better down the road. He doesn’t flinch when I’ve opted out of His best for my safe settling of just okay. His patience in pursuit overwhelms me because it’s so altogether different from our apathetic inclinations.

I’m still thinking through these joy questions – still trying to figure out if it’s a sin to walk by those open doors clearly marked for God’s glory and my joy. But I’m not confused about joy being good. It’s something I’m willing to fight for.

Here are some helpful ways to fight for joy, from John Piper at Desiring God.

Posted on by Caroline 4

hard way home in the passenger seat

Remember when you graduated from high school and the world stretched out like an open road in front of your new-to-you, college-bound car? Remember that?

Somehow my car circled around and I’m staring at the same highway and when Brandi Carlile sings the chorus of “hard way home,” I belt it louder than is probably appropriate for my post-college age.

Now, Brandi and I disagree on a few things – some of them pretty major. But, I find a very steady solidarity in our choosing the “hard way home.” I’m stubborn. And sometimes my stubbornness gets me into sin, a lot of times I guess. I can look back at my tracks and, with Brandi, point to times I should have redirected my steps but pressed on for pride or fear or foolishness.

I don’t know how Brandi feels when she sings this song, but what I feel is gratitude. Oh, man! I’m such an obstinate and fickle girl. I don’t know why anyone would have patience with my antics, but the Lord is steady as an oak and faithful like the sun. Though the lost in me thinks faking my death would be an exciting escape (see the bridge), the found in me delights in knowing that I can never be hidden.

With my car facing that same, great highway, the “hard way home” isn’t a lonely trek when you are sitting in the passenger seat.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

grace for the grumps

I like my second job because of the people.

I like to ask questions about their lives and find out what makes them laugh. I like to listen to stories from their growing up years and I especially like when the stories keep going after the time clock packs it’s punch.

I don’t like drinking a fountain soda without any fizz.

What I mean is… I don’t like it when things that are supposed to be awesome, aren’t.

The main reason I’ve held onto job #2 is because of the relationships I never would have had otherwise. And I love it. I love biking through campus to get there, throwing out my hellos when I walk in the door, catching up with Jeremiah and learning about Derek’s newest future plans. I love meeting new co-workers and seeing them smile. I didn’t really know why the print shop was the only part-time work I could find in the city of Ames back in December, but now I’m convinced it’s because I needed to meet Jeremiah and Ann and Derek and Mike and Paul and Katherine.

They are the fizz in the fountain soda called job #2 and yesterday was missing the carbonation. I came in with my usual bounce, but fell promptly into a rut of work orders and frustrating design dilemmas and a case of the workplace grumps. All my answers were short and the space between customers was silent.

I fumed because I love my fizz (have you had ever fountain soda without it?) and then the dissonance got too great.

I punched the clock, walked outside with Ann and thought, “maybe the fizz is here after all.” I invited her for dinner and then to a prayer class at my church.

Later on last night, when my new friends Ann, Alyssa, and Nicole (all new or new again to Ames) sat around a table playing Taboo, I thought about all the flat soda I’d been drinking… all those days that seemed ruined because they didn’t go as planned. And then I thought, maybe it’s a mental thing. Maybe when I expect a day to go flat, it does. Maybe there’s a lot more fizz in my days and I just have to train my taste buds to recognize the flavor.

Maybe God grants grace for my grumps so that flat days still have fizz.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

when fun breaks open like a piñata

By Saturday at 9 pm, the streets of Ames still lingered with the day’s cardinal and gold victory. A fall chill had crept up after the sun hid itself away behind the horizon and the night was …

the night was a piñata of possibility.

The coffee brewed with promise as we made plans huddled together like elementary children conspiring a make believe world takeover on the playground. After we’d quibbled about layers and assembled our ragamuffin band, we lined up to break the piñata of possibility and scrambled to enjoy all the fun spilling out.

this is what fun looks like

How many mo-ped gangs do you know that follow the blaring, ride-worthy music of a DeWalt stereo bungee-strapped to one of its riders? How many mo-ped gangs do you know that get high fives driving through campus and hollers as they go down the highway? How many, uh, mo-ped gangs do you know?

Sure, my headlight was actually a flashlight taped to my handlebars and James pedaled several times around the block to get his mo-ped started. Sure, we all felt the fumes of the vintage bikes and made frequent stops to regroup and collect the stragglers who couldn’t accelerate enough to keep up. Sure, there were several Chinese fire drills at stoplights and shenanigans on straightaways. Sure, we pulled in to the gas station and $8.00 topped us all off.

The Mighty Unicorn gang rides the streets with orange caution flags waving proudly, picking up all the fun the nights can hold.

And by 2:00 am, every possible piece had been savored.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

wake up, wake up

“We have seen the hope of Your healing
rising from our souls – Oh, is the feeling
we are drawing close
Your light is shining through”

This morning, I am singing my heart into wakefulness. I am singing my soul into serenade to the One who gives me voice, the One who gives me notes, the One who gives me breath –

the One who wakened me.

What a glorious thing to be AWAKE in this life – to feel the wind gripped by Autumn and see the sky painted in shades of blue. What a glorious thing to be AWAKE and how desperate the call to wake the still sleeping.

Posted on by Caroline 0

erase the ways of our orphanhood

I already ordered the book by Rose Marie Miller that Christine Hoover talks about in her blog post, “No Longer an Orphan” because there’s something about the disconnect between knowing and doing that strikes a chord. Yes, it’s a chord that strikes over and over in my life – as I study biographies and as I study the Word. There is too often a great chasm between what we know about who God is and how we act as a result of that knowledge.

For some reason, knowledge translated into a transformed daily grind is the exception and not the rule for most Christians. The oh-so-unfortunate truth about these lives lived on one side of the great chasm is that we miss out. We miss out big time.

Hoover writes of God,

He invites us into the family, gives us His name, dresses us with righteousness fitting of His family, and erases the ways of our orphanhood, especially our self-reliance and self-justification.

You can’t get any more big time then saying He “erases the ways of our orphanhood.” Wow. If you’ve ever hung out with orphans, this should sit pretty heavy – especially this bit about self-reliance and self-justification. Hoover cites Rose Marie Miller’s list of orphan characteristics and each one reveals just how important “self” is – it’s all you’ve got. As an orphan, self is elevated above all else. And living in the ways of our orphanhood is like climbing up a crumbling tower. The more heavily one depends on the mountain of self, the faster one realizes the rock crumbling underfoot… which leads to a more frenzied climb.

The take-your-breath-away-beauty of the Gospel is the freedom from climbing at all. Absolutely nothing is dependent on self when Christ is Savior. Protection, identity, worth, and future are all wrapped up in one man who gave us His family name. One man who is seated, not striving, in heaven and guaranteeing us both an already and not yet inheritance. We don’t wonder about how high we will climb as the tower crumbles beneath us today.

We are free from climbing at all, from striving to preserve self because Christ has done more than preserve us. He has perfected us at the cross.

He is perfect for us.
And daily He is inviting us to let Him erase the ways of our orphanhood.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

safe place

Sometimes, it is best to step into the safest place. And sometimes the safe place breaks free from the dark of the night and splatters golden sun on your face.

I was a stranger the day He called my name but now He calls me friend. A wider, deeper, purer love I will never know. Only in the safe place of His love is laughter unleashed and only in this safe place are dancing feet freed.

That’s the place I’m living this morning.

A laugh-dancing place.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

to get where I’m going

I want to get wherever I’m going. And the devil in me says that it’s not right now.

I’m impatient to say yes to something I don’t even know exists – I’m ready to be ‘all in’ at any moment, but that moment seems to stay frozen just beyond my reach. It’s maddening… though I feel foolish for speaking it.

I am impatient to get to a place and a time I don’t even know exists. And the longer it remains frozen outside my grasp the stranger these moments become. Maybe I am the one frozen as the moments move forward and what is within reach is actually where I am going – where I am now.

This is late night talking, but it’s still me.
I think that sometimes I should let the late night talk so the daylight talk doesn’t paint a poor portrait. Make no mistake, I am not articulate and ‘put together’ – less so even than my daylight attempts make me seem.

I am reaching and striving and stretching for things to satisfy and often ending empty-handed.
I am inward and withered and measured by useless, manmade instruments.
I am still young with hope and wide eyes but I am old with the growing weight of unknowns.

I want to get wherever I’m going. And the devil in me says that it’s not right now.

Posted on by Caroline 2